Expo Floor Sees More Prepared Attendees in 2014

Checking out the expo floor on Monday, I decided to take a different approach from the destinations I saw yesterday and check out some of the service providers. My first stop was with Timberlake, The company provides membership and website software for small staff associations. I was impressed when Debbie Rhoda, the director of operations, and Tracy Evans, a senior solutions provider at Timberlake mentioned that it seemed that so many of their visitors this year seemed more informed and aware of what they were looking for when visiting the booth. “They know what they want,” Rhoda said.

Jane Sweatt, a project coordinator at Map Your Show, echoed the same thing, saying that many of their visitors came with a plan about who they wanted to see. While Map Your Show originally started offering interactive floor plans for trade shows and conferences, the company has grown to offer an entire suite of show management software solutions, including show apps that Sweatt said she had been sharing with visitors this year.

A couple of aisles over at the Project Management Institute, appropriately for an expo in Nashville, Faith Hill, a talent management specialist, greeted me and helped explain what PMI’s goals were at the ASAE Annual Meeting this year. PMI is a not-for-profit professional membership association for project, program, and portfolio management. She and Organizational Alliances Manager Keith Rosenbaum said the Expo was a great way not only to share their program but also to find vendors that may be able to help serve their business.

Did you have a plan for this year’s Expo? What was your favorite booth or experience on the floor?