Does anyone remember the infrared beaming on Palm Pilots?  Does anyone remember Palm Pilots?  It was actually pretty cool.  You could beam your info to a fellow Palm user avoiding  the exchange of business cards which you would then have to enter into your Palm Pilot.  It was fast an efficient and then totally disappeared when mobile devices became integrated to the internet.

The problem is that it’s still really hard to keep track of the people that you meet at trade shows.  Whether you’re an attendee or an exhibitor.  Yes, you can technically look up everyone you meet on LinkedIn and then connect with them, but that’s time consuming at big events and not practical approach to buying or selling.    The irony is that we’re all more linked together than ever with social media applications like LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.  BusyEvent may have an answer: Read the full story

The world seems scratching its head about the iPad.  Is it a giant iPhone with no real application, or is it so incredibly ahead of its time that we just haven’t figured out where it fits into our lives?  We’ve talked quite a bit about touch screen applications at trade shows here on TSF, but they’re very expensive applications.  While the iPad isn’t cheap for consumers, they are relatively cheap for most trade show budgets.  The large screen and intuitive input (you touch stuff) seem natural for  demonstrations, events, meeting, etc.

Interactive Meeting Technology has a terrific post outlining what some of those possibilities are: Read the full story

Let’s face it…new technology comes and goes and separating real trends from the latest gizmo can be difficult. The Rogers Company put together a brief overview of some of the important technological drivers for tradeshows. Keep in mind, these trends are driven as much by what the industry needs as what it offers. It’s important for exhibitors to recognize what they can get from technology and not be driven by the ‘latest and greatest’ thing out there. From the book: Read the full story

Let’s face it…new technology comes and goes and separating real trends from the latest gizmo can be difficult.  The Rogers Company put together a brief overview of some of the important technological drivers for tradeshows.  Keep in mind, these trends are driven as much by what the industry needs as what it offers.  It’s important for exhibitors to recognize what they can get from technology and not be driven by the ‘latest and greatest’ thing out there.  From the book: Read the full story

At one time, you had to be a pretty sophisticated user (aka geek) to have a lot of cool applications at your fingertips any time any where.  Today, that technology is easy to use for just about everyone.  For tradeshows, tapping into mobile phone technology can lead to chance encounters with colleagues, give you a better understanding of the people around you, and help you navigate new places.

Different industries will have embraced this kind of technology more than others, but don’t undersell your colleagues.  They may be more sophisticated than you think.

Here are five applications that run on an array of different phones: Read the full story

About 5 years ago a colleague sent me an invitation to join LinkedIn.  It seemed like an OK idea kind of based on the 6 Degrees of Seperation concept.  My account kind of sat there for a long time based on the idea that only a few people I knew were actually on the site.  Over time, however, it’s grown into something very big.  It can be a good way to stay in touch with colleagues past and present but it can also be a very good way to build business. Read the full story

Your next booth staff addition may save you on hotel and airfare and never have to take a lunch break.  She may also be a flat, electronic representation of a human being…but no one’s perfect, right?  Avatars are being used to greet booth visitors, give presentations, and recite detailed information specific products and even about the person they are talking to.

We interviewed an avatar, Sarah, created by a company called LogicJunction on what she does at tradeshows, the benefits of avatars, and what the future holds for her and LogicJunction.  From their website:

LogicJunction supplies products on a variety of platforms ranging from individual kiosks to complete online deployments. Our patented software engine incorporates digital characters, artificial intelligence, media players, advanced logic control and a flexible plug-in system to interface with third party software and hardware.

Virtual Employees (or vPloyees), the name given to our digital characters, use emotion, animation, speech, and intelligence to help personalize and direct the experience for each client, and provide a high impact interface to many of our implementations. For customers wishing to extend our products or create their own, LogicJunction offers an SDK.

Clients use LogicJunction software to assist with sales, conduct surveys, drive booth attendance, reduce personnel costs, and help users navigate complex processes. Please look around and see what LogicJunction might do for you.

We’ve all heard about Twitter and there’s been a lot of head scratching as to how it will be used in business.  At searchenginewatch.com they are covering The Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York 2009 Conference and Expo. They’re top story is about Twitter and it gives some clues as to how this will be useful at live events like tradeshows:

The opening keynote was by Guy Kawasaki, a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures, who spoke about “Twitter as a Tool for Social Media.”

You can read the full post here: Link Read the full story

In this video, Pattie Maes demonstrates new hardware that allows people to interact in a seamless way with the world.  Ever since people began using PDAs and cell phones, there has been a struggle to use them to interact with the world.  Remember some PDAs had infrared capabilities allowing you to beam business cards?  That somehow fell by the wayside, but it was a good thought and especially convenient at a tradeshow.

Now imagine that you could walk into a booth, point at an object, look it up on the internet or instantly share an image with colleagues? Read the full story

OK — so you might be a geek reading this.  Take no offense because we all have to be a little geeky these days.  In researching for this post, I came across a post about the largest blogging conference and tradeshow coming up in Las Vegas.  BlogWorld & New Media Expo held Sept 20-21 had over 150 speakers. Read the full story