Here on Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be With You!) I spend a few moments on discussing working from home, and how things have changed – and haven’t – in the COVID-19 Pandemic.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Muck Rack, the daily journalistic wrap-up of the country’s top stories. My favorite daily newsletter.
We’re all in a quandary: what to do to work our way through the Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic and still work with clients in a meaningful way. For this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I caught up with two busy marketers, one in the tradeshow world, and one not.
Ken Newman of Magnet Productions and Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing agreed to sit down with me one-on-one in Zoom meetings. I was curious to get their take on what to do and how to approach the current unprecedented situation.
Ken Newman’s Magnet Productions
Robert Middleton’s Action Plan Marketing
This week’s ONE GOOD THING:
Foo Fighters Live in Concert 2006 Hyde Park London
The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is monkey-wrenching so many things, it’s hard to keep track. One of the challenges that some people might face could include having to deal with a major home or business issue having to do with the building they live in or work out of.
On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, we get a little away from the event and tradeshow world, to a more general home and business approach. Garrett Greenberg of Fortifi Financial works with a real estate program that is specifically designed to loan money based on the equity in the property, not on the home owner or business owner’s credit score or income. For example, a leaky roof or a cracked foundation may get worse over time if they aren’t dealt with. Garrett explains how it all works.
A look at how the PACE program works at the FortiFi Financial site.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Succession on HBO.
While many of us are working from home, trying to juggle work schedules with kid demands and more, we are looking forward to a time when things return to at least semi-normal. On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I chatted with Heather Haigler of Switch Four about their new tradeshow management software, WorkTrip – for the remainder of 2020 they are offering free access. Here’s the conversation we had about that and other things that were on our minds:
Links mentioned in the show:
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: free streaming for the next few weeks on EPIX, thanks to XFinity, where you can find all of the James Bond movies!
Working from home isn’t as easy or as glamorous as you might think. If you ever thought it glamorous at all, right? On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I share a few tips that came from what I’ve learned by working from a home office for nearly nine years.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: counting the things that you’re grateful for.
When Natural Products Expo West was cancelled on March 2, just a couple of days before the doors were to have opened to 80,000+ attendees and 3500+ exhibitors, there was a sense of “what did we miss by not being able to exhibit, by not being able to attend?”
And it happened for everyone. Here at TradeshowGuy Exhibits, we had several clients who had done modest upgrades to their exhibits. Upgrades that would have showed off new products, new brands, you name it.
All unseen.
But I thought they should see the light of day, so that followers could at least get an idea of what they missed. Plus, knowing that companies often change year over year, there’s a good chance that none of these exhibit revisions would be used in 2021. We worked with several other clients at the show, mainly to assist in installation and dismantle, so there was nothing new to show. I reached out to the clients involved, and many of them said, YES, please share those concepts; the artwork and revisions that we would have shown our visitors at Expo West. And one client declined to show off their new look, opting instead to save it for the future. Here’s a short video of those changes:
Check ’em all out here:
We’re all dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 Coronavirus. Work, play, daily activities and more are all curtailed or affected. It seemed like last week put us on the precipice of something that we’re not quite ready for. In this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I share a few observations on what I’ve seen.
Here’s the ongoing, probably mostly up-to-date database of events and tradeshows that have been cancelled or postponed: On Location
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Secret City, the Australian series starring Anna Torv of The Fringe fame.
Natural Products Expo West was postponed and/or cancelled a couple of days before floor doors were to open. I happened to be sitting on the airplane headed to LA for the show when I got the news.
This week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee podcast/vlog is more or less a travelogue of the 6 days I spent in LA and surrounding area, along with a few comments about Natural Products Expo West. I worked with clients to make sure they had return shipping handled and connected with several old friends and relatives.
Take a look/listen:
Show Notes: I mentioned a handful of folks that I encountered during the week.
Jay Gilbert interview
Paul Jackson interview
Drew at Radio.com – Entercom Radio, including JACK-FM.
Roger Steffens, author, speaker, Bob Marley historian, reggae collector (Wikipedia page)
Roger’s Instagram page: The Family Acid.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: having a little free time on the road.
Share Experience is a new company formed late last year by Marcus Vahle and John Pugh, both with long experience in the event and tradeshow world. Given what looks to be a unique approach to carving out their niche in the event world, I thought it might be fun to catch up with them for a conversation on this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee:
Check out Marcus and John’s new company Share Experience.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: Dean Koontz’s “The Forbidden Door.”
Hiett Ives is a four-decade veteran of the tradeshow industry. He publishes a weekly newsletter on language that is short and fun to read. Hiett also helps companies gather more leads at tradeshows with his company Show Dynamics.
Check out our conversation on this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee:
Check out Hiett’s company, Show Dynamics, here.
This week’s ONE GOOD THING: The release of “I’ll See You Again in 25 Years” by Completely Grocery and The Sauce Unlimited.