Relationship building

I've been thinking about Infocomm recently, since I'm preparing to go this year after missing last year due to my knee replacement. One of the main reasons for me to go is relationship building. There isn't usually a "must-see" new product (it's been incremental improvements for a long time now), so for me it's the people that matter the most.

There's many different types of relationships that can be strengthened at a show like Infocomm, and they all are useful in their own way. For me, the main thing is meeting up with people I have become friends with over the years. Our roles have changed and evolved, but it remains a good network to have if a question pops up for a job, or I need info on a product I might not have dealt with yet. This happens at parties, running into someone on the show floor, booth tours if they are working for someone who has a booth, or even just grabbing a hot dog in the food court with someone. It is a time for putting a live face to the name and renewing connections that most of the year are completely virtual in nature.

Another type of relationship is with particular vendors. While this may also cross over into the first type, this is more making connections in the companies who's products you're working with every day. This type of relationship works well if you have an issue that needs to be resolved, or a special circumstance that you need advice on how to proceed. Building these relationships is very important to having a successful business all year long.

Something that always tends to happen is you run into competitors or other people from your area. Becoming friends with people in other companies is a great way to find out how others are handling different challenges, and even how different company's corporate environments operate. This is a small industry, no matter how you slice it. Burning bridges with a competitor is almost always a bad idea, because you never know if someday you might be working with or for some of those guys. It's a good idea to have some contacts in other places, should something drastic happen like you get let go the Monday after Infocomm (yes this happened to me...). Contacts on Twitter and ones that I had just been meeting with in real life at the show helped me out during that time, and I was hired by someone else in fairly short order.

So in all this technology that we deal in every day, don't discount the human element. It's the most important thing we do, and the reason our industry exists in the first place.