Trade Show Guru

I became a huge proponent of CFL (compact fluorescent) light bulbs about three years ago. For those that don’t know, CFL light bulbs are the funny looking twisty type light bulbs. They use about 25% as much electricity as a standard incandescent light bulb, so, for instance, a 25watt CFL puts out as much light as a standard 100watt incandescent bulb.

Why I became a CFL fan:
When we moved into a new house (an older house actually, but new to us) about 3 years ago, our monthly electric bill jumped from about $40/month (at our old place) to over $100/month at the new place. The new house wasn’t built to let in a lot of natural light, so we used the lights more. In addition, the house was built when chandelier-style light fixtures and movie-star-dressing-room bathroom light strip fixtures must have been the rage. [Read more →]

Next to the word “free“, I think the next most over-used word in marketing has to be “secrets“. I did a search on Google for the term “trade show secrets“. Google says there are 1,380,000 results. Wow. I looked through some of the results and had to chuckle. Here is what I saw: I like the #1 Google result ~ “Dirty Little Trade Show Secrets…” Not only are these secrets, they are “Dirty Little” secrets. Hmmm. The #3 and #4 results are websites by the name of trade-show-secrets.com and tradeshowsecrets.com. The #8 result claims to have the “Biggest” trade show secrets, and the #9 result claims to have the “Master” trade show secrets [Read more →]

I don’t think businesses should be able to use the term “free” anymore, because it seems to me that 99% of the time, free ain’t free. BTW, reader be warned, this is a rant. I disclosed when I started this blog that I’d toss in an occasional rant. Truth is, this is only my second rant, the first one being about Halloween Trick-or-Treating. I think both my rants are actually pretty tame. If you want to read a real rant, you might check out the Master of the Philippines‘ thoughts on customer service… [Read more →]

I wrote a while ago that I was going to review King Corn as my second movie review (my first review was Run Fatboy Run), so I’d better get it done before I completely forget what it was about. Actually, I saw King Corn several months ago (you can rent it from Netflix), but it made such an impression on my that I still remember most of it, and recommend it to friends regularly. I suppose one reason that I liked it so much is that I had low expectations (it’s a documentary after all), and it far exceeded those expectations. I would have to say King Corn is in my top 10 movies for 2008.

King Corn is the story of two recent college graduates, friends Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, who become concerned that Americans are eating too much, including too much corn and corn-based food products. They decide to temporarily move to Iowa and lease an acre of land to grow corn. Their goal is to grow an acre of corn to learn how the system works – how one grows corn today and then what happens to the corn.
 
What I liked about King Corn
It’s a good documentary. I usually find documentary films boring, but not this one. I’m a fan of the TV series Modern Marvels that explains how things work, and that’s a big part of what this film does. By growing an acre of corn, Ian and Curt show how we are able to grow so much corn. For instance, one key is ammonia fertilizer, which increase yields fourfold. Another key is a high-tech rented tractor that allows Ian and Curt to plant 31,000 corn seeds in the ground in 18 minutes. In addition, the film explains how today’s corn has been bred to tolerate growing closer together so one can grow more plants per square foot of ground. The result is that modern technology and science has increased the average harvest of corn in Iowa from 86 bushels per acre in 1970 to 180 bushels per acre in 2007 (for perspective, according to my link at the bottom on the history of corn, the highest average United States corn yield prior to the 1940s happened in 1906 when the national average yield was 31.7  bushels per acre). To me the education in how we grow corn (and so much corn!) was fascinating. I also learned that very little corn is actually eaten as corn. Most of the corn is fed to cows (interesting health fact according to the movie, confined-corn-fed cows have 7 times as much saturated fat in their meat as free-range-grass-fed cows), and a lot of corn is turned into high fructose corn syrup (the movie decided not to go into the corn-ethanol boondoggle, so I won’t either).

The second thing I found remarkable about King Corn is that Ian and Curt made a great movie on a very small budget (it helps that they are both very personable, very funny, and very entertaining - and I doubt either one ever went to any acting school). I’m always impressed when a low budget film seems more professional and compelling than an over-budget Hollywood mega-budget boondoggle.

