One of the hard parts about run\u00adning a con\u00adfer\u00adence is fig\u00adur\u00ading out a reas\u00adon\u00adable strategy for the trade show. Some con\u00adfer\u00adences don\u2019t have a trade show at all; if you can get the attendees to pay all the costs asso\u00adci\u00adated with an event, then that\u2019s a worth\u00adwhile strategy. <\/p>\n
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From 2001 until late last year there was such a down\u00adturn in the high tech industry that vendors were hav\u00ading a hard time jus\u00adti\u00adfy\u00ading the costs for booths and booth staff. The XML<\/span> con\u00adfer\u00adence<\/a> cer\u00adtainly noticed the down\u00adturn. It was\u00adn\u2019t all about the money, of course. As Tim<\/a> said, a web site can func\u00adtion as a booth and does\u00adn\u2019t pack up and go home after a couple of days.<\/p>\n Except for, every\u00adone<\/b> now has a web site, many com\u00adplete with blogs and RSS<\/span> feeds and Flash demos of happy cus\u00adtom\u00aders using the product to do mar\u00advel\u00adlous things. If you know the names of the com\u00adpan\u00adies whose products you\u2019re inter\u00adested in, or the stand\u00adard name of the type of product you\u2019re look\u00ading for (so you can at least google for it), then you\u2019re prob\u00adably well served by the web. Always assum\u00ading that what you\u2019re look\u00ading for is the slick, pol\u00adished, demo inform\u00ada\u00adtion that most web sites spe\u00adcial\u00adise in. If you don\u2019t know what types of products you might need, or you don\u2019t know the names of rel\u00adev\u00adant com\u00adpan\u00adies, then you have a harder time try\u00ading to find it. Or maybe you\u2019re just sus\u00adpi\u00adcious of wheth\u00ader the products shown in the slick demos really can solve the issues you have.<\/p>\n I\u2019m reminded of the sci\u00adentif\u00adic research com\u00admunity. When I was doing my PhD, you either had time to keep up with the related lit\u00ader\u00adat\u00adure, or you had time to do your own research. You did\u00adn\u2019t have time to do both. The way you found out about stuff that actu\u00adally was rel\u00adev\u00adant to what you were work\u00ading on was to go to a con\u00adfer\u00adence or two a year, listen to the papers, and talk to people. Merely pub\u00adlish\u00ading your research in a recog\u00adnised journ\u00adal was not enough; you had to take the research to where they were going to be. I think we\u2019re get\u00adting close to this with web sites, where one of the only ways for vendors who aren\u2019t house\u00adhold names to be found is to go to a trade show and make it worth\u00adwhile for attendees to stop by their booths.<\/p>\n