How Excel, other venues, and exhibition organizers can improve - and how I keep records

Excel asked for my feedback and I was delighted to have the opportunity to make suggestions. 

1 Give listings of hotels and restaurants with guides to prices. 

2 Show which stations are nearest which events at Excel which is between two stations, one at each end. I wasted a lot of time getting off at Custom House and walking a long way when Prince Regent was nearer the other end.

 3 I also lost time going down to underground toilets down and up many stairs at the Custom House end. Give signs and distance to nearest ground level toilets for the disabled and those with heavy luggage.  

4 TFL announced change for Jubilee at Canada Water which wastes time because Canary Wharf is much quicker, just one escalator. Please warn people not to change at Canada Water which has three escalators, then at ground level, no signs, but a by stander in uniform told me  you cross the square, around the building ahead to another building. At this point I turned round and went back down the three escalators. I missed a meeting. 

5 Meetings should be listed at the front of the exhibition with arrows or maps to the stage. And make this printable map marking venues and time and dates available from the website. 

6 Event catalogues have numbers of stands too small to read. Have an online map which can be printed or printed in multiple sections and sellotaped together.

 7 Have a map with a tickbox on stands you have already visited so you can mark those to re-visit later or next day.  

8 Include exhibitors' websites so you can verify who you visited, phone numbers, emails etc. Many stands did not have address cards. Very confusing. I met the niece or cousin on the stand who spoke English.  The boss was somebody different. Their head office was not the same city or country as the producer of the product, where you could buy wine at a cellar door in Italy or visit their hotel or restaurant or shop which was yet another address. The distribution area such as the UK supermarket, eg Tesco, Majestic wines, was different again. It would have been useful to have a list of people on the stand and a list of products, with tick boxes. 

But what can I do differently?

At one exhibition at Expo in Singapore, I learned a system for saving business cards. The stand owners had one lined notebook, labelled with the event. You can do this using the catalogue or a leaflet or flyer, or print one. 

Use An Address Card Notebook

An address card notebook keeps each address card with the notes made during or after the event.

One's instinct is to add the address details at the end. The address card system makes the notes look like a webpage. Or a letter. Instead you have the business address at the top.

If the notebook is shared by two or more people on the stand, to rith right or underneath the address cards of the visitor you place the name and contact details of the person on the stand.Each page had a section at the top for business cards. You can create that by drawing a line across every page a few inches down. Or simply staple the business card of each person you meet at the top of a page. They stapled the business card at the top, then made notes, during the meeting, afterwards, and in the evening. They noted facts. Action to take. Date deadlines.

Afterwards, the rest of the notebook can be used for the year's further events. The following year's annual event. Or tear out the blank pages and staple them for notes inside a folded piece of coloured card, with a label to create a new, separate record of another exhibition.

My latest systems include

1 Photograph the person I met holding their business card or ID lanyard. Photograph myself with the product and person I met.

Write a blog online at the time and read it back to them, correcting errors in spelling and location.

Ask and say on my blog whether the product is discontinued, current, or yet to be launched.

Write on the address card the date and name of the show where we met. Note who I met if they gave me somebody else's address card.

Keep all the cards from an event together, in a box, or with an elastic band.

Keep all the leaflets from one show together. Cut off large borders of heavy card. Staple together related leaflets. 

Write a large label with the year, date, and local or event on the front of notebooks. Put a duplicate label on the spine and back. Write the word diary, notebook, travel, or year on the page edges.