Fall is typically a busy time of year for trade shows. They are an excellent way to find new prospects and to connect with customers and colleagues, but it's easy to waste time and money at trade shows. It's not just the booth ($2k-$20k) and travel expenses ($1k/day) including airline, hotel, rental car, shipping and buying an extension cable at an outrageously overpriced convention center office supply center, it's the week of time spent at the show (including travel days) plus weeks of time spent preparing your strategy, crafting your sales pitches, organizing the booth materials, and going back and forth with the guy at the print shop counter who claims to not see that the 'red' in the color swatch is not the same as the 'red' in your 6'x6' banner.

Trade shows are a combination of high-level strategy and low-level minutiae, so a checklist comes in handy. Thanks to Jason Cohen from Smart Bear Software for this terrific checklist, which we added to, based on things we've learned by involving online training into your strategy. Here's a downloadable version. 

One of the common misconceptions about elearning is that it’s boring.  Many see it as some type of trivial online course that includes a PowerPoint presentation and ends with a quiz. Any training manager will tell you, a bored learner is an unproductive learner. If learners aren’t engaged in the course, they’re not going to retain the information.

Thankfully, elearning has come a long way from static slideshows with a lack of interactivity. A diverse online training program keeps your training program dynamic and exciting, enticing learners to continue coming back to your University. For example, a diverse online training program can include:

• Online courses for showcasing information that needs to be kept up-to-date, such as product demos or CEUs.
• Webcasts to get out time-sensitive information, like a new product launch.
• Games, which can help learners develop skills and get real-world training in a virtual scenario.
  
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