EMT #33 with Chris Dunn and Dana Esposito - Beyond the Booth: 30 Years of Lessons in Event Design & Strategy

In the latest episode of Event Marketer’s Toolbox Live, Chris Dunn sits down with Dana Esposito to share insights from her 30+ years in exhibit design and event strategy. Dana dives into the lessons she’s learned, career transitions, and the practical strategies that help professionals grow, engage, and make an impact in the events industry.

Whether you’re a designer, marketer, or event professional, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration for taking your career and events to the next level.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Career Evolution & Transition
  Learn how Dana expanded her career beyond exhibit design into broader roles in event strategy and leadership. She shares advice for anyone looking to move into new roles or take on bigger responsibilities.
• Insights from Conventions & Shows
  Dana shares key takeaways from recent conventions, highlighting trends, innovations, and best practices that professionals can apply to their own events.
• Employee Engagement
  Discover why it’s essential to get your team out to events, how to overcome obstacles, and the benefits this brings to knowledge, connections, and company growth.
• Industry Involvement & Presenting Beyond Your Role
  Dana explains how participating in industry organizations and presenting on topics outside your expertise can expand influence and credibility.
• Practical Advice for Event Professionals
  From career growth to team development, Dana offers insights that are immediately applicable to event strategy, team management, and personal development.

Key Quotes from Dana Esposito

• “Don’t be afraid to move beyond your role. The skills you’ve built can open doors in unexpected areas of events and marketing.”
• “Seeing trends in-person at shows can completely change how you think about your own event strategies.”
• “Getting your team out to events is not just for fun—it’s critical for their growth and the company’s success.”
• “Sometimes the most impactful presentations are the ones that are outside your core expertise.”

Dana Esposito’s experience shows that career growth, employee engagement, and industry involvement go hand-in-hand. Whether you’re starting in events or leading a team, her insights provide practical tips for making a real impact in your career and your company.

👉🏼 Join us for more insightful discussions like this by tuning into 'Event Marketer's Toolbox,' where industry leaders share the tools, tactics, and trends driving success in the event world.

This Show is sponsored by Blue Hive

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Guest Introduction
• 5:39 Career Evolution & Transition
• 12:39 Learning from Conventions & Shows
• 20:39 Employee Engagement & Getting Teams Out There
• 28:39 Industry Involvement & Presenting Beyond Your Role
• 35:39 Key Takeaways & Wrap-Up

Transcript

0:00:00
 (Chris Dunn)
 Hey, hello and welcome to the Event Marketers Toolbox. I am Chris Dunn. I'm with Bluehive Exhibits and welcome. Welcome to the box. A little change of itinerary today. We were going to have Emily Dillbeck on with us and listen in life and in private and in

0:00:19
 (Chris Dunn)
 events, live events, shit happens. Things change. Unfortunately, Emma, Emily, sorry, Emily let us know this morning that she had an emergency that came up. And so here we are, we were gonna have Dana

0:00:33
 (Chris Dunn)
 as our co-host anyway. So we kind of pivoted, came up with a little bit of a new agenda. We're gonna have a great conversation. So don't feel like you're not gonna learn anything by sticking around.

0:00:45
 (Chris Dunn)
 Dana and I are going to chop it up. A couple of weeks ago, for folks who have seen a lot of our episodes, Dana actually interviewed me about the things that we've been learning here on the Toolbox. We're going to flip the script a little bit today. So over to my co-host, Dana Esposito. She is the EVP of creative here at Blue Hive or of strategy. I'm sorry. So Dana, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're doing.

0:01:13
 (Dana Esposito)
 So technically my title is EVP of strategy, which is a little vague, but that's okay because I do a few things. So the title would be long and dorky if we actually wrote out all the things. All the things. Yeah. But I've been in the industry 30 years and Blue Hive is the fourth exhibit company that I am at. And my intention is to retire from this company in a decade from now. Yep.

0:01:38
 (Chris Dunn)
 Awesome.

0:01:39
 (Chris Dunn)
 Well, I'm here with you just rounding out my 30 years in the industry as well. So look at that, two people and 60 years of experience. So we have a lot of folks at Blue Hive that are new, and we have a lot of folks, you know, that are, that are senior-level folks like ourselves who have been doing this a long time. I'm sure we'll probably talk about a lot of different topics, but I've been reading a lot about the multi-generational workforce, which is a first time in kind of history where there's folks in their 70s who are boomers, who are hanging on and they're still working and they're productive and they're great resources

0:02:17
 (Chris Dunn)
 to have. And you've got folks, Gen Zers who are in their 20s. So Dana, as you have evolved from being a designer to being a lot more than that, you get to kind of wear these different hats and I'm sure you'll have plenty to add to that. Before we kind of jump into the meat and potatoes of the conversation today,

0:02:40
 (Chris Dunn)
 just a little bit about our sponsors. So as mentioned, Dana and I both work for Bluehive. So Bluehive is a sponsor. And Bluehive is a creative agency. We are 20 years old. We started in January of 05. I joined in April. And then, Dana, you've been with us for 3 years?

0:02:57
 (Dana Esposito)
 Dana Williams 3, 3 years, yep.

0:02:58
 (Chris Dunn)
 Jim Collison 3 years. Yeah, awesome. We'd like to, where do we fit in the marketplace with regards to, you know, if you're looking for a partner, we are about a hundred people, kind of strong. We have two locations, both East Coast and West Coast. And we like to, I think, believe that we have a fantastic creative group. We have an amazing customer service group

0:03:23
 (Chris Dunn)
 and we are right sized for brands that are anything from a well-funded startup up through a multi-billion dollar national organization, international organization, and we can fit in in a lot of different ways. So we're, boutiques are great,

0:03:40
 (Chris Dunn)
 but sometimes you need more resources. We have more resources. We have more resources. Some of the really large organizations within the trade show event or trade show exhibit realm are so big that you're a number, right? So we're that right-sized group in between.

0:03:59
 (Chris Dunn)
 In addition to Blue Hive, we are also sponsored by the folks who are helping us run this podcast. It's an agency. It's called Fist Bump. And I stumbled across them, actually, not really stumbled, but found them a couple of years ago. I started working with the founder, Brandon Lee. We were just kind of raising the game of Blue Hive and myself on LinkedIn. And about a year ago or so, we started really more seriously considering doing a podcast

0:04:28
 (Chris Dunn)
 because having this medium and being able to be a thought leader in the industry just gives you visibility. You build your reputation and with reputation comes the ability to increase revenue. So we create the content

0:04:43
 (Chris Dunn)
 and Fistbump helps us pull all this together. Again, there's a last minute, you know, pivot, the guests can't make it. There's no panic because we know our, our people have got our backs. They, they, you know, are doing all the links where we're here live on LinkedIn. We're on YouTube, then we're going to be on all of the podcast platforms. So they handle all that stuff for us.

0:05:07
 (Chris Dunn)
 And then they help us by giving us back all of this great curated content that we can use to again, you know, kind of share a message. So that's fist bump. And again, we're, we're a live show. Please go ahead and drop comments into the comments. The comments into the comments.

0:05:26
 (Chris Dunn)
 Let us know where you're calling in from. Let us know if you have any questions and hopefully we'll have some good engagement coming in from the outside as well. So I've been rambling for quite a bit here. Dana, I'm gonna kind of kick it over to you

0:05:41
 (Chris Dunn)
 and I'm gonna start with a question. You introduced yourself, obviously told us a little bit about your past experience, but you started with a BFA. You have an art background, so you were a designer, but you have kind of some interesting stories

0:05:55
 (Chris Dunn)
 from your early days. Tell us a little bit about when you got your start coming out of school and some of the things that you were doing on your way up.