The third thing that I liked about King Corn is that it’s balanced. It’s obvious that Ian and Curt have their opinions and motives (I won’t spoil the end of the movie but it sums up their position). King Corn, in this Guru’s humble opinion, presents a fair assessment. I think it’s a tribute to Ian and Curt’s fairness that they premiered their movie at a local Iowa movie theatre and then asked farmers what they though of it, and by and large, the farmers thought it was a fair assessment.

Other interesting things about King Corn:
Cool coincidence: Ian and Curt met at college in New York and became friends. They decide to rent an acre of farmland in Iowa for their documentary. The cool coincidence is that the rural town they select to live in and farm at is Greene, Iowa (pop. 1015), and it turns out that eighty years ago, Ian and Curt’s great-grandfathers lived in that same town, Greene, Iowa, just a few miles apart. Small world.
Craziest scene: At one point in the movie, Ian and Curt look into how cows are fed corn, lots of corn. They go to a university research lab to talk with one of the researchers. This researcher happens to have a real, live cow with a plexiglass porthole window in it’s side. One can look into the cow to see what’s in it’s stomach. One can actually OPEN THE PORTHOLE, reach in, and pull out the contents of the cow’s stomach. This allows the researcher to determine it the corn concoction that the animal is being fed is being digested, and how much. Wild.

If you get a chance, I highly recommend that you see King Corn.

Where I first heard about King Corn: I read a review of King Corn, Are We Really Made of Corn?, on Will Taft’s most excellent blog Healthy Living. Be sure to read Will’s post for additional perspectives on the movie King Corn.

For more information about corn: Check out this article I found, Origin, History and Uses of Corn by Lance Gibson and Garren Benson, Iowa State University, Department of Agronomy (2002).

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, a friend showed me a video on YouTube by Jon LaJoie called Stay at Home Dad. I thought it was quite funny, and I want to see if I can figure out how to embed a video in a blog post, so I’ve decided to use it as a test to see if I am successful.

I spent a few months as a (part time 2-day-a-week) stay-at-home-dad with my daughter when she was little. I actually tried to be a stay-at-home-and-work-at-home dad, but figured out that’s like trying to mix oil and water. I understand looking at the clock every two or three minutes after 5pm, calculating how long the drive home from work is for ones spouse, and then wondering when they’ll come through the front door. Being a stay-at-home-dad was probably one of the toughest jobs I have ever had. It was also one of the most rewarding jobs, though I think I sometimes missed that point when I was in the thick of it. Anyway, I salute all stay-at-home dads, and well as the more common stay-at-home moms. To those that both stay-at-home AND work-at-home, I double salute you. So without further ado, here is “Stay at Home Dad.”

Since this post seems kind of short, I thought I throw in a plug for the Master of the Philippines, who happens to also be a culinary guru. RT has written a great and informative post on American Goulash. I’m more of a borscht and/or beef stroganoff kind of guy, but I think I’ll try some goulash one of these days. RT also writes extensively on Philippino cuisine (after all, he is the Master of the Philippines), and he also wrote a great and informative post on Chicken and Rice, a Philippino staple. I’m a huge rice fan, and eat a fair amount of chicken. Though I love beef stroganoff, I try to limit my red meat intake, and eat chicken instead. So if you’re in the mood to read about food, check out RT’s posts. Or if you’re a stay-at-home dad and you have dinner duty and you’re wondering what to put on the table, why not consider goulash?

The Trade Show Guru Quiz of the Day
In RT’s American Goulash post, he mentions a 1960′s era Betty Crocker cookbook. I had a “kid version” Betty Crocker cookbook when I was growing up, and enjoyed cooking dinner on occasion. Looking back at it, I don’t know if the rest of my family enjoyed it, or it they were just being polite. Anyway, as a kid, one of my dinner specialties was “Three Men in a Boat“. Does anyone know what it was?

It’s Thanksgiving here in the US, so I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. In addition to eating too much, I think it’s important to remember what we have and appreciate it. I already mentioned in an earlier post what a great post Rudy wrote about being thankful. Because he did a much better job than I ever could, I’m just going to link to his post again…  Being Thankful. If you haven’t read Rudy’s post yet, go and read it.

This year I want to thank all the blogs and bloggers whom I read that inform, educate, and entertain. I want to especially thank those bloggers (the group keeps growing) that have inspired and helped me with my new baby blog. I have a special category that I’ll be adding to on a regular basis – Friends of the Trade Show Guru. One of these bloggers (Tim), the King of the Rednecks, wrote a post a while back “When is Canadian Thanksgiving?” It turns out that Canada celebrates Thanksgiving before us in the states, and this year it was October 13. Now I know who to blame if we don’t have enough turkeys.

