I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….

I recently attended the ITEC show in Portland, Oregon, then got a Looooong questionaire asking what I thought.

I would like to commend all of you on what I think was a fine job of organizing and marketing the recent ITEC show in Portland, Oregon.

As a business consultant who helps CEOs of small and medium companies to improve their sales and marketing, I am probably not wholly qualified to give you feedback in the specific format you requested in your email; in addition, I find so many questions to be a bit of a draconian challenge. ;-)

Here is a suggestion for which I usually charge a 3-hour minimum of $360 to present to client: ;-)

When you ask for feedback, consider a limit to your questions of 3 groups of 3 i.e. 9 questions total. With a space for comments.
This will dramatically improve your response. e.g.
What 3 things did you like best?
What 3 things did you think were a waste of time?
What 3 things would you do if it were your show?

That said, I would now like to encourage you by offering a few thoughts – also pro bono – that might help at the 10,000′ level.

I feel you did a fine job of marketing by email. At least to previous attendees – of which I was one. Your monthly, then weekly, then daily reminders were VERY well done.

The IT world, as you might know better than I, is a difficult market in itself. Portland, Oregon is a unique (strange?) market which is itself a bit of a challenge. There are only 3M people in the entire State with some 1.5M within an hour’s drive of Portland. But very few of those people could be classified as “high tech”.

Prior to becoming a management consultant years ago, my forte was helping companies and selling and training teams to sell $M+ Electronic Test systems to manufacturing VPs and CEOs. If we had had to sell those same systems to IT managers, we would have starved to death. ;-)

I believe that one reason that selling to – or providing shows to – IT people is so tedious is that while the hardware and software involved in Information Technology is truly complex, very few people at high levels really understand or care. And conversely, the people doing the detail work seldom really understand the dyamics driving the future.

This means you wind up with – at least in Portland, OR – too many state workers and company IT technician types who are really there to just get some time off from work and perhaps “kick a few tires” – or take a shot at winning a Blackberry.

Most of the booth staffers with whom I spoke were:
* Bored
8 Unchallenged by the audience
* Knowledgeable only at the detail level of their own products;
they were not really up on the macro aspects of IT and its trends.
Many commented that they would not attend again if given a choice – and would tell their managers upon returning home.

Now, having probably thoroughly depressed you with my comments, let me offer some thoughts that might help.

1. Line up some truly high-level “events” like a 20-minute talk on “Cloud Computing” by IBM or Google. e.g. See: Google and the Wisdom of Clouds:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

This would hopefully draw more VPs and CEOs.
You might perhaps “close” the booths for an extended lunch hour to draw in customer-managers who are busy in the mornings and under pressure to return to the office later in the day. That way, the vendors could also attend the high-level talks and be educated.

2. Your concept of having the talks right on the floor is a good one. I would suggest better signage and “clocks” to show the name and time of the next session in that area – and have a master board at the entrance with the same info. A number of us were sitting in one area while the talk had already started after moving to another curtained area.

3. Let the CEOs of vendor companies continue to talk about their products and services, but have them first give an intro – perhaps with handouts – that will position their company and their talk so that attendees are able to internalize both the big picture and the minutae of what is being offered.

Remember that the only true money-maker is motivation. And the only true motivation is useful education.

Regards,

John C. Schuler, PhD
Founder & Principal Strategist
OEM Solutions Group – Portland, Oregon, USA
Optimizing the Customer Interface Lifts Margins
Email: johnschuler@comcast.net
Web Site: http://www.johncschuler.com/12001.html
Cell: 503-709-5017

I recently attended the ITEC show in Portland, Oregon, then got a Looooong questionaire asking what I thought.

I would like to commend all of you on what I think was a fine job of organizing and marketing the recent ITEC show in Portland, Oregon.

As a business consultant who helps CEOs of small and medium companies to improve their sales and marketing, I am probably not wholly qualified to give you feedback in the specific format you requested in your email; in addition, I find so many questions to be a bit of a draconian challenge. ;-)

Here is a suggestion for which I usually charge a 3-hour minimum of $360 to present to client: ;-)

When you ask for feedback, consider a limit to your questions of 3 groups of 3 i.e. 9 questions total. With a space for comments.
This will dramatically improve your response. e.g.
What 3 things did you like best?
What 3 things did you think were a waste of time?
What 3 things would you do if it were your show?