0:06:03
 (Dana Esposito)
 Sure, so I'm from a small town in Central Mass and I knew I wanted to go to school for art and design, but I was also panicking my senior year because I'm like, okay, that means I'm gonna have to move to like New York City or Chicago. And at the time I was a painfully shy human, like painfully,

0:06:21
 (Dana Esposito)
 but I ended up getting a job in Lincoln, Rhode Island at a company that made small scale, almost like ornaments out of brass. And they were covered in gold and oftentimes they were like screen printed. So like if you're ever like at a museum or historical property and you're going out through the gift shop and you see like those little houses or commemorative things that might

0:06:44
 (Dana Esposito)
 be a Christmas ornament, that was my first actual real job as a designer. So I did that for a couple of years. But I kind of felt a little bit bored with it because I have a very short attention span. And I think it was my roommate at college sent me the advertisement for a job at an exhibit company they needed a model maker. So at the time although they were starting to do color renderings they were still doing a lot of scale models of your exhibit. So if you had a 60 by 60

0:07:15
 (Dana Esposito)
 exhibit someone needed to build the like half inch scale or quarter inch scale model of that. So I went and got that job, which was awesome. I remember I accidentally walked in the wrong door for the interview and I walked into the shop and I could smell all the sawdust, which I grew up around construction workers, so I love the smell of sawdust. I was like, oh, I'm home, right? So I did that for a year and we were just so busy that I transitioned over onto the computer

0:07:42
 (Dana Esposito)
 and became one of the exhibit designers. And at the time, at that company at the time, it's not saying this like this now, it was very, it wasn't like a warm fuzzy team at all. It was very much like a department and designers kind of felt like designer against designer. And like, I'm just not built like that. All I care is that like we win versus another company. I don't really care if I, if they pick my design. So that was weird for me.

0:08:11
 (Dana Esposito)
 So I decided I just wanted to be like the designer that all the sales team wanted to work with. And I'm like very sarcastic and silly and all that stuff. So it wasn't a far stretch for them to finally, once they got my sense of humor to be like, Oh, I get it. Or like, as long as I feed you,

0:08:31
 (Dana Esposito)
 like if I bring you to a presentation, I give you lunch, you're gonna do whatever you need to do for this project. I'm a guest. If I get a sandwich out of this, I will work all night on this project. So yeah, I'm not hard to figure out. But so that was where I was for 15 years. And what I realized, we had like at that company,

0:08:49
 (Dana Esposito)
 management, like management changed a lot and the ownership even changed a little bit. So as it grew, it kind of felt like I was working at like almost like four different companies by the time I was at the end of my 15 years. So I ended up being exposed to a lot of different things

0:09:04
 (Dana Esposito)
 like pharmaceutical clientele and how their projects are different, right? And also, you know, if you're a designer who can really ask good questions or present well, you'll get sent to more client presentations to present your own design, which I really like doing because it's harder for other people to remember why why the booth looks the way it does. There's always a reason why. So I didn't want someone standing in front of the booth I design and saying, and this is really pretty, like, yeah, it should be pretty, who

0:09:33
 (Dana Esposito)
 cares? I want to, I want you to tell them why it's smart and strategic or cost effective or whatever the thing is. So that was really important to me to be able to present. So I had to break out of that shyness, introverted thing pretty quickly. And I just made a point of anytime somebody came in, whether it's a partner, vendor, supplier, getting to know them, meeting them. So I wanted to know as many people as I could in the industry. I just felt like I fell in love with the industry and I wanted to know as much as I could to

0:10:06
 (Dana Esposito)
 be really equipped, you know. But then, you know, things happen and I decided after 15 years, I felt like I kind of learned everything I could while I was there, which was a lot. And I moved to a next company, which was a little smaller. And I was like, oh, this is kind of exciting because like I've, I've been here, I've done this. Like I've seen a company like make certain moves to help them grow. So I'm like, I

0:10:32
 (Dana Esposito)
 don't know everything, but like I've watched this movie, like I, there are things I've been exposed to that I can help them grow. Right. And I can't do it by myself, but I can bring them nuggets of, you know, what if we did this or what if we did that? So by that point, I was not even exhibit designer, senior designer. I was creative director. And, um, then that company started to grow because of additional things, you know, beyond myself, obviously. Um, and they ended up getting two locations, East coast, West coast.

0:11:00
 (Dana Esposito)
 Um, and then I ended up having a team that was now by, you know, two coasts, different time zones. And I wasn't just dealing with exhibit designers. It was exhibit designers, graphic designers, and like digital content creation. So now I'm exposed to even more things that I don't even technically do. Right. So then COVID happens. And as soon as COVID was over, I'm like, I want to get back immediately. So I went to work at my third exhibit company. The second one was 10 years. So I don't jump around a lot.

0:11:31
 (Dana Esposito)
 Right. But the third one, that one I actually was just purely like strategy and marketing for them. Because they were developing their in-house digital capabilities, you know, as a product. And again, I, at that last company, again, it was like, okay, I don't know everything, but I've seen this movie so I can help.

0:11:52
 (Dana Esposito)
 And I always just want to be helpful. So that's what happened. That company ended up moving their location and I'm like in the office kind of girl. So I did end up coming over to blue hive because again, I wanted to be in the office. And so here I am now with one as one of those weird exhibit designers and I'm not a graphic designer. They're very different and some can be. I'm not a unicorn that way.

0:12:12
 (Dana Esposito)
 Yep. But I do have two sides of the brain going which is the exhibit designer side which is creative and forward-thinking and then sort of the other side like very corporate like looking at big picture and looking at details, looking at things that are smart for profitability. So I'm more like, although I'm still at the helm of like the creative team with others, I am also corporate strategy and client strategy. I'm very much a client advocate and how to make the company grow

0:12:41
 (Dana Esposito)
 and what are the next smart moves for us. And everything when we talk about, you know, things we're doing for the company, it's for our employees, because we wanna take really good care of our employees, because if you take care of your employees, they take really good care of your clients.

0:12:55
 (Dana Esposito)
 And so to me, those are the same thing, clients and employees, you know, if you take really good care of them, they'll grow. Yeah, absolutely.

0:13:05
 (Chris Dunn)
 Yeah, there's a lot there. And as you were kind of talking through, I was thinking about all these different things. So for just to take a half a step backwards, a lot of our folks, guests who join us on the toolbox come in, whether they be trade shows specific

0:13:23
 (Chris Dunn)
 or just more of an event generalist or even a marketing generalist who dabbles with events. I just wanted to kind of peel back the onion a little bit on what working with a really good exhibit designer can look and feel like. So in our process, so for those folks out there

0:13:44
 (Chris Dunn)
 who are maybe thinking about putting out an RFP to go engage different potential exhibit company partners or whatever that might be looking like on your end, having a really great exhibit designer as part of the team that you're working with, whether you're interviewing them

0:14:01
 (Chris Dunn)
 and yet to make that decision, or if you're already there, the team typically, at least from the Blue Hive standpoint, that is facing the client and having those direct conversations is typically an AE, an AM, and a designer, and maybe a project manager,

0:14:19
 (Chris Dunn)
 if that's a forward-facing particular piece. Hey, Evan, what's going on, man?

0:14:23
 (Speaker 7)
 Good to see you.

