HIStalk Quotes
HIMSS 2005 from one vendor's perspective
posted 02/18/2005
Thanks to Blogger Boy for this excellent account of what it's like on yellow badge side of HIMSS. It's great reading. I'm still interested, so send me your account.
I am a vendor who exhibited at HIMSS. We are a relatively small company compared to Cerner, McKesson or Siemens, but that is not always a bad thing! I will be happy to share with you my experiences at HIMSS, recorded as I fly home Thursday night.
I must remain anonymous because if my bevy of overpaid attorneys, overly cautious marketing people, and overworked senior management knew I was doing this, they would lose their collective minds.
First and foremost, we pray for crappy weather. This is one of the many things HIMSS cannot control. San Diego two years ago was a vendor's dream come true. The rain was so bad most of you did not even leave the area for lunch. Last year we had to compete with Mickey, but the chill in the air kept many of you at least near the exhibit hall. When we awoke in Dallas to those beautiful azure skies on both Monday and Tuesday, we knew we were going to be in trouble.
As the temperature both days drifted toward 80°, the band of back hall brothers all knew that this was not going to be one of our better attended exhibit halls. I do have to say that Tuesday afternoon picked up considerably for us. This must be due to the fact that many of you were leaving on Wednesday and knew you needed to get some literature and giveaways to take back to your bosses (and spouses!) in Snowland who were watching the weather reports for the Dallas area. They rent golf clubs at Las Colinas, don't they? Hey, if I knew where you were you can bet your spouse and your boss had an inkling too. Of course, perhaps your spouse and your boss were happy to see you leave for a few days. (Wink, wink!)
I have to give it to HIMSS for trying to improve the traffic flow with ideas like the Taste of HIMSS which I believe they started last year. Keeping people wandering around the hall late Wednesday is great for us guys who are not on the main aisle. The must-be-present-to-win drawing idea for Thursday is another good one. Keep trying HIMSS; we need lots of traffic flow to justify the unbelievable expense of attending this show.
I am not sure if the average attendee has any idea of the cost we incur to have a booth at HIMSS. The big guys easily spend upwards of $1.5 million for their "cities". And you wonder why your license fees are so high! If that subject is of interest to anyone, I would be happy to share booth expenses from a little player. You can easily do the math to see how really silly it becomes as you go up in size. For instance, in my small booth, I paid about $2,500 to have my carpet vacuumed four times. While I could buy the nicest vacuum cleaner ever made, use it during the show, and then just throw it away if I so desired (I wouldn't), we are simply not allowed that luxury. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
While I cannot speak for the guys in the "cities", we come to this show every year to see our customers and show off what we think is a wonderful product. We always hope everyone who comes into our booth feels our excitement and sees the genuine concern we have for our software and our clients. That is why we want you to buy from us, not to support our $1.5 million "city". We promise to blow your money wisely on things like additional support staff and enhancements to our product that you want implemented. Call us silly.
This was our fifth HIMSS. We showed up on Sunday in New Orleans for our very first HIMSS to a poorly set up booth. Since then we have begun going earlier and earlier to ensure things were done to our liking. This year and forever more, I go with our CTO, COO and young technical whiz (he prefers Shiznit) on the Wednesday before the meeting. We set up our own network and crack the whip on our booth rental company. It gives us great peace of mind to know that it is all working when the rest of the crew gets there on Saturday and Sunday. We then stay through Thursday to take all our stuff down and pack it up. It is a long week but it is worth it to us. I'll bet Neal P. does the same thing. NOT!
We begin preparing for the next HIMSS while we are at the current HIMSS. The biggest angst is booth selection time. It is always running 45 minutes to an hour late. Placement is based on points. We are finally getting enough points to get a decent selection time. As they say in the Real Estate business, it is all about location,location, location. Getting on the main hallway, particularly in San Diego, is paramount. Anything slightly off the main throughway is hidden by the "cities". For us, that hour we spend waiting for our moment of next year's booth selection is absolutely dreadful. Next year you will not be able to avoid us, as our points have finally taken us to main aisle status.
The big push for HIMSS preparation begins for us in earnest around the first of June. That is when we have to select a hotel and begin fighting for rooms. We have an administrative person who owns "the book" in our company. She makes sure we order all the things by the mandated times for the show. A group of us then spends the few months before the show polishing up what we want to show and making sure we are ready to go. That is a really exciting time for our company and particularly for our management team. We hold company-wide meetings before and after the show to let everyone know what we are doing and then how it went. Preparing for the show is a lot of work. When we hear them announce the exhibit hall is open on Monday afternoon, it makes all the preparation worth it.
By Thursday, I am completely over it. I think we did a couple of demos today. Thursday is known as vendor trading day. Just like you, I know I had better come home with some decent stuff for my kids. Funny, for all the years I have traveled to client sites doing implementations and site visits, my kids knew never to expect a thing. And yet every year when I load up to go to HIMSS, I am instructed by them what I should look for in collateral. The older they get, the more refined their tastes have become. Anyway, none of us vendors want to ship back the stuff we shipped out for the show anyway. So there are a lot of people with yellow badges bartering away those last 2.5 hours. There were not many white badges to be seen. I wish more of you could stay for the hours on Thursday in the exhibit hall. Talk about personal demos!
