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The Shaughnessy Report: Packed DesignCon a Good Sign

If the best proof of a successful trade show is a packed exhibition floor, then DesignCon 2012 was a real success.

The show floor was packed, the conference papers well attended. Many attendees who arrived in the afternoon of Tuesday or Wednesday found the Santa Clara Convention Center parking garage and the Hyatt parking lot at full capacity, and wound up parking down the street.

Sometimes derided as just a very popular test and measurement show, or in the case of 2011, a jitter and noise show, DesignCon has become the place for EDA providers and PCB manufacturers to speak and exhibit. PCB manufacturers like Sanmina, All Flex, Epec Engineered Technologies, Founder PCB, Prototron Circuits and R&D Circuits now count DesignCon as one of their must-exhibit events.

On the conference side, one big attraction was “AMI Models: How to Tell a Peach From a Lemon,” a half-day tutorial led by Dr. Michael Steinberger, SiSoft’s lead architect for serial channel products. Many of the EEs I spoke with attended that class.

DesignCon's DesignVison Awards have taken on a life of their own over the years. We’d like to offer congratulations to the 2012 DesignVision Award winers Mentor Graphics (winner in the IC Design Tools category), Altium (winner in the PCB Design Tools category) and all the other DesignVision Award winners, all chosen by the technical committee from dozens of entrants. How would you like to have their job?

And in the “inside baseball” department, the show managers at United Business Media seem to have gotten their act together, for the most part.

In 2010, UBM acquired DesignCon from IEC. The first show under new management, DesignCon 2011, left some speakers and exhibitors spitting mad.

Speakers felt especially disrespected last year, not least by the removal of the conference proceedings from speakers’ goody bags; posting the proceedings online may have saved a few dollars, but it was not a smart move. (Last year, I had to restrain speakers from cursing at UBM on-camera during our Real Time with DesignCon video interviews.) But speakers and exhibitors alike noted real improvements in their dealings with DesignCon management this time around.

Speakers joked about the Speaker Room being relabeled “Faculty Lounge,” but it was clear that they appreciated the gesture. I guess UBM realized where their bread was buttered: It doesn’t pay to make enemies of the speakers, many of whom helped make the conference what it is today.

But there’s still room for improvement in customer service. Exhibitors explained, often with eye rolls, that UBM staffers have trouble responding to e-mails and phone calls in a timely manner.

One word that popped up when exhibitors mentioned UBM is “inflexible.” Rules are rules. And some exhibitors reported having to deal with multiple UBM contacts, with some contacts providing conflicting deadlines and information. One exhibitor said he felt terrible for his employee who was stuck dealing with UBM. Ouch.

Still, the number of angry speakers and exhibitors was way down from last year. In the end, UBM seems intent on improving its customer relations, and that's a good thing. Plus, running a show like DesignCon – and trying to please all of the industry gurus involved – is no easy feat.

And a busy show makes all of this a moot point, doesn’t it? Next year’s DesignCon should be even better.

To watch our coverage of DesignCon 2012, click here.