0:14:25
 (Chris Dunn)
 So Dana, having worked with a lot of really good designers and then you come in and start working with us, three years back, you're kind of leading the design team for the most part and doing all of these other things. Like I got to see and experience working with many different designers, different strategies, different ways of, you know,

0:14:47
 (Chris Dunn)
 personalities and so forth. And Dana really kind of helped our teams, I think up their game tremendously, especially some of the younger designers who hadn't done a lot of presentation. So, and you're great at, again,

0:15:02
 (Chris Dunn)
 kind of peeling back the onion on, tell me about this design. Here's the tower, great, I can see that. Here's the theater, fantastic. Why did we do it? What are the benefits?

0:15:14
 (Chris Dunn)
 What are the underlying design sentiments or ideas that you pulled from, from our brand messaging or whatnot, or architecture, or pop culture, whatever, if there's a theme, like how did you end up getting there? So it's pretty awesome experience. And when you're working with a really good designer,

0:15:35
 (Chris Dunn)
 you usually know it. And you're working with a bad designer, you'd know that as well. So just thank you for being part of our team. Would you have anything to add to that? And later on in our talk when we're wrapping up, I'll ask you for a few nuggets or takeaways. But for folks out there

0:15:52
 (Chris Dunn)
 who are maybe thinking about working with a new company, is there anything in particular that you would advise to be looking for?

0:16:00
 (Dana Esposito)
 For, say, they're a designer and what they should be looking for or well,

0:16:05
 (Chris Dunn)
 No, if you're if you're an event manager and exhibit manager and you're looking for a company to work with What are some of the the attributes that might not it's not price and it's not just you know Like how you know, how many locations do you have? But it's like some of the some of the subtle things that are really the difference makers Or is there anything that you can put your finger on for that?

0:16:25
 (Dana Esposito)
 Well, if you're working with a team and an exhibit company, you wanna make sure that they're putting that exhibit designer in some of those meetings. You know, especially for the info pickup and discovery calls, you know, there's gonna be the basic questions

0:16:41
 (Dana Esposito)
 that everyone's gonna ask about, you know, what size is your booth, functionality. We need to know all those things, right? But you want your designer there, and you want to be able to arm them with who's your biggest competitor, right?

0:16:53
 (Dana Esposito)
 What's your differentiating factor? And things that you'll want your own internal team to have already answered before you even get on that call with your exhibit partner, like how will you and the people you need to report to decide that it was worth for your company to attend that event, right? Because they're spending a good chunk

0:17:10
 (Dana Esposito)
 of dollars to send this, you know, 30 by 30 exhibit to such and such show. How do you prove it after that it was worth it, right? Is it ROI? Well, what is, what does ROI mean to you? Is it a number of little things, sales that are assigned on the show hall floor? We have a lot of clients that say, sometimes it's not necessarily ROI, but it's like return on engagement, right? Because they're really there for brand awareness, and they want to engage with people. So what, then how do you measure that? Right? Well, let, let that sales team and that designer know, because the designer is going to help come up with

0:17:47
 (Dana Esposito)
 something strategic, literally put in place, so you can do that after the show. You might feel like you had a great show. But if you don't have any data or metrics, internally on your end, your, your stakeholders might be like, it was a lot of money, though. Like, it felt like a great show, but was it? And nothing speaks more than numbers and data. We don't want it to be based off of an opinion or a feeling. We want it to be based off of something more real. So the designer can really help you with that.

0:18:14
 (Dana Esposito)
 And for your designer, if you can tell them very specifically that audience that you're going to and maybe how they're different from another audience you're going to, you could they're different from another audience you're going to. Like you could have a booth going from show to show and this has actually happened to me before.

0:18:28
 (Dana Esposito)
 A booth going to San Antonio for like Midwestern vet or something like that. It was like a farmer show for large animals and that show was all like really high-end veterinary and pharmaceuticals. And so the booth, the graphics spoke to that and their booth giveaway, I mean, their booth draw was a calf that had been born.

0:18:51
 (Dana Esposito)
 It was a time-lapse video and it was struggling. So they had given it medication and injection and the time-lapse basically showed how quick that calf got better and could stand. That same exact booth was shipped to IPE International Poultry Expo in Atlanta. And the,

0:19:08
 (Dana Esposito)
 the medication, the pharmaceutical was completely different because it's for poultry and the audience was different. It was like 99% international men. And so not only was the same booth, but graphics changed and the booth attraction changed and the client wanted, they wanted a Harley Davidson, something very American and like two booth babes you get your picture taken with.

0:19:30
 (Dana Esposito)
 I'm not into it, but like, I get it, if that's what that audience want, wonderful. And it worked out great. But like, if you had taken that same booth attraction of a Harley and booth babes and put it in San Antonio, that wouldn't have worked.

0:19:43
 (Dana Esposito)
 Cause first of all, most of those doctors, they're high end, they probably have a couple of Harley's and they don't need booth babes. They're walking around the show with their significant other, so it's weird. But because the client knew that

0:19:57
 (Dana Esposito)
 and was able to verbalize that to the designer very well, we were able to make sure that booth, the graphics and the interactives suited both audiences really well. So this is a really good example I always use of why audience is a different and why the designer knowing that is important.

0:20:13
 (Chris Dunn)
 Right. And the questions that you guys ask as the design team and you've helped make me a better salesperson because I get to witness that process and understand what are the real important questions that need to be asked. So that was veering off a little bit from what we were intending to talk about but I wanted to at least kind of do a deep dive there because I don't think everybody you know out there knows exactly you know the important role maybe that the exhibit designer plays not just on like building a pretty booth or designing a pretty booth.

0:20:44
 (Chris Dunn)
 So all right back to our schedule here. So you've made a lot of changes kind of coming up through different sized organizations. There's a lot of folks out there, there's a lot of movement in the marketplace right now. Many teams are light, right? There's a headcount reduction, people are losing their jobs, unfortunately. And things are cyclical, right?

0:21:03
 (Chris Dunn)
 The pendulum swings one way, it swings back the other way. Those of us who have been in the marketplace for a long time have seen it kind of come and go, right. But, but making moves through even a smaller organization that doesn't have a lot of open spots, talk to us a little bit about kind of what your recommendations were, what your experience was in doing that and then maybe do you have recommendations to folks out there who are maybe in, not necessarily an entry level role,

0:21:28
 (Chris Dunn)
 but in a maybe a little middle role and they wanna kind of move up or they wanna move over?

0:21:33
 (Dana Esposito)
 Sure, so I could have been an exhibit designer, you know, junior, then an exhibit designer, then a senior designer and there's nothing, I could have stayed right there. There's nothing I could have stayed right there. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, just pumping out amazing strategic designs for my whole career.

0:21:47
 (Dana Esposito)
 Like that was my original intention, I frankly. Or I could have maybe just transitioned a new creative director because, you know, I'm good at managing a team or I'm good at this. Like there's nothing wrong with that either. But there's no rule that says, you know,

0:22:03
 (Dana Esposito)
 if you've been a senior designer for a long time, you need to transition to a creative director. And I would say that's actually a dangerous assumption to make because not everybody's meant to be a manager, right? Not everyone is meant to lead people. And it's just talk. So it takes a lot to do with like being a really good communicator, being very empathetic, being able to both you know protect the client, the company, the employees. There's a lot that you need to juggle all at once. So just because you're a really great designer doesn't mean you

0:22:35
 (Dana Esposito)
 have to or should become a creative director. But let's say you're the type of person who you find that as a goal. It's enticing to you because it feels important. You want to do you want to do more than what you're solving just like problems for clients all the time. You want to do more and that could be because you have different passions. I would say anytime you're working somewhere and you're going in front of your manager to talk about your future. And I do think everyone should have a review every year and it doesn't need to be monetary. Everyone

0:23:09
 (Dana Esposito)
 should have a review every year to talk about maybe what the employees goals are like this year, next year, five years, ten, doesn't matter whatever the goals are. And you have undivided attention with your manager and they can also go over things that they feel you're really strong at and things that maybe they're hoping you can improve upon. Nothing wrong with that. You have to have thick, thick skin, right? You are not, if you're not a little uncomfortable, then you're not learning anything new. So I've gone through

0:23:37
 (Dana Esposito)
 lots of uncomfortable, because I'm always trying to learn new things. And I'm never good at them, especially in the beginning. I'm not perfect at anything, even though I've been doing them for a long time. But you're not gonna be good at anything right in the beginning. You're gonna suck a lot and fail a lot.

