By inmedia
As PR practitioners, we here at inmedia have spent enough time in trade show purgatory to expunge a lifetime of sins. Still the circuit remains a critical element of the marketing mix for many technology companies and we expect we’ll hang many a lanyard around our necks before our time is done.
What we hope to never encounter is the kind of trade show disasters recounted in today’s Network World. Some of the stories here are older ones, but others are quite fresh. I have to say the one I enjoyed the most was the tale of the hapless Dateline NBC producer who tried to go undercover, complete with concealed pinhole camera, at Defcon earlier this year. This security-focused show, which attracts hackers by the hundreds, has got to be ground zero for the paranoid. Needless to say, it wasn’t long before she was identified and ignominously escorted off the premises.
Murphy, who said, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong,” clearly went to a few trade shows in his day.