That said, I would now like to encourage you by offering a few thoughts – also pro bono – that might help at the 10,000′ level.

I feel you did a fine job of marketing by email. At least to previous attendees – of which I was one. Your monthly, then weekly, then daily reminders were VERY well done.

The IT world, as you might know better than I, is a difficult market in itself. Portland, Oregon is a unique (strange?) market which is itself a bit of a challenge. There are only 3M people in the entire State with some 1.5M within an hour’s drive of Portland. But very few of those people could be classified as “high tech”.

Prior to becoming a management consultant years ago, my forte was helping companies and selling and training teams to sell $M+ Electronic Test systems to manufacturing VPs and CEOs. If we had had to sell those same systems to IT managers, we would have starved to death. ;-)

I believe that one reason that selling to – or providing shows to – IT people is so tedious is that while the hardware and software involved in Information Technology is truly complex, very few people at high levels really understand or care. And conversely, the people doing the detail work seldom really understand the dyamics driving the future.

This means you wind up with – at least in Portland, OR – too many state workers and company IT technician types who are really there to just get some time off from work and perhaps “kick a few tires” – or take a shot at winning a Blackberry.

Most of the booth staffers with whom I spoke were:
* Bored
8 Unchallenged by the audience
* Knowledgeable only at the detail level of their own products;
they were not really up on the macro aspects of IT and its trends.
Many commented that they would not attend again if given a choice – and would tell their managers upon returning home.

Now, having probably thoroughly depressed you with my comments, let me offer some thoughts that might help.

1. Line up some truly high-level “events” like a 20-minute talk on “Cloud Computing” by IBM or Google. e.g. See: Google and the Wisdom of Clouds:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

This would hopefully draw more VPs and CEOs.
You might perhaps “close” the booths for an extended lunch hour to draw in customer-managers who are busy in the mornings and under pressure to return to the office later in the day. That way, the vendors could also attend the high-level talks and be educated.

2. Your concept of having the talks right on the floor is a good one. I would suggest better signage and “clocks” to show the name and time of the next session in that area – and have a master board at the entrance with the same info. A number of us were sitting in one area while the talk had already started after moving to another curtained area.

3. Let the CEOs of vendor companies continue to talk about their products and services, but have them first give an intro – perhaps with handouts – that will position their company and their talk so that attendees are able to internalize both the big picture and the minutae of what is being offered.

Remember that the only true money-maker is motivation. And the only true motivation is useful education.

Regards,

John C. Schuler, PhD
Founder & Principal Strategist
OEM Solutions Group – Portland, Oregon, USA
Optimizing the Customer Interface Lifts Margins
Email: johnschuler@comcast.net
Web Site: http://www.johncschuler.com/12001.html
Cell: 503-709-5017

Check this out:

http://www.whiteroseproductions.com/blog/seo/pagerank-and-search-page-rank-are-not-the-same-thing/

More where that came from…good luck!

Sue

Check this out:

http://www.whiteroseproductions.com/blog/seo/pagerank-and-search-page-rank-are-not-the-same-thing/

More where that came from…good luck!

Sue

MANY congrats on landing the new role so quickly! It sounds like a perfect role for you and I wish you all the best with it. It was a month ago today that I started my own “dream job” that likewise came through my blogging about it and reaching out into the community. I’m incredibly pleased with how things are going and absolutely love what I’m doing. I hope that all goes as well for you and I’ll look forward to continuing to read your great posts here and catching up with you at various events.

Congrats! You’re an awesome guy and they are very lucky to have hired you!

Dan

MANY congrats on landing the new role so quickly! It sounds like a perfect role for you and I wish you all the best with it. It was a month ago today that I started my own “dream job” that likewise came through my blogging about it and reaching out into the community. I’m incredibly pleased with how things are going and absolutely love what I’m doing. I hope that all goes as well for you and I’ll look forward to continuing to read your great posts here and catching up with you at various events.

Congrats! You’re an awesome guy and they are very lucky to have hired you!

Dan

Do they know how lucky they are to have you at their company?!

Do they know how lucky they are to have you at their company?!