0:23:54
 (Dana Esposito)
 And those are the people who, as long as you don't give up, you keep going, keep trying, you end up making big progress. So we have a mentorship program with exhibit design students. I just remind them in their life every now and then to turn around and look back and see

0:24:10
 (Dana Esposito)
 what you have achieved and how far you've come. Because people get so hung up on but this but that's where I'm going, but that's what I want. That's fine. Don't stop aiming towards it, right? And making lists and your goal. But every now and then stop and look around and go, but you know what? I, I did do a lot, though, you know? That's, there's good in those celebrations. But just to get back to your question, whenever you go in front of your manager for like a review, think of it, it's just a conversation. Don't think of it as like this heavy meeting. It's, it's, it's my review. No, it's just conversation. And have a list with you of things, like give yourself a self review, go, okay,

0:24:45
 (Dana Esposito)
 these are things that I've done within the past year. These are things I'm excelling at. These are things I personally want to work on. And by the way, like, go there with stuff, right? And let's say you want to go and talk to them about something different, like, I want to be this someday someday, or you know what, I haven't had a raise in a couple years and I've been doing this, this, this. When you go in front of somebody and you're like, hey look, I understand, you know, you haven't had raises for a couple years and I get it, maybe there was a rough patch for

0:25:18
 (Dana Esposito)
 whatever, lost a big client or the economy, whatever. When it comes time when things are starting feeling healthy again financially for the economy, whatever. When it comes time when things are starting to feel healthy again, financially for the company, you can go in front of them and say, I feel like it's time for a salary adjustment, right? And that's different from a raise. A raise could be like zero to three percent. That's a very typical amount for a raise that a yearly or every few years, what have you. But if you're like, I need to talk to you about an adjustment or a change in my role or change in my title, when you go to have

0:25:49
 (Dana Esposito)
 that conversation with the person who you should be having with above you, have have some data and facts in front of you, right? Because if you don't, it's just gonna sound like you're coming from your opinion, your feelings. And it's not that they're not valuable, right? But you gotta remember the people who are above you, who see what you do, right?

0:26:09
 (Dana Esposito)
 Then there's also another layer above them that they likely have to go talk to this about. Arm them with data, arm them with, give them ammunition. Otherwise, you know, might just, again, seem like a feeling or an opinion. They're not, they're looking at other big company things,

0:26:24
 (Dana Esposito)
 right? So especially the bigger the company you're at, the less they're gonna know you're there and that you're doing a good job. But unless you're a problem child, they're not gonna know about you that well, right? So give you a direct manager, like ammunition. And, and something may happen, something may come of it, and if something doesn't, at least they know what your goals were. And then as the years go by, another year or two, if you feel like things still aren't happening or just aren't going to

0:26:53
 (Dana Esposito)
 happen, bring it up to them again. And if things still aren't happening, you're like, you know, maybe this company isn't the right fit. It's OK for you to change companies. I like to stay at a company for until I literally feel like there's almost like nothing left for me to learn here. Like I want to learn all, take all, like squeeze all the juice out of it, right? I don't, I don't love it when, say I'm interviewing something, I look on their LinkedIn and it's like, it's like they've been at this company for two years, two years, two years, two years. I, my brain goes, they almost, they stay there long enough just barely to really get the gist of how that company does things different than their last company. Like, why are they jumping around so much? Is it, is it a them, like, is it a personality issue? I don't know. So yeah, at this, but we're

0:27:35
 (Dana Esposito)
 also not like the boomers or like our parents' companies, employees, where they'd stayed a company their entire career either. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but for me, I feel a comfort for me, is kind of in the middle.

0:27:48
 (Chris Dunn)
 Right, so I mean, as you're talking about this, the one thing that's coming to mind is like, a lot of people are uncomfortable promoting themselves and kind of giving themselves the pat on the back, but when we need to advocate for ourselves, if we're in that situation, and I love what you're saying with regards to like, come

0:28:08
 (Chris Dunn)
 to the table and be like, here's a list of things that I'm doing, whether you say I'm doing them really well or not, like, hopefully you feel comfortable in it, and you know, I think we're, we can all take a step back, hopefully, and look at everything that's on our plate and say, I'm doing these things well over here. I'm not doing these things quite as well, but, you know, come to the table with, with not only a list of those experiences, but also have confidence and understand, and maybe hopefully ask some other folks around and just

0:28:34
 (Chris Dunn)
 make sure you're, you've got a reality check on what you're

0:28:37
 (Dana Esposito)
 talking about. Actually, I'm really glad you brought that up because I do feel like people tend to, these days, they either tend to be uncomfortable talking about themselves that way. Like, well, I did this and I did that. Or they're a narcissist and they do it ad nauseum and you want to punch them in the face, right?

0:28:53
 (Dana Esposito)
 Or they, and I also didn't grow up in that generation of like Facebook where you take a picture every Tuesday, like that's talking about me, all about me. I don't love all that. Of course, we're having a freaking interview right now and I'm talking about I, I, I, me, me, me. But so this is an exception to the rule.

0:29:09
 (Chris Dunn)
 What a bit of an hypocrite you are right now, right?

0:29:11
 (Dana Esposito)
 Right, what a jerk. I hate her. But I would say to the people though that do still feel uncomfortable when they're like, to tell them what I did well or they should know. Yes and no. Your manager has a ton of things going on and nobody thinks about themselves as much as you think they're thinking of you. Like you think about yourself more than anybody else thinks about you. Whether it's like I'm afraid of this, I'm worried about this, are they looking at me, did they

0:29:40
 (Dana Esposito)
 notice this? No, most people don't really pay attention to other people that much. But at work especially, they have all these other things that they're doing. So you're one of many. So I would say if you feel uncomfortable being like, I did this and I did this and I want recognition or I feel I should be compensated more, whatever those I's are for you, have it as data. Remain emotionless about it. It's factual information. And think of it as you're not talking about you to be a commercial about you.

0:30:07
 (Dana Esposito)
 You're trying to give your manager transparency into your world. That's all you're trying to do and keep emotion out of it is what I would really recommend. I mean, I'm definitely one of those people who I don't like to do it.

0:30:20
 (Dana Esposito)
 And it's not because I feel uncomfortable about it. It's more that for me personally, I'm a we person. Like in for a meeting, I'll say, we did this, or I'll say, hey, did you notice what Chris did on that? I tend to be an awkward cheerleader because I was one of a lot of kids.

0:30:37
 (Dana Esposito)
 And I know how, like I know how to get attention for myself. I don't need that. I want to draw attention to other people when they do things well. And that's because I've had really good mentors. I've been very fortunate to have good mentors.

