posted by Christian

I got home late last night (actually early this AM), extremely tired, cleansed myself of Vegas, kissed/hugged the family, and am here to do a stream of conscious review.

Here is the truth: the show expo was not impressive. Then again, trade shows rarely beat this wrap in my book. Something about the format of these things really bothers me, and I have had a lot of time to think about this having done a million of these things for Sony way back when. These shows are the definition of noise, and you start to really understand why solid marketing companies such as Apple rarely toss themselves into this mix. Rather, they create their own shows, and sell their products through their own stores. I guess we could call this brand/experience isolation, and it is a smart way to go if you can pull it off.

Phil and I decided to go on offense at this show, knowing full-well that our plan could get us into hot water with show officials (it did). Our alter egos got the moon boot from the expo floor, and even the hallway (how does that work?). In other words, we had to lose our astronaughty video gear or leave. We left…

What NAR does have is a large amount of great people that are members, and this is where the value proposition is. In short, we loved hanging out with everyone that the show afforded us, and got to add some great new friends. We got to see our Trulia pals, got to hang with the Active Rain Crew (we had no idea that they were going to pimp our ride), got to catch up with Jeff Turner (still love the guy even though we have some big differences of opinion), got to see some of the Zillow crew, Kevin Boer, Pat Kitano, Mr. Joel Burslem, E-Rock from Vid2R and his lovely ladies (thanks for helping us shoot man, and for letting us ditch our bags in your booth), Dan Green of Bring the Blog, and many others. In short, Phil and I seem to gravitate towards the same great people every time we get into the industry mix. This time we got to add some more people to this list, and we have to love that.

Summary: if you plan to really stand out and capitalize (brand wise) from having a floor presence at one of these shows, it’s going to be really, really difficult. The rules aren’t in your favor. If you are there to hang out with great people, and forge new relationships, this show is a must.

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