This past week, in an effort to seek opportunities to merge trade show display marketing techniques with the new social online tools, I attended the Social Media Action Camp at Steelcase headquarters at Columbus Circle in New York City. 

The highlight of the day for me was presentation by Ekaterina Walter of Intel.  Her overview on the status of marketing and the convergence of social media and traditional marketing only reinforces the timeliness of our own new seminar geared to  trade show display managers, “New World Marketing”.

So, I’m just back from two weeks at the Jersey Shore (thankfully no Snookie or Situation sightings!).  It’s great to unplug and decompress and think about nothing, and then when your mind wanders, think about what you’re doing with your life, the nature of your work and the state of your business and industry.  In my case, it’s trade show and event marketing.

On that last issue, let me ask a few questions.  If you were starting a business today, what role would trade shows and events play in your business plan?

The Consumer Electronics Show, just concluded in Las Vegas, was the largest in the history of the annual trade show conference.  Great news for those of us in the trade show exhibit and event marketing business.  Attendance was up from last year, and there were more exhibitors taking up more floor space than ever.  Given the trends of the recent past this is truly and encouraging sign, and the hope is it will be evidenced in trade shows and industry events for the rest of 2012.

At the same time, Microsoft Corporation has announced this was its last CES trade show exhibit.  After careful ROI analysis Microsoft has determined that ...