Next week is AdTech San Francisco and I have compiled a list of people & companies that I need to meet up with. As the date of April 15 draws closer, the list seems to magically grow by itself! If it’s anything like last year’s AdTech San Francisco, my meeting list will continue to grow, especially during the days of the conference itself. I also just received official instructions on how to pick up my press pass at the event so I will be able to attend some speaker sessions and report back with any interesting findings.

For first time attendees of AdTech, be sure to bring lots of business cards and do your research before hand. You will get so much more out of the conference if you come prepared knowing what you want to accomplish and who you want to meet. As The Kid wrote, “Stop being a weirdo so go meet some people!“. I think msdanielle may be organizing a get together. If anyone else is attending this year’s event, give her a shout and let’s meet up.

To help you plan AdTech San Francisco 2008, visit build your itinerary and check off the events you plan to attend and simply print out the list or save it in your own profile for later use. For all the MAC users out there, sched*AdTech will let you see who else is attending a particular session or event, which events are the most popular, create groups calendars combining your schedule with others’ and view events by location. And you can even download an iCal file of your personalized schedule to your calendar of choice. Check both out and see which one works better for you.

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Over the last few years, I have focused more on the online marketing and business conferences. Having come from the life sciences background, it was a treat to be able to attend a health related event again. The largest health food B2B trade show in Canada is put on by the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA). Last weekend, I attended the CHFA Expo West event in Vancouver and was able to sample lots of new, soon-to-be-released food products before they hit the market. More interestingly, I noticed some very interesting trends in the health food industry. There was no doubt that the biggest marketing trend for 2008 is going organic and all natural.

Ten to fifteen years ago, if you were to attend a health food show, you would see booth after booth of vitamin supplement companies. While supplement sales were growing exponentially at that time, many health companies manufacturing and marketing organic and all natural food products faced an uphill battle trying to stay in business. Consumers were looking for a magical pill and not a food product to increase their health. Based on last weekend’s show, it looks like consumer demand has taken a complete 180 degrees U-turn and is moving away from pills and heading towards the organic and all natural market place.

Organic: From Niche to Mainstream

Statistics Canada reported that in 2006, there were these many certified organic farms in Canada:

• 2,462 hay farms
• 916 fruit & vegetables farms
• 500+ animal farms

In order for farms and products to be certified organic, there are rules & regulations that must be met so there are actually many more farms that did not make the official organic list. In fact, Statistics Canada reported that there are 12,000 farms that use organic practices, but have not undergone a formal certification to identify themselves. These are the farms that sell through farmers’ markets and direct sales ventures (as opposed to a grocery store). Reason for this may be that while Canada has had national organic standards since 1999, these have been voluntary. However, federal regulations for organic products (the Organic Products Regulations), are scheduled to take effect on December 4, 2008. On this date, any product marked as organic must be certified by a certification body accredited by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Stats Canada also reported that in 2006, although sales of certified organic products saw impressive growth, it still only accounted for less than 1% of the $46.5 billion Canadians spent in national grocery stores. Once the Organic Products Regulations kicks in later this year, many of the non-organic farms & products will no longer be able to label their products as such thus effectively competition will automatically be removed from this space. This will open up a huge market for organic producers. Certified industry players will have a massive advantage over players who are organic but not yet certified. Like in any other industry, early adopters will be the ones who reap the rewards.

Most Memorable Organic Conversation

I met with many successful organic businesses at the show but one conversation was particularly memorable to me. I spoke with an organic farmer named Dwayne Smith from Grainworks Inc., an organic farming company based out of Saskatchewan. It was very interesting talking to Dwayne as he believes in a complete approach when it comes to organic farming – not just simply following the rules but getting down to building a symbiotic relationship with the soil and even the machinery.

Most consumers purchase food from a grocery store but farmers like Dwayne are the ones who are hands-on and nurtures the land so that we can all benefit from it. Meeting and talking with Dwayne was definitely one of my highlights of the show. Thanks for the potato growing tips Dwayne. This season, I have my heart set on harvesting my largest potato crop yet!

Health Bar Manufacturers = Lead Generation Networks

If you have attended any online marketing trade shows in the last three years, you will know that there has been many new lead generation companies, otherwise known as CPA networks (cost per acquisition, cost per action or whatever you want to call them), popping up. At this health food show, the ubiquitous equivalent of a CPA network was the health bar manufacturer. I was completely shocked at the large number of exhibitors promoting health bars. Nuts only, fruit with nuts, in combination with something else, protein rich, soy based… the varieties go on. Just like the online marketing world, it will be interesting to see how many of these health bar companies find their niche and manage to stay in business in a year’s time. It’s difficult to see that all of them will be around for the long haul.

