Here is what you can do right now with your iPads and tablet PCs in your exhibit booth. You can demo your web site or share product photos. You can share testimonials that you have videoed with satisfied clients and then your sales staff can share this during a conversation or while trying to balance two or three clients at the same time. Sales people can take notes and your company can develop a digital lead card for booth staffers to use on their iPad.

Here is what’s coming … tablet computer data input procedures are going to become a great new tool for trade show exhibitors. Processes will include lead qualification, presentation, and lead capture into a single, simple mobile package that can be carried everywhere on a trade show floor. Your company will be part of the green initiative because the need for paper information is all but eliminated. Using tablets adds to your status as a forward thinker using cutting edge technological developments. And, being more cost effective, they will provide a great way to help stabilize the cost gaps created by uncontainable operating costs like shipping and drayage.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? And it is! But, it can still offer daunting challenges when the technology is not quite ready. Step lightly, stay on top of all the new applications and introduce these ideas without show floor failures!