I believe this is because our merits reside on two foundational strengths that are distinct from virtual counterparts. First, trade shows and meetings make marketplaces understandable, in effect saying, "these are all of our issues, players, and costs of entry." Second, touch-media cause commerce: Buyer/seller, industry/media, partner/partner, employer/employee, enterprise/investor — as a whole, creating a dynamic which is greater than the sum of its parts. That drives business action.

Those industries with the strongest events are invariably those which are the most healthy and growing. And industries with singular strong players often find their events in jeopardy as these players withdraw to cement their positions and deny other voices. All in these industries are hurt by such actions, including the near-sighted big fish themselves.

Scores of private, corporate, and partner-alliance shows are springing up as pro-active mechanisms for individual almost-dominant players to control marketplaces. Bigger picture, however, I believe constituencies in healthy industries actually look to touch-media as a way to "destabilize" alliances, regularly disrupting the status quo; this ensures perpetual competitiveness, new blood, and growth.

A lot of attention is focused on cost, as your article notes. But we can't win an operational argument against the Internet any more than our now-troubled clients have been able to win against their own competitors by making use of the Internet. Instead, we need to be clear about the irreplaceable advantages of what we are selling as a tool to deliver on our clients' bottom lines. Only then will our offerings realize the demand they warrant.