Beth Robinson

This last week I was in Las Vegas for two industry conventions related to my job as a chemist.

Surfaces

The primary reason I was traveling was to support a new product launch at Surfaces - a show for all the things that you can put down to decorate and cover a floor, either in a home or business setting.

There were manufacturers of carpet, hardwood floor, vinyl, and tile. Then there were the related companies, like the adhesives needed to lay these materials down (that's us), radiant floor heating systems, carpet cleaners and sealers, and companies selling software for better estimating and managing installation jobs, among other various sundry things.

We had a respectably sized booth with a key featured area promoting the new product that I'm the primary product development chemist on. It's an adhesive intended to lay down a hardwood floor on a concrete slab in one day, instead of needing to put down a moisture vapor retarder or acoustical underlayment first and then glue down the wood. And I believe it's better than what our competitors have out there. Which was the point of designing it.

The display was getting attention, partly because of the odd appearance of the rubber particles within the glue. An unexpected feature that's essentially the first claim in the patent application we submitted. (I'm pretty excited about that one. When the claim goes all the way through it will be my first patent.) The guys at the plant called it cookies and cream and our marcom head who set up the event bought some great LARGE dalmation stuffed animals to set around the booth for a bit of humor. I cracked up when she first pulled them out of their boxes, at least.

I really enjoyed getting to talk to some of our customers, although I wasn't the primary contact - that was one of the salesmen manning the booth. I helped with presenting the benefits and features alongside and I was able to listen first hand to what actually mattered to them. It's good to be able to get out of the lab and experience how we must be, in the end, a customer focused company.

Part of the show experience is walking it - getting to see what everyone else is doing. I visited our competitors, and saw much that was familiar and one or two things that were new. I marveled at the glass tiles (so beautiful) and enjoyed the different woods and paid attention to who was doing what. Some of my colleagues were also looking for new contacts for the salesmen to call on with some of our other new products.

In a way the show is also just a setting for get-togethers. I rarely meet many of our sales people and only get to see the marketing folks a few times a year, since we're geographically dispersed. It's nice to put faces to names, even if I'm pretty sure I won't recognize them next time we meet, and connect when there's not a specific task to accomplish. And then there's meals - in this case with my fellow R&D folk, but discussions that range wider than a typical day. I learned a couple of really interesting bits of history this time around, too.

There was a lot of "green" at the show, which I paid close attention to, but I'll fit that into another post.

World of Concrete

I also visited the World of Concrete, where we had another, smaller, booth. One of my colleagues and I walked the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center with a bit of diligence and made some good contacts. I got to chat with a supplier I hadn't seen in person for over a year, although we'd been doing some business over email. That was pretty useful.

One thing that particularly caught my eye was the stamped concrete. I'd seen the technique used on Curb Appeal on HGTV one time a couple months ago but hadn't realized how sophisticated it could get. Some of those colors and finishs were dramatically different. I could easily see how they would be appropriate in all sorts of environments. The brick and the cobblestone versions, for example, had to be cheaper than the doing the actual work instead of just going for the effect and in some places would work great.

I kind of wondered why none of them had gone to the Surfaces show. Maybe because they're not going to be accessed through the same outlets? But one of the audiences of Surfaces is designers, and you'd think the stamped concrete folks would want to get in front of them.

Out of the South Hall there was that many booths another four times over, including outdoor demo areas. That convention center is HUGE. There was very little of direct use to me elsewhere but there were large pieces of equipment and very dramatic displays both inside and out. I can definitely see why they've drawn a social media following.