• Sore feet – standing on a concrete floor for up to eight hours can do a wonderful job on your feet and calves. I noticed that people’s shoes got more and more casual each day, with sneakers being worn by Saturday. These shows are the only things in my job description that make these demands of my body.
• Windows 8 got noticed – we had a large touch screen monitor running our Daisy product on the Windows 8 operating system prominently located in our booth. The Windows 8 start screen is distinctive with its colored tiles and is the current iconic image of “latest and greatest”. Many of our demos were being done on this unit because people wanted to see how the touch screen worked, as well as feel it for themselves.
• Good discussions with other vendors – there were many good conversations with other vendors at the show. Attendees come in waves when classes let out or at the lunch time break. The rest of the time can be spent looking at the latest offerings from competitors and partners.
• A rise in temporary staff – this is the first show where I talked with hygienists and other dental office staff who categorized themselves as “temps”. They were interested in learning the basics of several practice management systems to enhance their appeal to offices needing temporary staffing.
• Attendees love chocolate – we brought an assortment of Lindt chocolate truffles and had them prominently displayed in glass vases. I noticed them catch the eye of one attendee from about 50 feet away who bee-lined to our booth. If only we had been selling chocolate instead of software. Maybe we could package our software in chocolate envelopes.
• Conversing over twitter – some dentists and staff discovered that they can converse over twitter by using the #ODC2013 hash tag. Whether it’s about a note-worthy presentation or the exhibit floor booth giving away the best swag, twitter can be a great communications tool for a broad group of people attending a conference. As a colleague said “Social media is slowly growing within the dental community”.
• Discussions with clients and their key team members – It is not often that a client can have a face-to-face discussion that includes a person from the development team, support team and a partnering company all at the same time.
• Attendees like to have fun and win prizes – There is nothing like bringing home a bottle of wine after a long day in class, or better yet a new car! Some attendees even posted pictures on Facebook and all the goodies they took home from the ODC.
A successful three days at the Oregon Dental Conference.
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