0:30:52
 (Dana Esposito)
 One of my favorite things was humans are so quick. It's so easy for them to run off and say, oh, do you see what so-and-so just did? Oh, they just screwed up. Oh, do you see what Chris just did? That was frigging awesome. Hey, did you notice what that person just did?

0:31:10
 (Speaker 8)
 That, Hey, did you know so-and-so just won an award for that design?

0:31:11
 (Dana Esposito)
 That's who I want to be. I want to deflect attention onto somebody else's positiveness. Cause that stuff doesn't get mentioned enough. Yeah. I think that's a great point. I think that's who I want to be. I want to deflect attention onto somebody else's positiveness, because that stuff doesn't get mentioned enough.

0:31:29
 (Speaker 5)
 Yeah.

0:31:30
 (Chris Dunn)
 No, that's, and that's, I want to, I think we all, I want to be that person as well. So hey, you know, so Paul Urbanati's got a comment here. This is, you know, we could take a deep dive and talk about this for a long time. So I wanna just mention it, but I wanna table it until a little later on

0:31:47
 (Chris Dunn)
 in the discussion, because I think we're on a good track here, just kind of talking through some more kind of general management and so forth. But, you know, he's talking about here how he's integrating AI.

0:31:59
 (Chris Dunn)
 And he's a guy that I connected with fairly recently within the last couple of weeks. He's a designer, I believe, and he's out of the Netherlands. But he's talking about how he's working with AI models to try to speed up that design process. And I know that you and your team use AI to an extent.

0:32:14
 (Chris Dunn)
 So again, let's kind of table that for a hot second and we'll come back to it. It wasn't really on our agenda, but it's the elephant in the room right now, for sure. All right, so you recently just came back from HCEA, so that's the Healthcare Exhibitor Association. We, as Bluehive, represented ourselves. We were a major sponsor there.

0:32:37
 (Chris Dunn)
 We had this very small little booth, but you got to participate in this kind of small event, right, 180-ish people, some of our competitors and for partners, but mostly it's all exhibitors that are in the healthcare field. Tell us a little bit about I guess your experience, what you kind of saw there in general trends and whatnot. And then we had a really cool little activation. I'd love to

0:32:59
 (Chris Dunn)
 have you talk about how you and your creative team came up with the idea for the activation, because that's the hot button right now, I think, within design, too. It's like, everybody, table stakes are like, let's design a pretty booth, or let's design a really cool, engaging booth. But what do we do in the space to engage people,

0:33:18
 (Chris Dunn)
 to create memories, to move them emotionally, right? That's where the good stuff really lies.

0:33:25
 (Dana Esposito)
 Sure, so that event, I actually wrote it down so I didn't say it wrong. The Healthcare Convention and Exhibitors Association, that's HCEA. So the event last year was called the HCEA GST event. So they have that once a year.

0:33:41
 (Dana Esposito)
 And last week it was in Miami, small group. Years ago it was bigger where people like us who if we sponsored or bought a booth, every was even playing field. So everybody would like come out with a 10 by 20 linear booth, but now they don't do that. Now, if you're a sponsor, you get a table, a six foot table and around the perimeter

0:33:58
 (Dana Esposito)
 of the ballroom. So it's a much smaller group and I, funnily enough, sometimes when people are like, oh yeah, this trade show or this convention, it's smaller now, they say in a bad way. And maybe it is sometimes, but for me, this event, I actually liked it smaller because it was almost like more concentrated. So there weren't a lot of people like us on the provider side there. We were there, but the majority of that 180-ish people were health care and pharmaceutical, med device, life science, trade show and event

0:34:29
 (Dana Esposito)
 marketers right and if you've worked with with those people you understand that their trade show and events are different than say some of our other clients that are in like technology or retail. Because they have many more different layers of legal criteria that they have to stay aligned with and comply with. So they it's it's even harder right they they manage they whether they say they wrangle, they herd cats, they're chaos managers, but with even

0:35:01
 (Dana Esposito)
 more rules. So the audience I liked that it was more concentrated and the purpose of the sessions that they have are really to help keep that audience educated on trends, not just design or exhibit wise by any stretch, but there was a lot of data shared of things like happening in the

0:35:25
 (Dana Esposito)
 world right now. Um, one thing that I thought was really interesting, this is funny cause you were talking about the five generations. So there was for the first two days, it's a three day event for the first two days, there's an older gentleman there and he was like kind of bent a little, I don't want to like misrepresent badly, right? But I need to give you a visual of this guy. So he was bent a little bit, he's in a suit and he's kind of shuffling and you see him go up to a table and he was talking to anybody

0:35:50
 (Dana Esposito)
 and he'd take like one of the giveaways and they shuffle. And I'm literally like, is someone like missing their grandpa like with his people, like where's his person? But he had a lanyard on, I'm like, no, he belongs here. So, but he's like 70. So I'm like, oh no, day three comes, day three comes. So this guy goes up on stage, he's doctor so and so,

0:36:16
 (Dana Esposito)
 he is not only a professor, like emeritus at a high end university.

0:36:32
 (Speaker 4)
 He's also an attorney and he's like moving around.

0:36:33
 (Dana Esposito)
 No problem. He's talking, he's very energetic and amazing presenter. Had awesome input in his, like he had data and stats and he was brilliant and he was very personable and he was funny. He was a crack and' jokes. And I'm like, Who, what happened? What's going on? I was texting someone who had just been sitting there. I'm like,

0:36:51
 (Dana Esposito)
 Remember the old man we were worried about yesterday? We did not need to worry. This guy knows everything. He was brilliant. And he's 70. And you know, he would, his mind, like, could dance circles around my brain. He was amazing. The stuff this guy knew. And he was extremely interesting to listen to. Um, on the last day, they also had a panel. It was curated by Michael Young and Michael Young. I wrote down his, let me see if I have his, but, um, he, he curated a panel of like five HCPs, healthcare physicians, and was literally asking them questions that this audience need to know. So it was like, know how long like what draws you into an exhibit? How long do you typically stay in an exhibit? What makes you walk out of an

0:37:33
 (Dana Esposito)
 exhibit? Things like before you go to the show do you want to already know what's happening at exhibits? If there's going to be a doctor speaking at exhibit or like a medical demonstration at an exhibit, do You want to know that before you get to the show. So those like really interesting questions because if those health care marketers know the answers to those questions that makes a difference than with what they give to their exhibit provider and exhibit designer as the strategy to solve like the problem to

0:38:00
 (Dana Esposito)
 solve with design strategy for their exhibits in their healthcare congresses. So I just thought it was just such great brain food. So if anybody is in, if you're a healthcare marketer, it's definitely a show, not a show, a conference that's worth attending. Oh, you wanted to know too what we did.

0:38:22
 (Speaker 7)
 Yeah.

0:38:23
 (Chris Dunn)
 So let me set the stage for it a little bit, I guess, right? So we were whatever the platinum level sponsor. Yeah, platinum. We were, with that sponsorship came a few little nice to haves, right? We got a little speaking spot.

0:38:35
 (Chris Dunn)
 We also had a little table, right? So it wasn't even a booth. It was a table. We had a beautiful table throw. One of the best, you know, biggest and best table throws ever, you know, that really made it special. Only kidding on that.

0:38:48
 (Chris Dunn)
 There was nothing special about our table, except there was an engagement that we took time and effort to kind of curate. So this show was in Miami, right? You're right on the ocean. Walk us through kind of the exploratory and the brainstorming of like, how did we end up with the activation that we had

0:39:06
 (Chris Dunn)
 and the little gifts that tied into it?

