Your Etch-a-Sketch Is Not an iPad!
Are You Using Social Media To Maximize Your Trade Show Experience?
Social Media for TradeShows
The world is changing. Daily business habits are changing. Customer buying habits are changing. What works today may very well not work in only a few years. But what is certain is that we are all connected to the world – always. Like it or not, it seems apparent that we will not be turning backwards on this trend any time soon. Our smartphones and iPads are most likely not fads like bell bottom jeans and disco music, but more of an indication as to how life will be going forward. From now on, expect to be constantly connected. Are you keeping up? Do you know what ‘the kids’ are doing these days? If not, you better learn quickly because evidence shows that the buying habits of the more technologically savvy are trending in new directions. Old school is old news.
Facebook. Twitter. These are two words that few people knew just four years ago. Now they are towering icons in our daily lives. And what’s funny is that these ‘social not-working’ workplace distractions are quickly becoming part of our daily business lives, too. I bet your boss just loves that. But it’s true. And when it comes to trade shows and exhibiting, social media can be used in many creative ways to help tell your story. The possibilities are…limitless.
The world is changing. Are you?
Berkeley Dowd
bdowd@skybay.com
Skyline Displays Bay Area
Skyline Displays Northern California
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The Pain of Non-functional Budget Breaking Exhibits
How Does Your Pain Rank?
Funny thing happened to me a month ago as I was walking the isles of Home Depot. I was overcome with a pain that could only be described as similar to someone driving a nail into my ankle! Waiting for the funny part? So was I! Despite inheriting my father’s ”play with the pain” and “suck it up” mentality I figured being in the fetal position in the hardware section of Home Depot for ten minutes was all the sucking up I could handle and I quickly set up an appointment to see a specialist. Funny thing happened to me at the specialist. After the overly enthusiastic doctor anxiously pulled me into the exam room, along with any and all interns within earshot, to look at the x-ray she disclosed a rare condition where the synovial sack of my ankle joint was filled with tumors! Still waiting for the funny part? So am I! After an hour and a half of waiting to see yet another specialist and fearing the worst – while also attempting to humor myself by recalling Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous line “It’s not a tumaaa” over and over again – it was explained to me that while they were indeed tumors they were most likely benign and removable. Funny thing happened after the surgery. The specialist removed 126 tumors that turned out to be a medical record eclipsing the previous measly record of 22! To my slight disappointment the specialist honestly disclosed that while this was quite a medical phenomenon, it would still take a close second to his Guinness Book of World Record for largest wrapped burrito. What’s a guy gotta do??? Now that’s almost funny in a Sienfeld irony kinda way. When I asked the specialist his opinion as to why I had eclipsed the record by such a large margin he theorized that most “normal” people wouldn’t have endured the pain for as long as I did – translation: there’s a reason the cavemen had a low life expectancy.
You knew this had to tie into trade shows somehow right? Moral of the story is I meet so many clients or potential clients that have or still do live with the pain of either their non-functional budget breaking exhibits, their excessive non-productive trade show schedule or a bad vendor for far too long because they get so used to it and they start to think it’s normal. Don’t be as stubborn as I was and wait until the pain is too much before consulting a trade show professional on solutions to ease that pain. Unless of course you have a prescription for codeine to mask the pain as I did! Disclaimer – watch out for the side effects when you stop taking it as I found myself emotionally distraught over the episode of friends where Ross had to say goodbye to his pet monkey! Now that’s funny! I can say that now because I’m over it.
Todd Anderson
Exhibit Consultant
Skyline Northern California
Skyline Displays Bay Area, Inc.
