Techology 2017 exhibition

AUTOMATION • ELKOM • HYDRAULICS & PNEUMATICS • MECATEC • FINNTEC • TOOLTEC • JOINTEC

Technology 2015 exhibition is over and somewhat analyzed, so now it's time to think about next exhibition 2017. Is there still a place for the exhibition and how to get a message through there ? The Technology exhibition used to be just Elkom a few years ago, but since there's been added some other events as well, without the visitors really increasing significantly. Meaning that each of the events are a bit on the downward spiral. Looking at this years exhibition shows clearly, that three days for this event is way, way too much. There was quite a good attendance on Wednesday, some people on Tuesday also, but Thursday was a complete waste of time.

Espotel had a really nice booth this year :

Problem with an Engineering house in any exhibition is what to show for the visitors. And also how to even describe what the booth stands for and what are we selling... This time we had some really nice Customer references visible, Orion Diagnostica's go -device, Aidon's electricity meter, iCare's eye pressure meter and C2 Smartlights device. Of course we weren't selling those, they were there to show what kind of complete products Espotel has designed for it's customers. 

Because as interesting as Engineers actually are, the Products that we have developed for our Customers are usually even more interesting.

We also had our Production Testing platform Procket in important role and some demo systems showing emerging technologies, to motivate our Customers into adapting the latest technology to their products. This year the main focus was on Lora -radio demonstration, which included Arm Mbed and IBMs Bluemix as part of the end to end IoT -system. 

IBM and ARM also had persons available on our booth, to tell more how the ARM mbed and IBMs Bluemix can be used to connect Your products to Cloud cost efficiently and rapidly.

ARMs Neil Jackson and Espotels Jaakko Ala-Paavola also gave a speech on the subject : 

So, we had a good time, and had a lot to show on the exhibition. And there was a good amount of people visiting our booth. Mostly existing customers who came to visit and talk about things going on or having just started. Some new interesting possibilities did emerge as well. 

But, the big question is this : Is it worth the money and time spent ?

There's no easy answer to this. Counting the costs is easy, but counting the gain is a lot harder. Three days, with 2-3 persons on the booth costs, and there other direct costs as well. On the gain side there is positive visibility for audience visiting the exhibition, some actual new projects and a lot of time spent discussing with our Customers. 

The major problem with Exhibitions of any kind is, that they are perhaps a bit old fashioned events. Do You actually get something worth spending Your valuable working time by going to the event as a visitor ? I'm not so sure. Of course as a host on Espotel booth I'd like to think so and we did our best to provide real content for our Customers. But would I go to the Exhibition if we didn't have our own booth there ? Perhaps. But I guess I'd prefer a shorter morning coffee -type of event on some really focused interesting subject. On the other hand the exhibition is an important social event and as such also valuable. 

So, if I'll try to predict the future : 2017 there will be an Espotel booth on Technology Exhibition. Hopefully the event will be only two days. And we'll try to come up with ideas to make the visit to our booth even more rewarding to our Customers. Perhaps we'll arrange scheduled Technology demos on our stand and definitely we'll be even more visible with our network and partners. Because it takes expertise from several players to create the success stories that Finish Industry needs these days and in the future.