Back To Work

I love my job! It is a four-day work week and I am going to be swamped, but I am excited. This is the next couple of months for me - Forrec booth locations at our next three tradeshows - Hong Kong, Atlanta, and Duabi, here we come!

Nope, It's The Plugs

Last week, I posted about time zones being an issue when planning our attendance at tradeshows overseas. Nope! I realized a bigger challenge this week - in fact I think it is the first time I have encountered it - international electrical sockets. Why do so many countries have to be different!?! Normally this isn't a problem at all because we rent/build/buy everything in the specific country the show is being held. However, this time we are shipping a small booth from Canada, which means all the electrical parts have North American plugs, but the sockets will be quite different in the United Arab Eremites. In fact, the electrical current is different as well, so without a converter it could wreck our stuff. We do keep power converters and adapters in stock but there are just so many variations and combinations that we might need it doesn't cover all cases. Some of the types are really difficult to acquire as well. The challenges keep on coming - and I love it.

Everyone I Need Is Sleeping

My main focus at work lately has been organizing the logistics for our attendance at two overseas tradeshows - one in India and the other in The United Arab Emirates. I really enjoy planning events (and event participation, which is mainly the case here) and it is exciting no matter where they are being held. It would probably be even more exciting if I got to go to them too, but no one ever sends marketing employees to these things. We obviously have our people in sales or business development  go, so that our participation can turn into project leads and then, ideally, become projects.

Working with overseas conferences and tradeshows has a few extra challenges than those that are in North America. Often people mention that language barriers would be an issue, but I find that not the case. It is the time zones! Every single email has to wait a day for a reply. I do my work during the day, and ask questions, place orders, make requests, submit forms, etc via email. Then that evening/night, due to the time difference, while I am at home in bed, all the event organizers and vendors are working and replying to my emails. I then get these emails when I come into work the next morning. The day-delay makes things so much more challenging.