Hi ,

 

All right, back in the saddle, as they say, after a vacation where I saw a few hundred million dollars worth of vintage automobiles (actually probably well in the the billions, really), hit a bunch of golf balls, ate great food and drank a little. 'Twas a ton of fun, but good to be back.

 

This week, budgeting for tradeshow; 3 cool things you'll find on our Exhibit Design Search, designing and preparing graphics for tradeshow exhibits, and a new podcast/vlog that looks at connecting the dots in our lives.

 

Soundtrack for this week's issue: Santana's Welcome. Released in 1973, Welcome followed a jazz fusion model that had produced Caravanserai the year before (both of which are among my favorite Santana albums!). Neither sold all that well at the time (or probably since then!), but for true Santana fans, the pair of albums stand out as a couple of the best of the band's catalog. Welcome contains one of my all-time favorite fusion jam songs, the incredible "Flame Sky" (video), which is an 11 and a half minute impossible tour de force with the unusually strange time signature of (probably) 17/8, held together by a two-chord bass riff by David Rauch and features soaring guitar by Carlos Santana. It still astonishes me. I don't know how drummer Michael Shrieve keeps it all together. 

 

Best Opening Lines for Tradeshows. You gotta get their attention. This short video from Robert Strong shows how it's done. Maybe.

 

Reverse Engineering Tradeshow Success. Start at the end with your ultimate goals, and work backwards so you know what you have to do to get there.