This coming June 7-12 is the International Microwave symposium and Radio & Wireless Symposium in Boston.  A large number of exhibitors will be present and it promises to be a great chance to interact with hundreds of vendors and professionals.  It is likely that I will attend and the hope is to take advantage of the Symposium in the fullest.  In response to my reflection on PCB East, Don Lafferty made a few excellent points concerning the history of trade shows within this industry and the failure of many to be adequately prepared to take advantage of the show.  Read Don’s comment here.

Every attendee ought to be doing everything he/she can to maximize the return on the money spent in travel, fees and opportunity cost.  One of the best ways to do this is to start early and begin making contact with potential customers or vendors you are interested in before the show even starts.  If you are able to develop the foundation of a relationship before you attend the conference, your time spent mingling with your contacts at the show (going out to dinner, grabbing coffee, discussing the workshops, etc) will be far more fruitful and downright enjoyable.  Instead of running around the show thinking “meet, meet, meet” you will have the luxury of operating under a “greet, greet, greet” mentality towards your peers.

I challenge you to take advantage of the list linked to above and to do some pre-event networking.  I will be doing so, and hope to even do so with any readers of hotpcb who will be attending the Symposium.   Over the next few weeks I will be posting various articles on how to use various online tools to maximize your pre-event networking.  Feel free to use the comments section below to share your ideas or to reach out to other readers and see when they will be at the show.

Cheers,

Liam

Read Part One Here.