Exhibitor 2010 Series: Part 4 – Viva la Face to Face
This is the fourth part of a five part series discussing my recent takeaways for the Exhibitor 2010 Conference in Las Vegas, March 14-18, 2010. View Part 3 – Virtual Dangers.
I like baseball.
If you know me, you’d also understand that’s easily the understatement of the decade. It’s an undefined sickness that forces me to re-channel childhood dreams of playing third base for the Chicago White Sox through summers of 12” softball, filled with pulled hamstrings and the fleeting hope that a MLB scout will witness my undiscovered “talent.”
Baseball is simple, perfect and pure…at least that’s what I believed well up until my adult years. While I don’t cherish baseball any less than I did when I was 12, I have come to understand that the sport is also a business, and unfortunately, the purity of the game is often tainted by the dictation of the dealings and dollars that drive it.
The formula for athletic success is relatively simple: performance = fortune. Mark McGuire was the epitome of baseball success during the 1990s. However, less than 7 years after breaking the single season homerun record, McGuire was strangely mum in 2005 during an infamous session in front of the House Government Reform Committee to discuss steroid usage in baseball. Suspicions were instant and unrelenting. The ‘good ole boy’ and man who brought baseball back from it’s damaging strike in 1994 suddenly undid a sixteen year, Hall of Fame career, without barely speaking a word.
I wasn’t as upset at the dishonestly of McGuire as much as I was disappointed with the revelation that he had lost the passion for purity and virtuousness that all baseball players have growing up. The authenticity of his love for the game was lost. I realized that his mixed messages were muddying up my own perspective on him, and the game of baseball.
Conversely, I have grown to value businesses that are driven by passion and have a genuine interest in their industry beyond their quarterly report. My experience at Exhibitor 2010 was eye-opening on a number of levels. Educationally, it was great. But witnessing like minded individuals, colleagues and friends who spoke with actions in place of words, was a far above encouraging sight for the future of events. As event organizers, how are we to sell our clients on the value of a face to face meeting yet substitute our own forums for communication?
The event landscape is being refined daily. Technology and new ways to communicate are simultaneously enhancing and threatening various face to face traditions. We need leadership. Leaders who will illustrate the right way and the wrong way to embrace new conventions. Leaders who can define the struggles of the common meeting planner and promptly offer solutions. Leaders who will discuss the situations surrounding face to face meetings…in a face to face setting (bizarre, huh?).
Social media has opened opportunities to extend our networks and develop communities that can support and enhance the value of the meeting place. But our trust in technologies needs to be evaluated on a consistent basis. As proponents of events, we need to be careful on what our virtual actions convey to our audiences. Are we enhancing the face to face environment with these tools, or inadvertently displaying methods that speak the opposite?
I was pleased to see relationships that were materialized in a virtual space, enhanced further at an event. We need this continued leadership to keep muddied messages from dictating perceptions. Quite simply, this is ground zero for our new landscape in developing and extending the importance of events.
Continue to Exhibitor 2010 Series: Part 5 – The Twittermediary
(image by Andrew Maycock via Wikipedia Creative Commons License)
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Thanks for sharing Eric- Love your comment –
” But witnessing like minded individuals, colleagues and friends who spoke with actions in place of words, was a far above encouraging sight for the future of events. ”
So true. I felt the same way- excited to see things changing and sorry we didn’t get to meet in Vegas!
Loved this article!! Thanks for the insight and looking forward to implementing some of this strategy for future events.
Kristen
Eric — Excellent points and great way to get your point across with this story and your passion for baseball.
Always love to read your stuff, Eric. Thanks for taking the time to share. Just as our face-to-face connections are made better by technologies that connect us while we are apart, our virtual relationships are infused with a greater trust once we finally meet in person. I, too, connect with passionate people.
Eric, thanks for this article.
It was inspiring, because it really drove home how important our values are in shaping who we are as business people. It also demonstrated how, when we let business drive our actions instead of driving our actions with our character, it can taint our reputations, and our legacy.
Whatever I do, I always remain mindful of being true to who I am. Sometimes that means I am gonna miss out on a revenue opportunity, but at least I play fair, and can look at myself in the mirror every day with pride (as scary as it is to look in the mirror)
Thanks for your wisdom and your insights!
@michaelmccurry
Always love to read your stuff, Eric. Thanks for taking the time to share. Just as our face-to-face connections are made better by technologies that connect us while we are apart, our virtual relationships are infused with a greater trust once we finally meet in person. I, too, connect with passionate people.