I just have to mention the luncheon Las Vegas put on for the Expo! Expo! show yesterday. I can’t even begin to explain the centerpieces and decorations—of course, I had packed my camera away like a dummy, so I couldn’t take pictures—but they were spectacular. The lunch itself was tres elegant, with four small dishes on one plate of things like vodka-poached prawns with fresh horseradish cocktail sauce, celery fennel cucumber salsa and spanish olive tapenade, and free-range chicken on a sugar cane swizzle stick with grilled pineapple and sweet-and-sour sauce, with a mango mirin sweet chili glaze. And the dessert! A little chocolate slot machine filled with a jackpot of white and dark chocolate mousse with Grand Marnier. Accompanied by a cute little white chocolate die, which I valiantly tried to chip away at—there was no possible way to try to eat it elegantly, but boy was it good! Viva Las Vegas, and I can’t wait to see what you pull off for the 2007 IAEE show, if this luncheon was just a preview.

I wasn’t quite as impressed with post-luncheon speaker John Alson, author of Life is a Gift… Don’t Trash It . His rules for living the good life were things like, “show up,” and “participate” and “listen to your body.” The other people at my table seemed to love him, but after a while, it seemed like a good opportunity to go check my e-mail. Bad Sue. Bad, bad Sue. Maybe I’ve heard enough motivational speakers now that I’m jaded, but he just wasn’t doing it for me. Still, he got a standing ovation from a good portion of the audience, so who am I to say?

Yesterday morning I went to a great session called, “The Art and Science of Persuasive Marketing,” and now know exactly why so many of the brochures that pile up on my desk don’t compel me to spend hours perusing them. Led by Denise Paccione, president, The Marketing Design Group, we were reminded of a marketing basic that hardly anyone follows: It’s not enough to talk about the “what” of your show (number of booths, all the great speakers, a dazzling location, etc., etc.)—you also have to talk about the “why,” or what’s in it for the audience. It’s easy to become so engrossed in what you’re doing that you forget that it may not be so obvious to others how all that “what” translates into the “why attend,” especially for new prospects (repeaters may have an easier time doing that translation, since they too already know what they get out of it from past experience). “You need to talk about the features” of the show in a marketing piece, said Paccione, “but you also need to talk about the benefits. If you can’t put ‘You will…’ in front of it, it’s not a benefit.”

She had us look through a bunch of brochures on our own, and many either didn’t have any benefit statements, or if they did, they were so general as to be meaningless. As Paccione said, “It’s like a baby—everyone thinks their baby is the cutest thing there is. And your show is your baby. You need to have more objectivity, look at your marketing through the eyes of someone who doesn’t need to attend your event.”

Another excellent tip that very few heed: Make sure your back cover is as good as the front, because people always flip to where the mailing label is. “It’s a great place to put a synopsis of benefits,” Paccione said.

The best part of the session, for me anyway, was when she had each table talk about the examples of their own marketing materials they brought in, and gently critique them given what we’d learned. Since no one at my table had brought any examples (oops), we had a great, far-ranging talk about everything from e-mail list fatigue to specific campaigns we were thinking about launching. We didn’t even break for the break, but kept on going through it until the next session was about to start.

My favorite quote from this session: “The only person who reads through a densely packed, text-heavy brochure is the one who finds the typo.” Ain’t that the truth?

At yesterday’s Expo! Expo! luncheon, we found out that long-time IAEM member Alan Peterson has had a horrible tragedy in his family: In a bad car crash earlier this week, his daughter, Hanna Elizabeth, was killed, and his son gravely injured. The family has set up the Hanna Elizabeth Peterson Charitable Fund in Hanna’s name. That’s all the information we were given, but if you know him and want to contribute or learn more, contact:
Hanna Elizabeth Peterson Charitable Fund
Account #004485694
c/o Elizabeth Lee
Financial Services Representative
Zions Bank
Cottonwood Office
4675 S. Highland Dr.
Salt Lake City, UT 84117
(801) 524-8966
elee@zionsbank.com

Sounds like something a cartoon character shrieks as he runs off a cliff, doesn’t it? That’s probably why the International Association for Exhibition Management’s new acronym, for International Association of Exhibits and Events, is pronounced IA double-e. With an overwhelming 79 percent percent of voting members saying aye to a change to IAEE, it’s hard to believe it caused such a ruckus last year, though I do believe that had more to do with being taken by surprise than any real objection to the name change. Sandy Angus, 2006 IAEE chairman of the board of directors, said at a press conference at Expo! Expo! yesterday, “There is not doubt that events are where it’s at. Events give an impression of things happening, a sense of occasion. Exhibitions, by their very name, give the impression of being sedentary.”

Also announced at the press conference: The World Shoe Association, which gave the Center for Exhibition Industry Research a nice $25,000 grant earlier this year, now has followed up with a stunning $1 million grant to IAEE’s research arm; the new Art of the Show Textbook has been released (and even translated into Mandarin!); and the Orlando/Orange County CVB and the Orange County Convention Center plans to donate $50,000 to IAEE’s Exhibition Industry Foundation, which will be used to develop a video series show organizers can use with their exhibitors to show them how to maximize the value of their trade show experience. I also attended a session on a new set of return on investment (ROI) tools IAEM is rolling out, which I think I better wait until they e-mail me the handouts (they ran out, and it’s pretty complex to try to recreate from my notes alone) before talking about it much. Reviews from others in the session ranged all over the place, from the best thing since sliced bread to, “who do they think we’re talking to, the COO?” Members will be able to check it out for themselves once the tool set is uploaded to IAEM’s Web site, probably within the next two months.

I just heard about University of Colorado’s plan to offer Bachelor of Innovation degrees in electrical engineering, computer science, and game design and development. A snip:

The degrees are designed to prepare graduates for their discipline as well as to give them experience in the innovation process and working extensively in team environments, officials said. Students will be able to specialize further in areas such as globalization, creative communication, advanced engineering, and advanced business.

Shockley-Zalabak thanked the board for approving “[what] we believe will be a unique educational experience that allows students to expand their base of knowledge and to meet the needs of industries who must compete globally.”

Does that not sound like meeting planning and hospitality, too? I’d love to see this spread to the universities’ who offer majors in these fields, wouldn’t you?