Once again, if you haven’t read it yet, make some time after dinner and before you have the pumpkin pie with whip cream on the top, and go read Rudy’s post Being Thankful. Happy Thanksgiving!

While there are many factors or “keys” to sales and marketing success, as well as success in life and in general, five keys stand out and are worthy of review. As an aside, I was inspired to write this post because of my recent post Please help Will. Will employed the second key, and because of the third key, I decided to use the first key. If you get a chance, please read that post and see if you can help me build on its success.

Key 1) Act – A lot of us have all sorts of ideas that we think might lead to success. I know I do. But ideas are just ideas unless you act on them. You must take action to see results. Often your action may not result in success, but if you don’t act, you won’t succeed. As the famous Nike motto goes – Just Do It.

Key 2) Ask – Often times, a key to success is just to ask. If you need help, ask. If you want something, ask. Although the answer may often be “no” or “I’m not interested”, you’ll never know if you don’t ask. If you want comments on your blog, ask. At the end of a post, add “So what do you think?” Or even better, ask a question like “What do you think is the biggest key to success?”

Key 3) Good Luck – I believe in luck, both good luck and bad luck. Often times success means being in the right place at the right time. I also believe that you can help make good luck for yourself (proper planning helps to make for good luck). I also believe in Karma, and that if you do good for others, good will come to you. At the very least, I think we should acknowledge that luck plays a part in our successes and failures, and that life isn’t always fair. If you have a string of bad luck, you need to keep trying, which leads us to the fourth key…

Key 4) – Persevere (keep at it) – Because often you will act, but will fail; or you will ask, but will get turned down; or you will have just have bad luck… if you want to succeed, you must persevere. You must keep at it, and keep trying. As the story goes, when Thomas Edison was asked what he thought after failing to invent the lightbulb 999 times, he said, “I didn’t fail 999 times. I learned 999 ways not to make a light bulb.”

Key 5) Work Hard - As I wrote in my earlier post “Marketing Basics“, good marketing involves hard work and knowing your product and customer. I know of no people that have succeeded without hard work. I’m sure there may be people out there that have, I just don’t know any. To my mind, good luck only goes so far. Don’t spend your life waiting to win the lottery, or expecting to find the easy way to getting rich quick. Some people probably think they just need to discover that secret sauce, and that then they’ll have it easy and won’t have to work hard. Call me when you find it.

So there you have it, the trade show guru’s five keys to marketing success. I’m sure there are other keys as well, but these five keys will unluck a lot of doors to success. Now go get ‘em. And feel free to comment if you have another important key to marketing success.

I’m not a fan of gift cards, but I understand why businesses like to sell them. They get the money when the card is sold, but then don’t have to provide the product or service until the card is used. I’m going to guess that a significant portion of gift cards are never used, or or partially used and then lost before the balance is spent. Some businesses even start deducting a percentage of the balance from the card if it isn’t used by a certain date. We have several gift cards around here for places we seldom shop, and I don’t know which ones have what amount of money on them. Arrggg. If you ever want to give me a gift, there is nothing wrong with hard, cold cash.

Anyway, I just received a forwarded email warning about the following stores closing,  and recommending that if you have a gift card at one of them, you’ll want to use it before your local store disappears. Some businesses are just closing some of their stores. Some businesses are going under and are closing all of their stores. On the bright side, if you go shopping at any of these stores, you’ll probably get some good “store closing / going out of business” discounts, though the selection will obviously be picked over and limited.

More to the point, I think the following list is very sobering. It points out our current economic situation, and the economic challenges ahead.
Without further ado:

Ann Taylor – closing 117 stores

Bombay – going out of business, closing all stores

Cache – going out of business, closing all stores [1/8/09 incorrect, see comments below]

Circuit City – closing 155 stores, will the company survive? See the end of this post.  [1/20/09 update: Circuit City is going out of business]

Disney – closing 98 stores, more after January

Eddie Bauer – closing 27 stores, more after January

Ethan Allen – closing 12 stores

Footlocker – closing 140 stores, more after January

Home Depot – closing 15 stores

GAP – closing 85 stores

J.Jill – going out of business, closing all stores [incorrect, see update below]

K B Toys – closing 356 stores [1/20/09 update: our local KB Toys store is gone, as are all KB Toys stores in California it appears]

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherines – closing 150 stores

Levitz – going out of business, closing all stores

Linens and Things – going out of business, closing all stores

Macys – closing 9 stores

Movie Galley – going out of business, closing all stores [update - Movie Gallery closed 160 stores as part of reorganization plan to exit bankruptcy. The video rental company plans to close 400 of 3,500 Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video stores in addition to the 520 locations the video rental chain closed last fall.]

