Exhibit101

Emotional Intellegience

Peanut Butter Cup Heart
Flickr Photo originally uploaded by Bob.Fornal.

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I was over at the Harvard B-School Blog again and came across Bill Taylors piece: Memo to Detroit's CEOs: Less Head, More Heart. (Taylor, by the way, is the cofounder of Fast Company.)

The article is good... and I agree with most of it.  But I was especially moved by the following statement:

In times of turmoil and uncertainty, in an environment where anyone who claims definitive knowledge about anything is suspect, people don't just (or even primarily) respond to costs and benefits, investments and returns. They support causes that they believe in, leaders whom they respect, arguments that appeal to their hearts as well as their heads. By-the-numbers CEOs often have little patience for such "emotional intelligence"--which is why they have such trouble inspiring their own employees, let alone members of Congress who have difficult decisions to make.

"Emotional Intellegience" is well and good and I've been talking about it for YEARS... except I call it IMPACT.  It is really very simple: when your customers walk onto a trade show floor and experience YOUR exhibit (next to your competitor's), what will the FEEL?  Will it be GOOD?  Will it be POWERFUL?  (It had better be.)  Remember: "people don't just (or even primarily) respond to costs and benefits, investments and returns. They support causes that they believe in, leaders whom they respect, arguments that appeal to their hearts as well as their heads."

Marketing & Trust

Trust - A Flickr Photo

I was over at the Harvard B-School Marketing Blog and stumbled across a good little essay that is completely germane to the trade show marketing world.  Don't let the title throw you: How General Motors Violated your Trust.  It is another insightful piece of writing from Quelch (who I follow rather closely).

The article is a response to the GM's December 8^th full page "letter" in Automotive News:

In a fascinating mea culpa, General Motors has finally discovered the consumer (also known as the taxpayer). Desperate to achieve bailout funding, GM admitted in a December 8 advertisement titled "GM's Commitment to the American People" that it had "disappointed", sometimes even "violated" the "trust" of American consumers.

Quelch makes a series of points (eight of 'em) as to how -- SPECIFICALLY -- GM violated our trust... but one in particular stopped me in my tracks:

8. Finance focus. GM has not been run by marketers. It has been run by accountants. The cost focus has crowded out needed emphasis on consumer insight and marketing...

That's right: failing to MARKET is a betrayal of trust... and look where it got them.  Think of where it might you?

The first was also rather salient too:

1. Focus on products, not customers. For years, Detroit wrongly viewed product types as market segments. Cars were classified as subcompacts, compacts, intermediates etc. But no consumer ever left home passionate to buy an "intermediate car." Segments are groups of customers, not products. Later, Detroit discovered lifestyle marketing but GM was trumped by Chrysler on minivans, was late to market with SUVs, then missed the mood swing of consumers towards crossovers.

This, of course, makes me think of the legion of trade show exhibit pros who worry all about the exhibit structure (and shipping... and drayage... and installation... etc) without giving a thought to the PEOPLE who will be interacting with e exhibit.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Exhibit Design Process is about People!  Check out my extended essay: The Design Process and Why It Matters.

Exhibit Trends in a Recession

trade show
Flickr Photo originally uploaded by calm a llama down.

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Someone over at the "Trade Show Exhibit Blog" put up an interesting little post today: Exhibit Trends in a Recession.  The position is provoking:

A busy design team, paired with an engineering, graphics, and overall operation that is geared towards large scale, cutting edge exhibit booths, actually costs less than a low quality, slow design team, error-prone engineers, wasteful graphics, and a sloppily managed overall operation. If paid based on productivity, the trend-following, top-notch-team earns more. But they produce more.

To my way of thinking, the comparison is apt, but even if your design team is not slow or low quality (low quality, slow design team) and your engineers are not error-prone and your graphics are not wasteful, the real reason to exhibit at a trade show has to do with what YOU GET from the SHOW... not how you build your exhibit!   After all, even an operation that is NOT sloppily managed can be just plain wrong.  The trade show display business is a MARKETING business!  It is about PEOPLE not STRUCTURES.

At my day job - over at Catalyst Exhibits - I am always telling the team that our competitors are not necessarily sloppy, and they aren't necessarily error prone... they are just focusing on the WRONG THINGS.

The reason that exhibiting trends are important has NOTHING TO DO WITH FABRICATION or LOGISTICS.  Exhibit trends are important because MARKET TRENDS are important.  The exhibit business is a marketing business.

Christmas Orange

Christmas Orange - 21/365
Flickr Photo originally uploaded by morberg.
a traditional christmas decoration: an orange with cloves tied with a red bow.

