I’ll begin by stating that while tradeshows may be necessary, they’re not at the top of my list of things to do with my time.  Nonetheless, since it’s snowing at our Boston office and my next trip to our Houston location is a few weeks away, I am grateful for the sunshine.

What I am surprised by is A) that the show has grown so (relatively speaking) lavish — see GE’s small city for more on that and B) the marketing, despite the truly exceptional tradeshow booths, is downright corny.

Ok Paul, you might be saying.  Isn’t that true of all tradeshows?

Fair enough, but it’s weird to see the trappings of a consumer-focused show about IT.  Where else do you see puns made about EMRs?  It’s more glitz, same fundamental problems of communication.  I’m in the industry and I couldn’t dechiper what half of the vendors did without reading some literature.  It’s like a teen movie where the geek is remade in the image of the cool jock, but he still keeps his slide rule in his locker.  (Snort, snort.)

To wit, I’ll post a few photos of what I thought were the funniest booths, but let me sign off with a description of the one which I vote as most bizarre.

What you see when you approach the booth is a series of stuffed animals in cages.  The tag line is about user “adoption” and the dogs need a home.  Get it?  A pun on the word adoption.

The thing is… the booth looked like a puppy mill at the mall.  And since the puppies were stuffed, they appeared dead.

A friendly reminder that nothing kills faster than a marketing message that doesn’t live up to the promise.