0:39:09
 (Dana Esposito)
 Sure, so this is really just example of like, how we try to think and treat ourselves like our clients sometimes, right? So this was Blue Hive, treating Blue Hive like a client. So we're like, okay, so where are you going? How much space do you have?

0:39:23
 (Dana Esposito)
 Six feet, oh crap, that's not a client. So we're like, okay, so where are you going? How much space do you have? Six feet? Oh, crap, that's not a lot. What are you going to do with six feet? You couldn't even have a back wall. It's just a table. So we're like, who's our audience? You know, their health care, pharma, lifestyle, marketing people. Well, they've seen a lot of things. So if you're going to show them something, well, let's do something that's techie and hands-on tactical and tactile and makes sense with the audience.

0:39:51
 (Dana Esposito)
 So what we did when we had that 15 minute on the first day speaking opportunity, two people went up. One people from our organization explained sort of the power and importance of strategic partnerships and things of that nature and what they've been getting out of attending HCA

0:40:09
 (Dana Esposito)
 over the years. And then the owner and leader of Blue Hive, Caitlin went on the last piece and just explained who Blue Hive was. And then she invited everyone to open up what the sort of very plain innocuous blue box

0:40:24
 (Dana Esposito)
 sitting on their table was for. They said go ahead and open that up and pass it around. Inside of each were little glass bottles with a cork and a little message sticking out of it so everybody would open it up and on one side it explained you know our station, our table at the back of the room, you know it's all about care and empathy. So

0:40:45
 (Dana Esposito)
 we're here representing Blue Hive because we care about this audience. It's in Miami, we care about the oceans and plastics and trash, and we're aware that like 80% of human brain samples have microplastic neuroplastics in them, which increase Alzheimer's inflammation and Neurological disorders and so one of the things that we're doing here Because this audience understands that language, right is we are if you come up to our station and interact with our little game

0:41:20
 (Dana Esposito)
 It's a game to clean the ocean of plastics. Blue Hive for each stop at our station will donate to, it's called the Ocean Cleanup. And it's literally a nonprofit organization that has a huge campaign, clean and all these machines cleaning trash and plastic, not only out of the ocean, but out of rivers,

0:41:38
 (Dana Esposito)
 because oftentimes rivers are dumping plastic that gets washed in into the ocean. So the whole thing made sense. So it starts off with a hands-on tactile thing. On the backside, there's a fun fact about a fish. And it was like, oh, the zebrafish,

0:41:54
 (Dana Esposito)
 do you know that it secretes such and such thing, which is equivalent of, like it had all this really medical tieback, a fish that had different medical things. So then when you do have time and you stop at our table in the back of room we had the beautiful

0:42:08
 (Dana Esposito)
 blue blue blue hive blue med drape so it was very colorful and we had not only the touchscreen which you would click on and as you clicked trash would go away you basically blow away the trash and the water that all the cartoon fish are swimming in was slowly turned from green and mucky to blue and clear. And then it was a very short game.

0:42:29
 (Dana Esposito)
 So like after they did it, like, thank you so much, you just contributed financially because we will, right? And then there was a big piece of driftwood on the table and on the driftwood were all these bracelets made out of sea glass. So you'd be able to select a sea glass bracelet, again, tying into the ocean and trash, right? Turning into something repurposed and sustainable, very beautiful. So they would

0:42:51
 (Dana Esposito)
 take that gift home. And if you, we try to get them to come back each day, because every time they play, we would donate. So the last day, if you came back, either the last day or come back the most or whatever it was We were actually sending them a really nice gift that their name is engraved on as well So it had like all the elements of a big 60 by 60 booth, right? Yeah, but it's a six table So when someone says can we do still something interesting in a 10 by 10 booth? Absolutely, if we come up with ideas like this for a six foot table,

0:43:25
 (Dana Esposito)
 sure, we can do any size, any size. We're basically making experiences. So yes, we can make an experience. We just want to know who's it for, what's your audience. If we had done something that didn't make as much sense, there wouldn't best been much of a draw.

0:43:38
 (Dana Esposito)
 We had doctors, we had trade show and event marketers in these, in these healthcare industries coming up, going, I love this idea. This makes so much sense. Like, I love this idea. And that's amazing to hear. It's like, okay, we did the right, we hit the nail on the head. Boom.

0:43:52
 (Chris Dunn)
 Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that. And not to throw shade on any competitors, but some of them showed up with plastic bags full of crap. I mean, so, you know, we, we kind of, I think, set ourselves apart from the crowd because of the thoughtfulness of that activation that we, that we created.

0:44:08
 (Dana Esposito)
 You're going to get beat up at the next J-Tro you go to.

0:44:12
 (Chris Dunn)
 I'm not saying who it was. Just saying it happened. I saw it. All right. A couple of good comments here. So I think it's Bill Landau talks about when he does one on ones with his team, he has them come in with an agenda.

0:44:27
 (Chris Dunn)
 And that's, and this is really cool, because it's a it's a rolling agenda. It's a it's a it's a tally, right. So at the end of the year, you've got kind of a tracker on everything that you that you've talked about. So I think that's a great idea. I encourage I do one on ones with with some of my salespeople as well. And sometimes it's an agenda, sometimes it's an open forum,

0:44:47
 (Chris Dunn)
 but I really like the idea that this is like a rolling document. So it becomes kind of the annual formal review. You've got all the things. Here's some things we talked about. You got better at this.

0:44:57
 (Chris Dunn)
 We didn't really address this enough. Let's double down, right? So good stuff there. And then Chris Musgrave, who is a frequent visitor. So Chris, thanks for stopping by, appreciate it. And yes, it's interesting to see the different approaches for different events. Absolutely.

0:45:14
 (Chris Dunn)
 And this is a great segue into just the next thing that we're gonna talk about is some of the benefits of getting your employees out to events, right? Whether it's an event, your own event, or it's a trade show that's broad and more horizontal versus a vertical thing. So Dana, and we're at 45 minutes, we're going to wrap this thing up in under an hour. So let's kind of be a little quicker on this.

0:45:37
 (Chris Dunn)
 But there's a lot of reasons to bring staff to shows. What are some of the ones that you look at when you're wearing your management hat here at Blue Hive, and what are some of the ones that that you look at when you're wearing your management hat here at Blue Hive and what are other benefits that you see that that other companies you know might want to

0:45:49
 (Dana Esposito)
 employ? So in a micro sort of looking at it if if you send say we'll talk about designers but this really suits anyone right as a designer when I first started going to shows, I became a better designer when I went back, right? Back home. Because I could see, and I'd be there during setup. So if we're talking about just strictly the exhibit and the design, I would be like,

0:46:14
 (Dana Esposito)
 I noticed that that sign over there, a couple of booths over there, they're taking forever putting that sign out. And it's a cool sign. But this booth next to them has a cool sign, but this booth next to them has a cool sign and it didn't take nearly as long. So I'm thinking design wise, I can make cool looking things, but I also need to think about from the client's perspective, how much extra labor is that sign going to

0:46:35
 (Speaker 6)
 take?

