| 2011 JUDGES |
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Kathy Granger,
former director,
exhibition marketing, Thomson Reuters, Eagan, MN |
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Amy Gregory, CTSM
senior veterinary conference planner, Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc., Topeka, KS |
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Marla Merritt,
director of sales
and marketing,
OrthoBanc LLC,
Chattanooga, TN |
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Doreen Paquette,
event and trade show coordinator, Wacker Chemical Corp., Adrian, MI |
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Adam Polaszewski,
trade show and events manager, CareerBuilder Inc., Chicago |
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Kerry Talbot,
director of
trade
show/event marketing,
Quintiles
Transnational, Durham, NC |
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Mara Weber,
manager for trade shows and events,
Honeywell Process Solutions,
Phoenix, AZ
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"Once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information."
- Edward R. Murrow
While EXHIBITOR certainly hopes to exalt great ideas in every issue, once a year we devote an entire issue not only to innovative ideas, but also to the people behind them. Thus, we give you EXHIBITOR Magazine's 13th Annual All-Star Awards, honoring the industry's brightest minds and most creative innovators. And based on some of the results this year's winners
drummed up - all amid an ailing economy no less - we think
we've unearthed some of the brightest bulbs in the industry.
Take Bonalyn Boyd, the east region marketing director for Ista
North America. Even though management at one of Ista's most important shows cut the exhibiting schedule by a full day, her savvy tactics more than doubled the time salespeople spent with attendees compared to the previous year. Artist Sharyn Sowell also scored seriously impressive results. With a $500 budget, a boatload of ingenuity, and her seemingly unlimited artistic talents, she
crafted an 8-by-10-foot booth that generated more traffic,
not to mention more business, than she knew what to do with.
Our other two winners turned to inventive devices to help garner serious returns. Jeffrey Masters, a senior manager of the global event marketing group at Philips Healthcare (a division of Philips Electronics N.V.), devised a one-of-a-kind measurement cocktail that combined data from various sources into a comprehensive (not to mention program bolstering) report to management. Meanwhile, Michelle Bates, principal marketing specialist for the U.K. and Ireland branch of Symantec Corp., paired up with internal developers to create an ingenious smart-phone app. Working in conjunction with show management, she put the app and Symantec's messages into the hands of 45,000 prospects and customers.
So please join us in congratulating the industry's newest crop of top-notch innovators. Hailed by judges as "fearless trailblazers," the
following four industry pioneers provide myriad ideas that can
be adapted to almost any program. May their inventive tactics
and brave pursuit of the unimagined jumpstart the wheels of invention in your own program.
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