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Todd’s Blog: Ask and ye shall receive! Pop-up Digital Portability
Ask and ye shall receive! One of the more frequent requests we get as Exhibit Consultants is for a portable solution that combines graphics with audio visual capabilities. Until now your best solution was typically a standalone monitor mount that has that “add-on” look. The Mirage Monitor Mount is a great way to seamlessly add digital video impact to your Mirage Graphic display. Add the flexibility and movement of a digital monitor while maintaining the clean look Mirage is known for. The monitor mount easily hooks onto the Mirage channel bars and ships inside the transporter case. Depending on your frame you could add one, two, three or up to four monitors! And for those of you that just basically accept there is a chance your own personal monitors might be damaged in transit Skyline is now offering a sturdy Monitor Case for your monitor and audio visual equipment. Skyline innovation and creativity has once again taken another mundane exhibit solution and made it compelling and unique again!
Watch the movie and let us know what you think.
Pop-up Digital Display
Todd Anderson
Exhibit Consultant
Skyline Northern California
Filed under: Creative Marketing, Graphics: Tips and Tricks, Intelligent Design, New Products, News, Show Tips, Technology, Todd Anderson, Todd's Blog, trade show booth designs | No Comments »
Sustaining versus Disruptive Innovation
“A customer will never lead you to develop a product which that customer cannot use.” Clayton M. Christensen. In his book Innovator’s Solution he mentions that companies cater to their most profitable customers and focus investments where profit margins are most attractive. This happens because the resource allocation process of established companies are designed to maximize profits through sustaining innovations, which essentially involve designing better and better mousetraps for existing customers for proven market segments. Established industry leaders leave themselves open for disruptive technologies. When disruptive innovations—which are cheaper, simpler to use versions of existing products that target low-end or entirely new customers—emerge, established companies are paralyzed. They are almost always motivated to go up-market rather than to defend these new or low-end markets, and ultimately the disruptive innovation improves, steals more market share, and replaces the reigning product. We call this phenomenon “asymmetric motivation.” It is the core of the innovator’s dilemma, but it is also the beginning of the innovator’s solution.
Filed under: Creative Marketing, customer loyalty, Sarmistha Tarafder, Show Tips, Technology | No Comments »
“Humanity in Symbiosis with City and Planet”
EXPO 2010, Shanghai, China
The Urban Planet pavilion earned judges’ top scores in the Best Use of Technology category with a pair of immersive presentations, the first of which attendees reach at the pavilion’s summit. Visitors stand above a 105-foot-diameter globe that is actually an image projected onto the surface of a hemispherical screen. The second presentation — a 360-degree video entitled “The Only Earth We Have” — takes place inside “the Earth,” i.e., beneath the domed surface upon which the first presentation is projected. The presentation depicts an Earth that goes from unsullied oasis to industrialized blight to a post-carbon Eden.
Urban Planet Pavilion
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Todd’s Blog: Intersolar 2010
Who Shot JR and Lederhosen?
In sharp contrast to so many shows this year that seem to mirror that of the sputtering economy, the 2010 Intersolar Show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco was a fresh and exciting reprieve from the norm. While the latest in photovoltaic, solar heating and solar thermal energy technology was being prominently displayed the only functional energy being absorbed was by the thousands of enthusiastic attendees. Those who attended the event were treated to the very latest emerging solar technology from around the world as well as the very latest in trade show exhibit technology and good old fashioned creative marketing.
Unbeknownst to me JR is alive and well! Big props go out to the Solarworld guys in their ten gallon hats with an appearance from Larry Hagman and the donation of 100,000 kilowatts to power five health centers in Haiti. Larry reprises his role as JR from Dallas in a series of rather funny TV ads featuring an oil tycoon who goes green with a new catchy motto “shine baby shine” followed by the classic confident JR chuckle.
2010 Intersolar Show
Special mention should also go out to the folks at Schletter Inc. and the brave soles running around the show floor in classic German lederhosen with national soccer jerseys – I was going to tell them I lost $50 on Germany’s loss to Spain but I didn’t have the current Euro exchange rate and didn’t know a lick of German. Also adding to the festive Oktoberfest atmosphere was the free flowing Spaten – cheers, or as they say in German with a little spit, prost!
Todd Anderson
Exhibit Consultant
Skyline Northern California
Filed under: Creative Marketing, News, Technology, Todd Anderson, Todd's Blog, trade show booth designs | No Comments »