Good afternoon everyone!
I'm blogging over at the Botanical PaperWorks blog today, so please head over for ideas on celebrating UN World Water Day. It's coming up on March 22 and it's a great way to bring awareness to water conservation within our schools and communities.
Also check out this new press release about the Earth Day promotional products collection that we just launched. It's colorful and fun.
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Earlier in the year, I attended a trade show that featured a large display called Trends in Paper & Decor. The display, which was arranged in color themes and showed many different products and companies, received a lot of attention.
One thing that I noticed was that the Italian companies make beautiful leather, paper and organizing products. Like these products from Fabriano that I wrote about in What I found when shopping for stationery in Venice.
Originally started in Italy, Moleskine did not disappoint with a new line of thematic journals which targets specific hobbies such as cooking and travel.
And these Whitelines journals that I wrote about were amazing; still trying to get my hands on a few samples.
The blue and orange areas had everything from journals and folders to post-its and pens. I loved the multicolored mouse seen in the top left of the blue photo.
Green and yellow showed office supplies and drafting supplies, as well as journals and folders.
And the displays were flanked by these orange bicycles that drew people into the display. Together with the white orbs (see the first photo), the effect was dramatic and eye-catching.
Overall, I liked a lot of what I saw but I wasn't captured by most of the products. The organizers did a good job bringing together the various collections, but I didn't connect with the color schemes. Still, I was glad to see the display and to be challenged in my love and hate of certain colors and particular shades.
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I'll admit it - as an exhibitor, trade shows are a special animal. They have their own unique set of pressures. The stress of airline travel and missed connections. The uncertainty of whether the luggage containing our samples will be there to greet us when we arrive. The hope that the booth configuration is as we had thought. The desire to interact with a lot of people and make meaningful, profitable connections.
Each show gives our company an amazing opportunity to visit with our customers and to meet new and potentially important customers. There's something about face-to-face meetings that solidify relationships in a way that email and Skype can't do. That's what makes attending trade shows worth it.
Last week I posted some photos of the morning of our last day. Today, I have the photos from the afternoon, after we had won the trophy for Best Booth and as we packed up and left for the airport.
Here we are posing with our trophy after winning Best Booth.
The trade show finished up on a Friday afternoon and we packed up and headed to the airport. We said goodbye to the CN Tower on our way out of the city.
It was a good show and we were glad we attended. It was equally good to get home that night after landing at 2:10 am and be in our own beds!
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Do you attend trade shows on behalf of your work or favorite charity? If yes, you'll know what I mean about the simultaneous thrill and grind of meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, shlepping your stuff to the exhibit hall and the long days and nights that can be both exciting and tiring.
A couple of weeks ago, Amber, Toni and I were pleased to attend a trade show for promotional product professionals in Canada. Amber will be blogging about it soon on the Botanical PaperWorks blog, but I wanted to share some personal photos of the nitty gritty behind being at a trade show.
On this last day of the show, we got up early to get ready for the day. We needed to pack, have breakfast and check out before the trade show started. It was exciting to know that we'd be going home that evening, but there was a lot of work to be done before the day was over.
While we breakfasted at the hotel, our various Mac devices were getting a last-minute charge in our room. Amber and Toni were done before me so they left for the show, suitcases in tow, and I stayed behind to do a final check and pay up our bill. We were efficient and relaxed, so our time together was really enjoyable.
Our hotel had a few nice touches - The Globe and Mail delivered to our room in the morning, free wifi and a free breakfast with a push-button capuccino machine (so fun!).
Once we got to the show, we were busy for the next six hours. Stay tuned for more photos in my next post...
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For a while after Amber approached me with the chance to present at September's Pecha Kucha, I called it Machu Picchu. Then I resorted to calling it What The Hee Hoo. And finally she explained (and I managed to remember) that it's pronounced "poo-chach-ka" and I learned it once and for all.
What is Pecha Kucha? It's an evening for designers and creative types to get together and share ideas in a unique format: 20 slides that progress automatically every 20 seconds each for a total presentation time of 6:40.
So what was I doing there? I presented on 10 Things I've Learned from Owning My Own Business. The last 14 years have been interesting, creative and challenging and I picked 10 tips and ideas to share that evening.
That's all I'll say for now. If you'd like to watch the video (and hey, it's only 6 minutes and 40 seconds), head over to the Botanical PaperWorks blog and have a look. Let me know what you think!
The group of presenters, missing Ace Burpee
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