0:46:35
 (Dana Esposito)
 Right. Cause I don't mind time, right. Time is money. So as a designer, if I think about that and I also, when I pitch my design, explain that. So you have a custom sign and this is, and we did this and we did this, but also took into consideration the sign you had last year that your competitor did, and that murdered you with labor or setup hours, right? Right there,

0:46:56
 (Dana Esposito)
 this is a good example how you're becoming a better designer, because you're thinking about the client. You're not thinking about the first time they put the booth up, you're thinking about every time they put that booth up, right? So there's stuff like that. You learn more when the more you know about what other people's roles are, even if you don't ever execute those roles, the better you actually become at your role because you're all working together, right? Then beyond as just a designer, just thinking about as a person who wants to become dedicated to the industry the way my brain wanted to be, is the more you can become exposed to in an industry,

0:47:31
 (Dana Esposito)
 the better you're going to be at that as well, right? So I wanted to do more than just design, not to diminish design in any way. So I met as many people as I could. I joined organizations like the Experiential Designers and Producers Association. Um, they're, they're an organization basically where all of us, like we're all working different competitive companies. We put our swords down and we come together and we are basically protecting the future, the health, the education, um, good deeds. Um, that's what we do when we get together.

0:48:01
 (Dana Esposito)
 There are chapters all over the country. There are also committees that are doing different things. And then, um, because I've done those and I was still very passionate, you know, I was eventually, you know, nominated to be on the board and voted in. So I'm on the EDPA board of directors. Um, so if you're passionate about the industry and you want to get more involved, like join an EDPA, uh, chapter, start there.

0:48:27
 (Chris Dunn)
 Yeah, awesome, awesome. And that certainly shaped a lot of what you've done. One thing that I want to kind of just piggyback and add to that, actually two things, right? So within our company, anybody who's new to the organization regardless of position, right?

0:48:43
 (Chris Dunn)
 When they get on the show floor and see it, a trade show happening from the ground up, it's a game changer, right? The account manager who's been with us for, you know, four or five, six months or whatever is learning all of the words and they're learning all the things and placing the orders and having the conversations. But until they go there and they see, what does it look like? What does dredge really mean? And I didn't

0:49:05
 (Chris Dunn)
 understand that the electrical comes from the floor and all the things that we've got to hire people to put the cabling down. And then what's entailed with rigging a sign, right? All of those things are such a great teacher that there's no replacement for that actual time spent on, on, you know, on the floor.

0:49:26
 (Dana Esposito)
 And then one thing I want to tip I would tell people is if they haven't been to on-show site often, and they know that they want to get there, they need to remember that unless the client is paying for it, then that means the company you work for is paying for it. Okay. Right. So that means you need to prove why it's worthwhile for them to spend that money not only to send you there, airfare, hotel, what-have-you, but you're also gonna be away from your desk. So as a designer, if you get it approved to go, you're likely gonna have to work extra

0:49:57
 (Dana Esposito)
 before you go and then work extra when you get back to catch up, right? Because if you're on show site, you're not likely sitting there in your computer designing. You're there to absorb everything going around around you. So I would say, put together like, hey, I would like to go to this show. It would likely cost about this much to get me there, right?

0:50:15
 (Dana Esposito)
 And then also say, and upon my return, I will do a presentation. And I will report back on things that I learned. I'll put together a deck and I'll present it. Not to your boss, you want to present it to the team. So then it'll be like the whole team went and you will also post photos. So when you're at a show, you're gonna be taking photos.

0:50:32
 (Dana Esposito)
 Photos of booze, photos of interesting up close of this. Basically, think of yourself as I'm going to, whatever brain food I got, I'm gonna come back and pollinate everyone else with it. Because as you do that, and I still do it, as you do that, your manager are gonna, they're gonna realize that they're putting good money into good. Like they're not wasting money by sending you somewhere. I am not a fan, like 30 years ago I see a designer stand up and watch like the big new

0:50:56
 (Dana Esposito)
 booth be put up and just walk around and look at their booth. And, and then what? Like go look at the other booths, go talk to people, talk to your client, be gregarious, you know, be someone that the client likes talking to. Don't be an egotistical, like snooty, you know, little narcissist. Like, nobody wants to be around those people.

0:51:16
 (Dana Esposito)
 Be the person who's amazing and strategic with design, but who can also be personable and worth sending places. Because I can tell you that the company you work for might be a little nervous sending people, especially the designers. They're gonna think, oh, they're gonna know, we're gonna meet more people, know more people,

0:51:30
 (Dana Esposito)
 and someone might try to hire them. Well, you know what? When companies have sent me around, I felt even more loyal to them because they were investing in helping me learn more. So the opposite thing happened, at least for me, right? If you sent me somewhere, I was even more like,

0:51:46
 (Dana Esposito)
 No, boom, you know.

0:51:47
 (Chris Dunn)
 Jim Collison, you're doubled down. Yeah. All in. The other thing, the other thing I want to add with regards to this is, we, let's flip the lens and talk about a trend, it's just, it's what's happening and what we're seeing. So, so many of our customers have teams that are remote, right, so these people don't have the opportunity to rub elbows and work together.

0:52:15
 (Chris Dunn)
 And this is not necessarily a brand new, right, but it certainly was progressed even more so by COVID. The show is an opportunity to bring your team together on site, right? So you have sunk cost into hotels, into flights, into meals that are already there.

0:52:31
 (Chris Dunn)
 How do you maximize not just your trade show ROI with what you get from it, but how do you build a better team? How do you create engagements? Maybe there's opportunities for dinners with special clients or prospects, do you hope hold an

0:52:46
 (Chris Dunn)
 adjacent event, or an event in an adjacent space, and pull in customers and prospects. So be thinking about like, I've already got a bunch of money that's allocated to this show, if we just spend maybe a little bit more, or maybe just we just spend time and effort thinking about how do we best use it, there's a lot to be, you know, gained from that. So the event becomes kind of this, you know, cataclysmic, you know, center point of other things that are happening. And I think people are doing a better job with that than maybe they did in the past. Go to the show, get the leads, you know, take a doctor, you know, out for drinks, and then you go home, right? It's just, it's more than that now. So, all right, we are at 53 minutes.

0:53:26
 (Chris Dunn)
 I want to swing back to the question here. This is from Paul and he's, he had a very long comment here about how he's employing AI models or working towards this employing AI models with regards to helping speed up the design process. Let me get your thoughts on that, right?

0:53:44
 (Chris Dunn)
 So, and I'll use a real world example, right? I yesterday we had a meeting with with a potential new client, I put in to chat GBT, which I use, I put in their their name. And I said, Hey, tell me a little bit about the company, we have an opportunity to build a booth for them. It gave me a bunch of stuff, right? So anybody who's used AI kind of knows what this looks like.

0:54:05
 (Chris Dunn)
 Good information, I didn't vet it all to make sure it's all perfect. We know that AI also makes mistakes. But then at the end it says, do you want me to render you a booth? And I was like, huh?

0:54:17
 (Chris Dunn)
 I didn't say yes, but this is what's coming, right? Like things are transitioning very quickly. We all hear stories about people, whether they're in marketing, PR, design, sales, whatever, like AI is coming for your job. Talk to us a little bit about how you and your team

0:54:35
 (Chris Dunn)
 are using AI and some thoughts on kind of where we are right now and where we're going.

0:54:40
 (Dana Esposito)
 Well, we probably all use it a little bit differently. Creatives are very different from each other. So I can speak more to how I've used it. I've used it like chat GPT for a lot of writing. I'm an okay writer, but I've plugged it in there to be like,

0:54:55
 (Dana Esposito)
 can you make this sound more professional? Or can you rewrite this to sound a little more lighthearted, things like that. When it comes to visuals, I haven't built a lot of visuals with it, because I just I run into road blocks, it's really not going like it Yeah, I can create say

0:55:12
 (Dana Esposito)
 an exhibit, right? Yeah, but it's, it's not going to be all the things that at this point right now that a human right, you know, a certain sizes and what have you, I've used it for maybe some inspiration pages where I'm like, cause I'm an okay sketcher, but I'm not very beautiful sketcher.

