Tradeshow Organizers Must Diversify. Here's How.

The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines.

— Peter Drucker

If I'm bearish on tradeshows, I have cause.

Lulled by easy money, show organizers seem allergic to innovation; a condition that makes them ripe for disruption.

The best defense against disruption lies in product diversification—a sound strategy in good times, an essential one in hard.

That should be obvious.

And it should be obvious that, because they're selling audiences to advertisers, tradeshow organizers need look no farther for diversification tactics than to magazine publishers—the poster children for disruption.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Internet eviscerated magazine publishers' century-old business model. In a painful "print apocalypse," more than 10,000 magazines disappeared from inboxes.

Savvy magazine publishers responded by diversifying their product lines, pushing their number from one, two, or three to more than a dozen.

Those include:

Content. Aiming at readers, the publisher sells subscriptions or raises revenue through crowdfunding.

Branded content. Aiming at advertisers, the publisher functions as a traditional creative agency.

Events. Aiming at both readers and advertisers, the publisher organizes live, virtual, and hybrid tradeshows and conferences, selling registrations, booths and sponsorships.

Ads. The publisher acts as a traditional one, selling ads and advertising programs that can be targeted to reader-segments.

Awards. The publisher operates an industry awards program, collecting entry fees and selling tickets to celebratory events.

Merchandise. The publisher acts as the operator of a "discount club," selling memberships to readers who want to avail themselves of a portfolio of discounted products and services.

Data. Aiming at advertisers, the publisher sells data that advertisers and third parties can use to target prospects and leverage adverting programs.

Leads. The publisher takes on the role of a lead-generation firm, using webinars and telemarketing to capture new leads for advertisers.

Consulting. The publisher acts as a marketing, sales or business consultant, providing advertisers and peers expertise.

Software. The publisher licenses proprietary software and sells IT consulting and support to its peers.

Brand licenses. The publisher equips other marketers to leverage its brand, selling them the rights to use its "seal of quality."

Capital. The publisher acts as an investor and broker, launching specialized private equity funds within its industry.

Writing Rule #26

An unnecessary word is like a cinderblock on the highway.

Blarney

 

Legal reasoning can be unreasonable.

The 5th circuit federal appeals court last week allowed Texas to resume its ban on abortions, after Senate Bill 8 had been struck down.

The state attorney general argued that, since Texas does not enforce its anti-abortion law, it cannot “be held responsible for the filings of private citizens.”

The court bought the argument. 

The logic of the decision is as follows:

• Senate Bill 8 endorses vigilantism.
• Vigilantism is outside the law.
• Therefore, Senate Bill 8 is constitutional.

How twisted is this? This form of argument could also prove the following:

• An EU law protects leprechauns.
• Leprechauns aren't members of the EU.
• Therefore, the EU law is constitutional.

Monuments Men

I asked the captain what his name was and how come he
didn't drive a truck. He said his name was Columbus.
I just said, "Good luck."

— Bob Dylan

Monuments in the US are "overwhelmingly white and male," according to a new census by the Mellon Foundation.

Most of the white men depicted in our monuments, moreover, were vicious, according to the census. Columbus, the third-most depicted individual, is an example.

The census identified the Top 50 individuals depicted. 

Only a few of them were women or persons of color, and none were queer folks. Forty percent were born into wealth and fifty percent owned slaves. Omitted from depiction are individuals without wealth—our great artists, writers, nurses, teachers, and reformers.

The census concludes that, when it comes to US history, our monuments represent "monumental erasures and lies."

The Mellon Foundation plans to spend $250 million to correct the situation.

Gossip

He who never says anything cannot keep silent.

― Martin Heidegger

Facebook's outage this week—a form of compulsory digital minimalism—reminded me that the world's religions advise you to avoid gossip, "in the sight of God an awful thing."

Gossip is an awful thing, even if you're not god-fearing.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger explained why in his magnum opus, Being and Time.

Gossip tranquilizes—sparing us the job of discovering our life's purpose. Every minute spent engaged with it is one less minute spent in contemplation of our inevitable death.. And that escape from the thought of our own death Is comforting, even anesthetizing.

In Heidegger's view, gossip delivers us over to prepackaged ways of interpreting life's meaning. 

Like a cranky letter, gossip has already been "deposited" before ever reaching us, denying us the chance to decide for ourselves whether its malignant interpretation of life is really useful. 

Worse yet, gossip conforms us to the role of an average listener in a superficial conversation. Gossip dictates what's worth discussing—what's appropriate and intelligible talk—and what isn't.

By listening to gossip, "we already are listening only to what is said-in-the-talk." We already are allowing that we're unthinking, uncaring and unoriginal people. "Hearing and understanding," Heidegger says, "have attached themselves beforehand to what is said-in-the-talk."

Gossip in that sense is deafening: it doesn't communicate, but merely "passes the word along" ("shares," in Facebook-speak). "What is said-in-the-talk spreads in ever-wider circles and takes on an authoritative character." Things are so because one says so—even when what is said is groundless hearsay.

And gossip is irresponsible twaddle. 

"Gossip is the possibility of understanding everything without previously making the thing one's own," Heidegger says. Gossip is something anyone can rake up; you need not be an "influencer."

Gossip discourages fresh thinking, originality, and genuine attempts to understand the meaning of things, because it so dominates the public forum as to "prescribe one's state-of-mind."

By prescribing your state-of-mind, gossip also makes you rootless—cutting you off from reality, so that you "drift unattached" to life and the world around you.

That from a man who chose to spend most of his time in a secluded mountain hut in Bavaria warning the world of the dangers of technology.

This weekend, take a long, soulful break from Facebook. 

You'll be glad you did.

Above: The Wave by Corran Brownlee. Oil on canvas. 47 x 60 inches.