It is a long, tough four days for us. But it is entirely worth it to meet new people, share our vision and see old friends. You will have to stop by our booth next year, Mr. Blogger, and let us show you what we are all about!
I must remain anonymous because if my bevy of overpaid attorneys, overly cautious marketing people, and overworked senior management knew I was doing this, they would lose their collective minds.
First and foremost, we pray for crappy weather. This is one of the many things HIMSS cannot control. San Diego two years ago was a vendor's dream come true. The rain was so bad most of you did not even leave the area for lunch. Last year we had to compete with Mickey, but the chill in the air kept many of you at least near the exhibit hall. When we awoke in Dallas to those beautiful azure skies on both Monday and Tuesday, we knew we were going to be in trouble.
As the temperature both days drifted toward 80°, the band of back hall brothers all knew that this was not going to be one of our better attended exhibit halls. I do have to say that Tuesday afternoon picked up considerably for us. This must be due to the fact that many of you were leaving on Wednesday and knew you needed to get some literature and giveaways to take back to your bosses (and spouses!) in Snowland who were watching the weather reports for the Dallas area. They rent golf clubs at Las Colinas, don't they? Hey, if I knew where you were you can bet your spouse and your boss had an inkling too. Of course, perhaps your spouse and your boss were happy to see you leave for a few days. (Wink, wink!)
I have to give it to HIMSS for trying to improve the traffic flow with ideas like the Taste of HIMSS which I believe they started last year. Keeping people wandering around the hall late Wednesday is great for us guys who are not on the main aisle. The must-be-present-to-win drawing idea for Thursday is another good one. Keep trying HIMSS; we need lots of traffic flow to justify the unbelievable expense of attending this show.
I am not sure if the average attendee has any idea of the cost we incur to have a booth at HIMSS. The big guys easily spend upwards of $1.5 million for their "cities". And you wonder why your license fees are so high! If that subject is of interest to anyone, I would be happy to share booth expenses from a little player. You can easily do the math to see how really silly it becomes as you go up in size. For instance, in my small booth, I paid about $2,500 to have my carpet vacuumed four times. While I could buy the nicest vacuum cleaner ever made, use it during the show, and then just throw it away if I so desired (I wouldn't), we are simply not allowed that luxury. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
While I cannot speak for the guys in the "cities", we come to this show every year to see our customers and show off what we think is a wonderful product. We always hope everyone who comes into our booth feels our excitement and sees the genuine concern we have for our software and our clients. That is why we want you to buy from us, not to support our $1.5 million "city". We promise to blow your money wisely on things like additional support staff and enhancements to our product that you want implemented. Call us silly.
This was our fifth HIMSS. We showed up on Sunday in New Orleans for our very first HIMSS to a poorly set up booth. Since then we have begun going earlier and earlier to ensure things were done to our liking. This year and forever more, I go with our CTO, COO and young technical whiz (he prefers Shiznit) on the Wednesday before the meeting. We set up our own network and crack the whip on our booth rental company. It gives us great peace of mind to know that it is all working when the rest of the crew gets there on Saturday and Sunday. We then stay through Thursday to take all our stuff down and pack it up. It is a long week but it is worth it to us. I'll bet Neal P. does the same thing. NOT!
We begin preparing for the next HIMSS while we are at the current HIMSS. The biggest angst is booth selection time. It is always running 45 minutes to an hour late. Placement is based on points. We are finally getting enough points to get a decent selection time. As they say in the Real Estate business, it is all about location,location, location. Getting on the main hallway, particularly in San Diego, is paramount. Anything slightly off the main throughway is hidden by the "cities". For us, that hour we spend waiting for our moment of next year's booth selection is absolutely dreadful. Next year you will not be able to avoid us, as our points have finally taken us to main aisle status.
The big push for HIMSS preparation begins for us in earnest around the first of June. That is when we have to select a hotel and begin fighting for rooms. We have an administrative person who owns "the book" in our company. She makes sure we order all the things by the mandated times for the show. A group of us then spends the few months before the show polishing up what we want to show and making sure we are ready to go. That is a really exciting time for our company and particularly for our management team. We hold company-wide meetings before and after the show to let everyone know what we are doing and then how it went. Preparing for the show is a lot of work. When we hear them announce the exhibit hall is open on Monday afternoon, it makes all the preparation worth it.
By Thursday, I am completely over it. I think we did a couple of demos today. Thursday is known as vendor trading day. Just like you, I know I had better come home with some decent stuff for my kids. Funny, for all the years I have traveled to client sites doing implementations and site visits, my kids knew never to expect a thing. And yet every year when I load up to go to HIMSS, I am instructed by them what I should look for in collateral. The older they get, the more refined their tastes have become. Anyway, none of us vendors want to ship back the stuff we shipped out for the show anyway. So there are a lot of people with yellow badges bartering away those last 2.5 hours. There were not many white badges to be seen. I wish more of you could stay for the hours on Thursday in the exhibit hall. Talk about personal demos!
It is a long, tough four days for us. But it is entirely worth it to meet new people, share our vision and see old friends. You will have to stop by our booth next year, Mr. Blogger, and let us show you what we are all about!
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