Tom Mitchell is a guy I have counted on for content since I was writing for SISO ten years ago. He has been the President of Messe Düsseldorf (MD) North America since 2005, and has progressed from sending American attendees and exhibitors for MD’s events in Germany and worldwide, to running his own shows in North America. Tom was recently on a panel at Expo! Expo! in Baltimore to discuss innovation and it prompted me to follow up with him on some of the ideas that were expressed at that session.
I was particularly interested in Tom’s impressions about what it takes to convince bosses to consider newer, cutting edge ideas when they are only interested in those that have proven to be ‘tried and true.’ His comments were a refreshing take on what it takes to drive innovation.
How to start?
Tom said that the key place to start in introducing new innovation is by knowing the boundaries of what you can and can’t change in your organization, so you can avoid the frustration of having ideas shot down frequently. He noted that many attitudes have softened at Messe Düsseldorf and there’s flexibility in senior management in response to the demands of global expansion upon the organization. They recognize that, for example, you just can’t approach things in China and India as you might in Germany or the USA. The MD culture allows you to do things differently depending on where you are working.
Innovation is also underway at the home base in Düsseldorf:all the exhibit halls are undergoing renovation, new conference areas are under construction, and the latest technologies are being installed. With MD’s new energy storage event, everyone involved must be entrepreneurial to harness the market opportunity. Likewise, an ‘old’ event for printing, DRUPA, now offers conference content intended with a goal of building a tighter community.
Here are his other steps to drive change:
- Trust your gut feeling as what to push
- Have a clear understanding of the expected benefits (the more concrete and $$$ centric the better)
- Do your homework and have the data and examples to prove your case
- The lower the expense the lower the barrier to acceptance
- Know whom to approach for advice before starting your initiative and ensure younger, fresher perspectives are included
- Continue to refine the idea to perfect the initial proposal
- Show passion when you make the proposal
- Get approval for all or part of your proposal
- Implement and measure progress
An example of innovation that comes to mind is MD’s implementation of social media as attendee/sponsor outreach before it was mainstream. Pushing this through was not difficult because there was no financial investment required, just staff time. Tom gained more personal exposure and the effort proved so successful that MD management took note and created a new social media team, based at headquarters, to manage social media efforts.
Another example involved making the switch at their Chicago office in the mid-nineties from dial up to broadband internet. Tom had few computer terminals for his many staff and their email productivity was hampered. Given those circumstances, he made the case for broadband support. You can imagine the benefits in efficiency and revenue opportunities.
What innovation is Tom looking forward to in the near future?
- Elimination of applications that run standalone and only support manually data exchange, preferring those applications that can be integrated for a reasonable cost.
- Social networking data that can be integrated into your CRM system to derive smarter analytics about how to increase and retain key buyer attendees.
- Programs that focus on how to increase attendee spend at events.
Well, Tom, I am happy to tell you that Shawn Pierce shortly will be writing a guest article on the second and third points, so perhaps you can get started on those sooner rather than later!
Tom certainly has been running a tight ship since 1993, and it seems that his process has worked to make Messe Düsseldorf an example of both innovation and profit-making.
Here’s to his continuation of that success!