August 19, 2008
Trends from the ASAE Expo Floor
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Just a few of the things/trends I noticed on the expo floor the last couple of days:
- So many Wiis! Like, too many. I felt kind of bad for the exhibitors who had them — not because people weren’t enjoying them, but because they didn’t stand out. Sort of like iPod giveaways a few years ago. In fact I thought I saw one exhibitor having a drawing for an iPod and thought, “How quaint.” Then I realized it wasn’t an iPod, it was an iPhone 3G.
- Downsizing! I noticed a few folks with small booths who used to have islands. (Miriam Miller mentioned on Acronym how much she missed the Philadelphia cheesesteaks, which I found amusing because I had thought the exact same thing.)
- This is probably not a new trend but maybe something I just noticed for the first time — the number of different companies who offer “online event registration.” This is not terribly difficult to do yourself, so I was surprised to hear myself continuously saying, “Look, there’s another one!”
- Most memorable booths, based on the simple criteria of “I can think of them offhand right now”: the Hyatt exhibit, with its big digital tower things; Omaha, whose “Omaha Rocks!” was a corporate kind of “edgy” but still edgy nonetheless, because, hey, it’s Omaha; and Albuquerque, with its cinnamon-and-anise cookies that, the cook insisted, are called something else, but I don’t remember what it was.
Category :
Rants & Raves
Thank you for these colorful updates. As an association exec who doesn’t have the funds to attend it helps me be aware of trends and make more productive plans.