I loved the three days I spent last week at the revamped ISA Supplier/Distributor Conference. I enjoyed the conference’s interesting program; three end-user representatives (from Walgreens, O’Reilly Auto Parts and Meineke/Maaco) made presentations about the importance their companies place on signage.
Much of the remaining content diverged from conventional, sign-conference subjects. The event wasn’t for sign companies per se (so, admittedly, many of you may not care). Featured topics included Google, POP, and dynamic (aka electronic digital) signage (even the speaker for the last topic acknowledged the genre’s lack of a uniform name). And, economist Dr. D. Jeffrey Dietrich matter-of-factly analyzed the current economic climate. I liked those presentations. But, they’re not why I loved being there.
Face time.
That’s what I crave. I remember Miratec’s Bert Guinee telling me some two decades ago: “Businesses don’t do business with businesses. People do business with people.” When I first joined ST’s staff more than a quarter-century ago, I traveled frequently. ISA had four shows a year. The Midwest Sign Assn. had four events. I went to all of them. I went to association meetings in California, Wisconsin and Texas. I spent a lot of time with sign people. No one had a cell phone, the Internet or email. I spoke with one national sign-company owner at the conference, and he said he had a project manager who’s never met a client for whom he’d built signage for a decade.
At the conference, I met Bo Wang, from a company called Pivot. He’s exhibited at the last two ISA shows, and, even though I try to walk the entire show, I’d missed his company. I learned about a major interior, dynamic-sign program for a QSR (quick-service restaurant) by a “normal” sign company, which I’d like to publish. I met the relatively new CEO of Permlight, George V. Preston. Sign Fab’s Todd Lashley told me about a problem with UL 48 that even his local inspector said didn’t leave any good alternative, so I’ll try to find out some specifics and report on it. Another sign-industry friend explained to me why one of his key executives didn’t work out. I shared a golf cart with the presenter from Meineke. We talked about signs. And our kids.
Technology and budget cuts now conspire to stymie such interaction. Conference calls rule. Depersonalization characterizes “efficiency.”
For three days, it felt really good to be alive.