{"id":286,"date":"2007-04-26T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2007-04-26T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=286"},"modified":"2007-04-26T07:00:07","modified_gmt":"2007-04-26T15:00:07","slug":"ecmsaas-shrinking-attendance-at-trade-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/ecmsaas-shrinking-attendance-at-trade-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"ECM\/SaaS: Shrinking Attendance At Trade Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

The annual\u00a0Association for Information and Image Management<\/a> (AIIM<\/a>) show has long been the showcase for vendors of document management, imaging and workflow software systems.\u00a0 AIIM has been around since 1943, originally known as the National Microfilm Association, and the tradeshow, especially in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s was always a huge and well attended event.<\/p>\n

That wasn’t the case<\/a> this past week at the AIIM show in Boston.\u00a0 While the show floor was big, the number of non-vendor attendees was not.\u00a0 The numbers\u00a0echoed\u00a0similar\u00a0low\u00a0attendance<\/a>\u00a0on the West coast last November at AIIM’s ECM West show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As another data point, last week Wednesday in Santa Clara I attended SaaSCon<\/a>.\u00a0 With the current buzz around SaaS I expected a large turnout, but was disappointed by a crowd of only a few hundred people.\u00a0 The floor of the exposition hall felt empy.<\/p>\n

Granted that there are no hard numbers here, just impressions from observations, but there does seem to be a marked shrinkage in attendees.<\/p>\n

John Mancini’s keynote at AIIM listed statistics showing why ECM is more important to organizations than ever before.\u00a0 SaaS is predicted to grow at a tremendous pace.\u00a0 You’d expect interest in these technologies\u00a0to convert to attendees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What’s going on?\u00a0 Maybe tradeshows are becoming\u00a0victims of the Internet.\u00a0 Browsing a web site or viewing on-demand Webinars might be more informative, time-efficient, cheaper and less tiring than attending a tradeshow.<\/p>\n

That is unless the tradeshow can be marketed and promoted as a not-to-be-missed event.\u00a0 The AIIM and SaaSCon numbers contrast<\/a> dramatically with the recent turnout\u00a0at the\u00a0Web 2.0<\/a> Expo in San Francisco.\u00a0 There an unexpectedly huge crowd of 10,000+ people from around the world showed up paying\u00a0as much as\u00a0$1495 to enter.<\/p>\n

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The annual\u00a0Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) show has long been the showcase for vendors of document management, imaging and workflow software systems.\u00a0 AIIM has been around since 1943, originally known as the National Microfilm Association, and the tradeshow,…<\/span><\/p>\n

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