Guest editor ’ s comment
West Germany ’ s BMW 740i ( WikiCommons ) and East Germany ’ s Trabant ( Getty )
could see what worked and what didn ’ t ( Lady Diana , again ). You had to improve – to become ‘ fitter ’ – or you got fired and someone else tried .
Innovation in action : The BMW740i vs the Trabant The same is true of almost all media forms – newspapers , television , websites ( what happened to AOL and Netscape ?), radio . And it is also true of most consumer brands – notably in the car industry . Major car manufacturers are constantly improving their products , copying everyone else ’ s innovations ( note how every brand has the same basic design features at any time ). And this can best be seen where it is occasionally possible to compare an open , Darwinian culture with a closed culture which does not allow or reward innovation . So , a cameo : West Germany and East Germany started in very much the same place after 1945 . But what did the next 40 years bring them ? In the West the BMW 740i ; in the East the Trabant . East Germany had a completely controlled economy . Factories built what they were told to build . The defining fault of centralised planning is that it does not allow for constant innovation . Another example – even as late as 1984 you had to wait three months to get a telephone installed in London . When Russian leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin visited the UK in 1956 , they were taken to a London High Street .
Bulganin was apparently stunned by the amount and types of bread available . “ Who is in charge of bread distribution ?” he asked . And he was told : “ Nobody .” Which he refused to accept . He had become so inured in the “ everything is centrally planned ” philosophy of the USSR , that he was unable to comprehend the benefits of hundreds of different people making incremental , independent decisions to improve how society is fed
But trade shows seem to be an oddity Trade shows are an oddity , consumer shows less so . And this largely comes down to the slot system , the grandfather rights . I will pick giftware solely because it is the largest of all the trade show sectors . You could have an original plan for the most innovative gift show ever – it could be brilliant , certain to attract far more visitors and exhibitors , it could transform the whole business . But you will struggle to get the NEC or Olympia to run with it – because they already have their giftware slots .
Does our industry really encourage innovation ? And , in many ways worse , you could come up with a better Book Fair than the massive Frankfurt Book Fair . No point talking to Frankfurt about it , so talk to the other major Messen in Germany ( Munchen , Dusseldorf , Hamburg ) – surely it would be great for them to grab such a massive product ( historically the second largest show in the world by turnover ).
No such luck . Unless it is a clear divergence ( maybe , say , solely for audio books ) the Messen won ’ t play . Each big venue has its major events , and they quietly avoid competing . No one wants to rock the apple cart . None of them are willing to risk changing a structure which suits them all ( the Messen are owned by the cities and the local authorities – the staff are essentially civil servants ). The German system is embedded in the political and social structure . Unlike their very successful car manufacturers , trade shows in Germany are essentially an anti- Darwinian system . In a nutshell , the nature of our trade show system tends to work against innovation . Our major shows do not have the Darwinian imperative to constantly improve . Don ’ t misunderstand this argument . I am not saying that our shows are ‘ bad ’ ( well , occasionally , yes ) or are poorly run , or do not involve an enormous amount of effort . If we felt we could dramatically improve our shows , we would do so . This is why Darwinian innovation works – no one inside a bubble necessarily knows what unlikely ideas might pop up given the chance . China did not realise how far it was falling behind between 1500 and 1800 . We have little means of knowing what we have no means of knowing .
The things we don ’ t know we have no means of knowing There are consequences to all this . Personal opinion is not part of this argument , but I do think there are trade shows in the UK and elsewhere in Europe which could be improved . You can all name some of them ; shows which have shown little innovation in several years , but most of the time we don ’ t seek to notice it . Here we must be blunt . Some of our larger companies rather work off the bottom right-hand corner of the
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