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Gonstructions of the past

Let's fast forward five years to 2004. Now, from that vantage point, let's look back at the trade shows for the distribution channel that were held in 1999.

From our imaginary perch, we can see several things that have become obvious five years later. Most of the exhibiting companies and the huge majority of participants were woefully unprepared for the revolution in sales, marketing and distribution that occurred in the early years of the new millennium.

It wasn't as if the computer upheaval came without warning. Rather, experts real and selfproclaimed had been insisting that the revolution the computer initiated in the last two decades of the old century would accelerate tremendously in the new century.

When computers first appeared, perhaps 20Vo in our business plunged in and worked very hard to make the new technology work very hard for them. They initially learned that computers were nothing if not expensive, exasperating and time taking. But they also discovered the new machines could be dirt cheap for what they did, were marvels of efficiency and saved scads of time over old methods. Their investments in money, time and patience paid handsome dividends in terms of increased profitability, streamlined operations and competitive position. In short, it was worth it.

It seems obvious that most of the trade shows in 1999 were constructions of the past, not the future. Laptop computers were as scarce as lumbermen carrying lapdogs; modems in booths rare. Usually where there was commerce, it was paper and pen, not electronic. Both buyers and sellers operated in the comfortable old ways. Most displays were static, seldom animated. Closed circuit television was a rarity. Many had to stop momentarily to recall what e-commerce meant.

2004 is only five years away. Will our trade shows then be a wonderment of dazzling technology or merely a rehash, as they are today, of what went before?