Pacific Sunware – going out of business, closing all stores [1/8/09 incorrect, see comments below]

Pep Boys – closing 33 stores

Piercing Pagoda – going out of business, closing all stores

Sharper Image – going out of business, closing all stores

Sprint/ Nextel – closing 133 stores

Talbots – going out of business, closing all stores UPDATE – From Maureen’s comment below:”Talbots is not closing all their stores, they have closed their men’s and children’s clothing stores, but NOT the woman’s.” I have also read that “Talbots announced on Nov. 6 that it will try to it’s troubled J. Jill division”.

Whitehall Jewelers – going out of business, closing all stores

Wickes Furniture – going out of business, closing all stores

Wilson Leather – going out of business, closing all stores

Zales – closing 82 stores, 105 after January

“Going out of business” may mean just that, or it may mean that the business is closing its brick and mortar retail business, but may try to keep a online retail presence. I haven’t had a chance to fully verify the above list. Let me know if you see any errors.

RT, a friend of the trade show guru and the Master of the Philippines recently wrote a post on Circuit City closing stores titled Goodbye, Circuit City, and Good Riddance . Perhaps I should change his name to RT, the Crotchety Master of the Philippines?

UPDATE (Nov 22) -Based on a comment below by Laurie, I looked into the above list a bit more. As I said in my post, I hadn’t verified the whole list. It turns out that part of it is wrong, but some of it is definately right. The incorrect information that I have found at this point is that J.Jill is not going out of business. Per the J.Jill website: “We DO NOT plan to close all of our stores.” The reader may note that J.Jill says “all” and not “any”, and that in addition the parent company Talbots announced on Nov. 6 that it will try to it’s troubled J. Jill division.

LIn has written a much better post Store Closings – Do Not Buy Gift Cards From Closing Retail Stores, in which she suggests an open loop gift card (provided by a bank and not tied to any specific store), and also links to news reports for each of the stores or businesses closing stories. She obviously put a lot of effort into her post and I recommend you read it.

Please take the time to read this post (I’ll try to keep it short) and see if you can help Will. You’ll get good karma if you do.

One of the blogs I follow is Will Taft’s Healthy Living. Will, like several other bloggers I am grateful to, is helping me learn about blogging. Anyway, in a reply to an email I sent Will this weekend, he wrote back:
“On another note, I am posting an article on ACL injuries to young women. This is an important issue for all parents and coaches of girls who play sports. My youngest daughter is a stand-out basketball player who also plays competitive soccer, so I am really concerned about this. If you don’t mind stumbling the post when it goes up tomorrow so as many people as possible can pass on the information, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!”

Unfortunately, I can’t do this (stumble his post). I’m just learning blogging, and have yet to tackle social networking. I’m a trade show guru, not a blogging or social marketing guru. I’ve heard of Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc (who hasn’t), but I haven’t learned what they are exactly or set up any accounts. I’ve read mixed reviews as to the effectiveness of social marketing, and I’ve read that it can eat up a LOT of time (which I don’t have), so it’s low on the priority list at this point.

However, I did realize I can help will by writing a post about his post and creating a link, so here it is ~ Preventing ACL Injuries in Women.
It’s a great article. I need to read it again, but the main points I got are that teenage girls are more prone to ACL injuries (8 to 10 times than boys perhaps!), which can in some cases end their ability to play sports and also lead to life-long pain. With proper education though, we can reduce the number of ACL injuries. This sounds like a good cause if ever I heard of one. I won’t say any more about preventing ACL injuries in women because Will does a much better job.