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OK... there is NO DOUBT ABOUT IT: I do think about trade show exhibiting too much.  But as I mentioned earlier in the week, pioritization is an important part of an exhibit strategy (Changing Priorities).  Flexibility is important for trade show sucsess... and so I will be flexible.  At work, everything is orange... and so I thought about Christmas Oranges!  Happy holidays!  (You should see the drum set I put together last night!)

Hanukah begins!

Hanukah - Night One
Flickr Photo originally uploaded by urtica.
Happy Hanukah!

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While it is probably true that I think about trade show exhibiting too much, some things are more important than marketing.  On July 18th (2008) I wrote about how pioritization is an important part of an exhibit strategy (Changing Priorities).  Trade show strategies must be flexible... and so must trade show people.  Hanukah begins tonight!  Here is wishing everyone a happy holiday season!

Interactivity

The image above is, of course, David Kolb's model for the way we learn.  According to Kolb, we "grasp" ideas and then we "transform" them... and we do those things in a couple of ways.  This is a model for Experiential Learning.  Take a look.  While I believe that the ideas (as put forth by Kolb) make a great deal of sense, I also believe that (within the trade show marketing context) the "experiential" train is a runaway monster that has jumped it's tracks.

More Graphical Systems - More GE Healthcare

GE Healthcare at RSNA 2007

Here's another image... of the graphic design system at work.  Beautifully clever if you ask me.  I've written about this before: GE Healthcare at RSNA - Graphics and Graphical Systems and "Languages".

I am fascinated.

Graphical Systems and "Languages"

The GE Healthcare Graphical Language

Earlier this month I wrote a bit about GE Healthcare's exhibit at RSNA 2008: GE Healthcare at RSNA - graphics.  I've spent a good bit of time looking into it since then.  The graphic design is spectacular.

This is their  "Healthcare re-imagined" campaign... and it has caught on.  The "Healthcare Re-imagined" tag is really the divisional interpretation of the GE-wide "imagination at work" theme.  The idea is, of course, that the company Thomas Edison founded is still populated with creative geniuses.  (And maybe it is, I don't know.) 

The healthcare adaptation ("Healthcare re-imagined") is really quite excellent as it shifts the focus away from "equipment" and back to "health" and "life."

GE "launched a multi-phase effort to redefine what is possible in healthcare. The new campaign, "Healthcare Re-Imagined," highlights GE's unique abilities to leverage technological and biological breakthroughs to transform healthcare delivery from treating "late disease" to a focus on "early health" - where prediction, diagnosis, and information management are key to prevention and pre-symptomatic disease detection." - source here

It is about early health... and so there is a baby.  It is about a wide variety of sciences and technologies, and so there is a "vocabulary" of images.  And then there is the "organic DNA" which tells us that this is "Medical."  It is not a logo.  It is graphic design approach.

Each of the blue figures represents something different... a lifestyle... a division... a product... a target industry segment.  There are MANY things happening here.  DNA.  Molecules.  Chemical compounds.  Silhouettes.  Waves.  Circles.

In short, this approach is extraordinarily sophisticated and complex.  It is fair to suggest that it is even nuanced.  This campaign is really rather remarkable. 

This is RADICAL stuff smack in the heart of the medical equipment industry.  Medical equipment marketing has changed!  There is no logo anywhere and yet this is GE Healthcare.

(GE Healthcare is not, in any way, a client - I'm just fascinated by their graphics.  No doubt, I'll be posting more.)

A Planet Called Safe

Flickr Photo from here

This is a montage of planetary images taken by spacecraft managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Included are (from top to bottom) images of Mercury, Venus, Earth (and Moon), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft responsible for these images are as follows: the Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10, the Venus image by Magellan, the Earth and Moon images by Galileo, the Mars image by Mars Global Surveyor, the Jupiter image by Cassini, and the Saturn, Uranus and Neptune images by Voyager. Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it. The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars) are roughly to scale to each other; the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are roughly to scale to each other.

I was thinking today, at the office, about something that happened years ago.

GE Healthcare at RSNA - Graphics

GE Healthcare
RSNA 2008 Set Up
McCormick Place, Chicago IL

RSNA (The Radiological Society of North America Show) 2008 is now OVER.  What a show!  As I mentioned before, it just may be the biggest Radiology show in the world. 

I've been noticing that Pharma / Medical graphic design and graphic production have begun to go a new direction... I see organic "systems" everywhere.  Take a look at what GE Healthcare is doing!  Each product group is a specific character that fits within the overall "DNA" of the brand. 

I find this fascinating.  And I am seeing a BUNCH of this.

Not what I expected.  Oddly beautiful.

I have more photos...