Last week I was sent to a two-day conference in Sydney. Representing my workplace, my role was to try and create some opportunities by hosting a stand at the conference’s trade show. It was my first time doing this sort of thing, though I’ve previously hosted service stands at large events – was never a selling aspect though. I’ve learnt that trade shows are a world all of their own.

Those exhibiting are all out on the hustings, trying to create business opportunities and attract passers-by into their exhibits. Those  manning exhibits, the people working on stands, seem to be a community. In the quieter parts of the day we walk around and chat to each other, often comparing notes on “traffic volume” and “realistic opportunities for development”. At lunch we stood together and chatted about sales techniques and shared our bouquets and brickbats on who had good and bad stands. It’s a nice little group of people and despite the fact that some of them are competing against each other (I’m not, we’re the only business of our kind here) they’ve all got time for a chinwag if it’s quieter.

The last time I was in a similar situation was when I was working on Election Day for a prospective MP. I was there working for one party and there were people from all points of the political compass. Obviously we were all competing for people’s votes and had different beliefs about what was the best way forward, but we still chatted amongst ourselves when it was quiet.

I don’t have a particularly good insight to offer from my time there, just wanted to record that it’s nice to see that even in a highly competitive business environment, people still have a few seconds (or more) to stop and make conversation with strangers.