What really strikes me about Will’s request is that this weekend (before I heard from Will) my family went to a 2-year-old’s birthday party (the 75th birthday party was the week before). At the party I saw a woman on crutches with a full leg brace. I asked her what had happened and she explained that she had fractured her tibia. I then asked if there was a cool story behind it, like she did it snowboarding in Australia, but she said she fell while she was running on a trail at a law conference. She then said she was lucky not to need a cast, and went on to talk about how she had torn her ACL playing flag football at law school. The funny thing was that she said when she called her mom about tearing her ACL, her mom wouldn’t believe it, saying “girls don’t play that hard!” (read Will’s article). When this woman mentioned her torn ACL, it was the first time I’d heard “torn ACL” in years (FYI – it’s never happened to me or anyone close to me).

Also this weekend my 6-year-old daughter finished her final game of the season of AYSO soccer. This was her first year playing soccer (as an aside, for those soccer moms and dads out there, a dad friend of mine warned me before we started the year that AYSO doesn’t stand for American Youth Soccer Organization, it really stands for All Your Saturdays Occupied).

So what are the odds that my daughter finishes her first year of soccer and that same day a woman at a party mentions tearing her ACL years ago playing flag football, and then the next day Will sends me an email asking if I can plug his article? If that’s not karma calling, I don’t know what it.

Now I’m asking you to help. Please read Will’s article, and if you belong to one of these social networks, then digg it, or stumble it, or twit it, or whatever you do. Better yet, on your next blog post, at the bottom stick in a little blurp and link to his article. I, the trade show guru, promise you good karma if you help me out.

In case you missed it, here is the link again: Preventing ACL Injuries in Women

What is “Spiderman War” you may be wondering? Well, I’ll get to that in a minute. And while you’re puzzling about that, you can also wonder why I wanted to lose. Yes, I wanted to lose!

Welcome to the first post in my Joy of Fatherhood series. Last Saturday night, we went to a big 75th birthday celebration for my (step)father-in-law. My mother-in-law did all the planning and preparation. She arranged for a fancy dinner at a fancy adult restaurant, but grandkids (including my six year old daughter and four year old son) were invited. There was to be a four course meal for the adults and a two course meal for the kids. I was a bit skeptical how it would work out, but you know that the first rule of being a good husband is to never question your mother-in-law (all joking aside, I have one of the best mother-in-laws a husband could have, along with an awesome wife).

Anyway, it started at 6pm (which is just 1-1/2hrs before our kids’ bedtime of 7:30) with a one hour appetizers-and-drinks-on-the-patio thing. My kids weren’t fans of the stuffed mushrooms (yum!) but they loved their Shirley Temples. Anyway, we sat down to dinner at 7pm (now 1/2 hour before their usual bedtime) for our second course, a very nice salad (but nothing for the kids yet). My mother-in-law is smart though, and had put a basket of toys and crafts in the middle of the kids’ table. The kids table consisted of our two kids and four other (slightly older) grandkids. It didn’t look like we were off to a good start when my son reached for the basket in the middle and spilled a full glass of water. Still, the kids entertained themselves pretty well until the adults’ dinner came out and the kids’ dinners as well. My son ate a bit, but I could see in his glassy eyes that he was getting tired.

After dinner, the adults (24 of us) kept talking, and my son came over. He was really tired, and I was worried. Anyway, turns out grandma (my mother-in-law) had given him a deck of “Spiderman” Crazy Eights cards (my son is a huge Spiderman fan – Spiderman backpack, Spiderman costume, Spiderman shoes, Spiderman undies… – you get the picture). I sat him in my lap and suggested that we play a card game, but then realized that neither he nor I knew how to play Crazy Eights (and I didn’t want to read the instructions and learn). So I suggested a game of War. It turned out to be the perfect card game for playing with my four year old son. To play, you just split the deck in half and each player flips over a card and the high card wins (and the winner takes both cards). You keep doing it until the cards are used up, and then the person with the most cards wins.

From the beginning, my son started winning… and laughing. This was when I started to hope I would keep losing (the only time in my life I think I have done that). Anyway, my son sat in my lap, and we played at least a half a dozen games (“Let’s play Spiderman War again! OK, dad?”). He won every game, and had the time of his life. I did too. I missed out on all the adult conversation that happened, but I will remember those games of “Spiderman War” for a long, long time. Finally, the cake came out (imagine the flames and heat from 75 candles), and we had cake and ice cream and called it a night. My son was asleep within minutes of getting into his carseat for the ride home. There are times that being a dad just plain rocks!