Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

I just got back from a ginormous trade show, HIMSS 10 (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society). Overall, the event was well done and extremely well organized, with a number of education tracks that were truly educational (as opposed to ill-disguised vendor sales pitches so common in trade events.)

I was also very impressed by the presentation by Aneesh Chopra, the first federal-level CTO.   He exudes a combination of enthusiasm and competency, keeping buzz words to a minimum. I actually got excited about things that the government is doing on the Web. (Yes, the federal government.)

The challenge, as he noted, is the difference between “There’s an app for that” (the 24/7  flattened, blazin’ speed  world today) and “there’s a form for that.” (the traditional government way.)   I was even more impressed that after he spoke, he turned the meeting into a town hall gathering and took questions for another hour or so, welcoming the good, bad and ugly input.

He was real…as were many of the folks I talked to over three days.  However, most of the the marketing collateral and booth signage was – well – fake.  Lots of “innovative technology solutions for premier customer service” lines.  And, the term “meaningful use” lost all meaning after I’d seen it for about the 400th time. (do you really care?)

One BIG blurb by a BIG company took three paragraphs to get to what they actually did (and even that was a generic description.)  I’d walk up to a booth, read all the signs, look at the printed materials…and then ask a booth worker, “Yes, but WHAT do you do?”  Sometimes it took  more than one follow-up question to get a glimmer. (Some people had definitely drank the marketing kool-aid.)

Trade shows: Where old corporate marketing speak never dies…it just gets LOUDER…;-)