Summary of the CHFA Expo West Event

Take home message to businesses was that consumer demand is ever increasing for organic and all natural food products – adopt early and get your product on the market in order to stay competitive.

Overall, the show was very well organized and attracted many top notch exhibitors. I believe the show room floor actually took up the maximum amount of space within the Vancouver Trade & Convention Center. Luckily, Vancouver is adding an entire new section so that it will be able to accommodate even large trade shows in the future. Given that consumers are becoming ever more health conscious, I have no doubt that next year’s event will be even larger and more organic to boot.

Stats Canada Source: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/080328/d080328a.htm

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The Massive Technology Show returned to Vancouver in 2008. I was able to catch the first half of the 1-day show and here is a recap. There were too many cool exhibitors to recap for Massive Vancouver 2008 but I do want to share 2 exhibitors in particular that I had very interesting chats with. I also wanted to share a shockingly negative experience from the Information Security panel session that I attended.

First of all, a big thank you goes out to Lindsay Smith, CEO & Executive Producer of the show. That’s me and Lindsay in the picture op on the right. As with last year’s Massive, Lindsay extended to me an All Access Media Pass so I was able to visit the exhibitor hall and gain access to speaker presentations. Thanks Lindsay.

Yahoo! Canada (Exhibitor)

When the Yahoo Publisher Networkk (YPN) first launched, I was invited to join as a publisher but shortly after was also rejected based on the fact that I was not a US based publisher (ie. I did not have a US Tax ID). So I asked Martin Byrne, National Director for Yahoo Search Marketing Canada, when Yahoo! will open up YPN so publishers outside of the US will also be able to run their advertisements. The short answer was that no publishers outside of the US will ever get accepted into YPN. Reason for this is that Yahoo! will eventually phase out YPN and launch a new replacement product that will handle both the advertising and publishing. Essentially, your new Yahoo! account will allow you to purchase and/or run ads through the same account. From our conversation, looks like beta for the new platform will be some time in Q3 of this year and hopefully Q4 is where we will see the hard launch. Finally! I am glad there will soon be another online revenue generation option for hard working publishers.

everystockphoto – Vibrant Software (Exhibitor)

Dual 24 inch LCD screens at Vibrant Software’s booth was not what got my attention but rather, the content showing in the monitors was what intrigued me to ask some questions. Everystockphoto.com was the featured website at Vibrant’s booth. So what is the relation between Vibrant and everystockphoto? Before I get to that, let me describe everystockphoto. In short, it is an index of millions (over 2.5 million at the time of this blog post) of freely licensed photos, from many sources, available for use by anyone. It was explained to me that anyone can download and freely use most of the images from this website as long as the images are referenced to the source. This will definitely come in handy for many websites & blogs who cannot afford to pay for stock images. Now the relation between everystockphoto.com and Vibrant. Apparently, Vibrant is a web development company who created this free photo site. The featured website was used as the hook at this trade show to get people to come up to their booth. This campaign worked. Nicely done Vibrant Software.

Information Security Panel (Speaker Presentation)

By the time I got to the tradeshow, this panel, moderated by Chris Sepp (MYRA Systems Corp), had already begun. The 4 security experts on the panel were John R. Hill (McAfee Inc), Dmitry Samosseiko (Sophoslabs), Duane Nickull (Adobe Systems) and Jeff Malenfant (Helcim Inc). I did enjoy some interesting comments and examples from the group but there was also one comment in particular that left a sour taste in my mouth.

One of the experts on the panel (Duane Nickull from Adobe) said something to the effect that, “users that own a bluetooth device who do not take steps to secure it deserve to have their information stolen.” That was not the exact phrase but from his body language and demeanor at the time, what the panelist meant was that (stupid) users deserve it when hackers steal their data. I was glad someone from the crowd raised their hand and shared to the group that users in general are not stupid by nature, but sometimes, happen to own a piece of equipment that can put them at risk without the user even realizing it. I have to completely agree with this comment from the crowd. Be it right or wrong, many end users are just that – someone who uses a product for it’s intended purpose and don’t worry or know enough about security threats that may come with their new purchase. Needless to say, when an expert in the industry can make a condescending comment like the one above in an educational forum, it sure looks like there is no more hope for the rest of us saps who are not security gurus. Shortly after hearing that comment, I left the presentation (along with a few other attendees I might add).

Massive Technology Show Vancouver 2008 Summary

Lindsay Smith put on another fantastic event and I look forward to attending future events. By this time next year, this event will be put on by Blink Media as Lindsay has joined forces with the crew from Get Connected (Mike Agerbo and AJ Vickery, both of whom I have watched on TV since the first generation Chalk TV days).

Others who also blogged about Massive Technology Show 2008

Miss 604 – Rebecca Bollwitt

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