I was looking over information on the upcoming STAFDA show and saw their list of “Session Speakers”. These speakers will be speaking on Sunday, November 12 which I think is the first day of the show.
David Avrin – “Blink and they’re gone” – author of It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You!
Eric Chester – author of On Fire At Work: How Great Companies Ignite Passion in Their People without Burning Them Out
Jill Geisler – author of Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know and also has a podcast Q&A: Leadership and Integrity in the Digital Age
Jason Young – After 10 years in senior management with Southwest Airlines, Young launched LeadSmart, Inc. to develop successful corporate cultures for forward-thinking companies. His clients include Starbucks, IHOP, Tyson Foods and Southwest Airlines
Thomas Schoenfelder Ph.D. – senior vice president, Research & Devlopment at Caliper Corporation, has over 20 years of experience in high-impact performance improvement initiatives, organizational diagnostics, assessment design, intervention implementation and evaluation.
Then, on Tuesday, November 14, Alan Beaulieu president of the Institute for Trend Research will look at recent economic trends and provide a three-hour update on the economy. I know the Beaulieu brothers do presentations at NFDA meetings and also some regional fastener association meetings so that is a familiar name to some in the fastener industry.
I wonder if the Fastener Community would attend these types of presentations if they were offered at one of our industry trade shows? Would we have the interest or do we prefer industry specific topics?
These STAFDA speakers do not really focus on industry specific topics. The speakers are not aimed at the construction market or tools or special fasteners. They seem to be more about corporate culture, selling and leadership.
I pulled out my copy of the program from the Vegas Fastener Show, AKA the International Fastener Expo and took a look at the speakers. Pac-West offered a session “Trunped! What Does It Mean for the U.S. Economy”. And WIFI offered “Working With the World”, which I believe focused on today’s global business environment. The Young Fastener Professionals held a panel discussion with this year’s and last year’s Fastener Hall of Fame inductees as well as this year’s Young Fastener Professional award winner. They also had a presentation on engaging millennials in today’s workplace. There were a couple different presentations on computer systems offered by InxSQL and Computer Insights and two put on by NFDA on using Excel for Customer Satisfaction Surveys and Using Microsoft Find Time To Schedule Meetings
Additionally, there were fastener related topics including “Boltology 101”, “The absolute least you must know about hydrogen embrittlement” and a Fastener Technology Workshop put on by the Fastener Training Institute. There was also a presentation put on by MANA regarding “Uber, AirBNB & Sales Reps”.
One difference I think is that many of the Vegas Show speakers are doing presentations DURING the trade show, which means you need to leave the exhibit area to attend. Not sure if that hurts attendance. I would like to hear if anyone has numbers out there as to how many attendees showed up at each of these events. Just my opinion but sometimes it feels like there is some meeting going on all the time and sometimes they overlap.
STAFDA show tickets are quite a bit more expensive than that for the fastener show. You might get more nationally recognized speakers, but you might also be paying for them. Just curious what people think about the content, timing and amount of speakers at each of the shows.
