IRCE 15 Reflections
The booths are broken down. The sessions are finished. Pitches for technology upgrades are being written as people fly home to resume their jobs at their respective companies.
I for one am currently sitting in the lobby of the Chicago Hyatt Regency reflecting on my week here. As a side note, the folks here at the Chicago Hyatt Regency are fantastic. They are very attentive and provide great service. I’ve stayed here two years in a row and have enjoyed both of my stays immensely.
The Booths
There were A LOT of vendors at IRCE15. You could have tried to visit everyone, but it was a fool’s errand. You might have been able to say hello to every single person and grab their flyers, but you would soon end up with 100lbs of paper and barely a clue who you talked to. With that said, I did visit quite a few. I ended up with about 40lbs of paper.
Some booth highlights & shout-outs:
Pitney Bowes - Great shipping solution for international shipping.
PriceWaiter – Fun concept to allow customers to “make an offer” on things you want to get rid of.
Fed Ex – They had a new label that has a lot of advertising and customer retention possibilities
Queue-it - Always enjoy seeing my magician pal, Sebastian Hunt.
Windsor Circle - Great and clever giveaway of tailored green pants to focus on their customer retention platform.
Lingo24 – A bunch of fellas from Scotland walking around in kilts talking about their translating services.
Refund Retriever – Tracked me down for a high five and had interesting info on shipping refunds.
SEM Rush – Had to drop by and say hello in person to the folks I chat with on a regular basis on Twitter. #SEMRushChat
Elite SEM - Great party for clients and some very interesting moments. A bartender renamed me “pockets.”
Optilead - Very interesting solution to solve cart abandonment issues, plus they tracked me down on Twitter.
Presta Shop – Got a great selfie with their new mascot.
Speed Commerce - They were In Fifth Gear last year, but they remembered me and said hello.
Visual IQ - Handed some fun stickers.
Clustrix - Had a boat load of selfie sticks and nice info on scaling sales.
IBM Silverpop – Another good pile of selfie sticks and a digital marketer.
Bronto – More blow up dinosaurs & email solutions
Invodo – Saw my pals from eTail West there.
ID.Me - Tracked me down on Twitter for more selfies.
Micro Media Marketing - I took a selfie of a selfie inside a giant instagram poster. I broke the internet.
Wiser - Brian and I are best friends now.
(I’m probably missing a few folks.)
Sessions
The sessions I attended were very informative and very interesting. I generally hung out in the video and social media tracks. I have a lot of new things I want to try when I get back. IRCE had a lot of diverse and interesting folks talking this year. I don’t think I was bored by a single sessions. Some people just hang out with the booths trying to scoop up as many prizes as possible, but you are doing yourself a real disservice if you don’t attend some of the sessions. Plus stealing untailored green pants is a bit jerky my European friends.
Well as the sun sets in Chicago, I’m off on a few adventures in the city. Where? Who knows. I’ll be back on the East Coast come Sunday.
Stay adventurous friends.