0:55:29
 (Dana Esposito)
 So I'd be like, hey, can you sketch this for me? Because then, and I don't carry nearly as many projects as the regular exhibit designers here do. But when I do, I, you know, I might have, I come up with something like maybe the giveaway, like there's something very specific, like, hey, can you model up for me or show me a picture of this made out

0:55:53
 (Dana Esposito)
 of this, because it doesn't exist in the world, right? So it will come up with something close while I'm actually doing the exhibit itself, because the exhibit has to be for a complex program, be able to break down. Some of it needs to be out of a certain extrusion. So for that, so some visuals, not the exhibit itself. I've noticed a lot of time the AI exhibits would be great solution if it's a client that has a non-existent budget and get gravity doesn't exist,

0:56:25
 (Dana Esposito)
 but it may get there someday where it's really specific. Who knows?

0:56:30
 (Chris Dunn)
 I feel like there's some great inspiration that can come from it, but right now it doesn't render in reality. That's for sure.

0:56:36
 (Dana Esposito)
 I've had clients do that and say, hey, this is an inspiration that we liked in AI. And then when they said to us all the things that it needed to be and that they wanted to do, it didn't end up because we started with something they liked the idea of, but it wouldn't functionally do. So maybe someday, maybe I won't exist. You know, I don't know who cares. Like I don't go figure out something else, but I mean,

0:56:58
 (Dana Esposito)
 like I'm not really worried about it. Do I use it? Yeah, I do. I do use it for some research. But to your point, I don't I know that sometimes it's not always accurate. So any exhibit designer that's going to work on your project, one of the first things they do is they go to your website, and they research the crap out of you, because they're working on all different clients all the time. And they need to hurry up and become as fast as they can. Because they're essentially the three-dimensional version of you and your brand and what you're trying to say and do.

0:57:29
 (Speaker 5)
 Yeah, absolutely.

0:57:31
 (Chris Dunn)
 All right, listen, we're just shy of an hour here. We could talk for another hour or two anyways. Always a great opportunity. Normally it's Dana and I interviewing somebody else, but this has been really great to, you know, kind of pick

0:57:51
 (Speaker 4)
 Dana's brain just a little bit more deeply here. And hopefully, folks have gotten a lot out of it. So as we do,

0:57:57
 (Dana Esposito)
 wrapping up here on the Toolbox, let me ask you for a couple of takeaways. What can you leave our audience with that's either something you've already discussed or something that you haven't mentioned yet? Sure. So I would say if you have creatives, or I'll say if you have creatives, get them out and about, expose them to things. They're only going to come up with even better solutions for you. So get them to like Exhibitor Live. Exhibitor Live is a trade show. It's had that it happens every year.

0:58:21
 (Dana Esposito)
 This next year in 2026, it will be in March, March 29 to April 2nd in Tampa. They'll learn a lot. Yes, competitors and stuff will be there, but like I said, if they value being valued, that will be important to them. And the more they learn,

0:58:36
 (Dana Esposito)
 they'll be even better informed for you. Also get your creatives to EMS, the Experiential Marketing Summit. This coming year, it will be in May, May 18th to the 20th in Las Vegas. Different audience than Exhibitor Live. It tends to be a little more agencies as far as the people coming to the show, but there are

0:58:56
 (Dana Esposito)
 still trade show event managers coming to that show for content education. So two really good shows, Exhibitor Live and Experiential Marketing Summit. Also, every three years, there is a show called Euroshop in Dusseldorf, Germany. Not easy to get your creatives to that show. It's spendy and it's a hike, but if you can do it, um, maybe every three years you send two different creatives from your team. And again, any of these shows have your creatives take a lot of pictures and do a

0:59:24
 (Dana Esposito)
 presentation upon their return.

0:59:26
 (Chris Dunn)
 I'm going this year, by the way.

0:59:28
 (Dana Esposito)
 Excellent.

0:59:29
 (Chris Dunn)
 I'm really excited about it.

0:59:29
 (Dana Esposito)
 In 2026. I've been twice and I have photos from other years past that I didn't attend. I still use, you'll still refer back to them as inspiration. So I think it's really important.

0:59:40
 (Chris Dunn)
 And side note to that, I'm going and I sold it to my company because we're also working in a trip down to one of our biggest clients went to their manufacturing facility outside of Munich. So I, you know, again, right. Like we're going to do this event. There's sunk costs there. What else can I achieve while I'm there? Not only learning from this one show, but then a, it's a six hour flight within Germany is, or not six hours, sorry, six hour train ride, six hour drive, maybe it was, but a one-hour flight within Germany

1:00:10
 (Chris Dunn)
 not a big deal to do that to add value to the trip, right? So it's the same thought process to wrap around trade shows that you're sending people to

1:00:18
 (Dana Esposito)
 anyways. So I would just leave you with this for managers, owners of companies that if you have a person who is seeking additional knowledge and coming to you and say I'd like to go to this event or trade show and this is why and this is what I'll do when I come back, listen to them because you know I read something today that I think is really valuable and this is really where my brain lives so when I

1:00:41
 (Dana Esposito)
 read this like oh this is this is it right my brain lives. So when I read this, like, oh, this is it, right? Never underestimate a person who practices self-education in their free time. So just remember that.

1:00:51
 (Chris Dunn)
 Right, and they will go find another company who is interested in supporting them and investing in them if you're unwilling to invest in them as well. And then you'd probably be really shit out of luck. Awesome, Dana, very good conversation.

1:01:07
 (Chris Dunn)
 Appreciate you, you know, literally this morning, texted her real quick. I was like, we don't have a guest. What can we do? Dana came back with a whole bunch of, you know, thoughts and answers.

1:01:16
 (Chris Dunn)
 And this is what we do in the live event space. We're good at pivoting. We don't panic and we just make stuff happen. So getting a hold of you, how do people reach out and connect with you?

1:01:27
 (Speaker 3)
 BlinkedIn.

1:01:28
 (Chris Dunn)
 LinkedIn. Fairly simple. There you go. So I'm there too. Blue Hive. One other thing that I just wanted to mention as you were talking about all of the things, one other differentiator for us is that we do in fact, manufacture nearly everything that we make. It's a it's a business model that isn't shared by every, you know, every single company out there. There's a lot of great creative agencies, but we're not only creative, but we also, you know,

1:01:56
 (Chris Dunn)
 build in house, we control all of that. So put a put a bow on it. Thanks. We're at one, one hour and two minutes and two seconds. So it seems like a good time to say goodbye. Dana, thanks so much for not only joining me, but, you know, really doing the lion's share of the talking and the sharing of ideas. And thanks for everybody out there who contributed, Chris Musgrave and Bill and Paul and, and all the folks who, you know, have watched us live. And hey, this is gonna be available on all of your platforms, on your favorite podcast platforms as well.

1:02:29
 (Chris Dunn)
 So go back and check out some former episodes. We're talking to all sorts of people within the event industry, and I think I'm hearing from more and more people, and they're really liking what we're doing. So I appreciate it.

1:02:47
 (Chris Dunn)
 Share it with your friends and-

1:02:48
 (Dana Esposito)
 We have some really good guests coming up in the future.

1:02:50
 (Chris Dunn)
 We've got some great guests coming up as well.

1:02:51
 (Dana Esposito)
 But I'm not gonna say it, but we've got one I'm so excited about, it's bananas.

1:02:58
 (Chris Dunn)
 Awesome, so thanks everybody. Have a great day, rest of your week and weekend Have a great day, rest of your week and weekend and happy eventing everybody.