It has been an inspiring spring! At many shows and conferences all over the globe GIM International has encountered optimism and a wish on the part of many companies to expand business. After some years of ailing economy the pace is back in development and expansion. And, apart from a recovering economy in parts of the world struck by recession, it is also globalisation of economy that is driving the ride upwards. Globalisation, here meaning an economy that crosses borders and continents, will bring with it a need for efficiency to keep down as far as possible negative overheads and enable competition with companies in other parts of the world.

On the other hand, globalisation also demands investment in research & development, innovation and creativity. And I have spotted these last few virtues in many enthusiastic product and marketing managers, engineers, and developers, from all over the world. Besides new products, new strategies are providing a major new management focus for a lot of companies. The message is emergence: grow from local to regional, national or international, from small to bigger, and from standstill to ambitions extending over the coming ten years. As already said, optimism goes with a recovering economy.
Keeping negative costs down remains important, though, and companies want to spend their money as efficiently as possible. At all the shows visited this year we have found numbers of attendees stabilising and no longer on the increase. On the contrary, some tradeshows are suffering from a visible reduction in visitor numbers. Clearly, many potential visitors lack the time to attend because they are too busy working or can no longer spend a lot of money going to one show after another. And shows with fewer visitors will attract fewer companies because spending (sometimes an awful lot of) money on tradeshow representation is not always efficient in terms of company cash flow.

Some of the bigger shows are already getting the drift of this: GITA and ACSM are aiming to merge in 2008. They will, in two years time, offer the perfect opportunity to go and see a tradeshow of global importance. A wise thing to do. Companies will be pleasantly surprised and will support efforts behind future such tradeshows.

Because they are undergoing the same processes: merging and expanding, developing and innovating! All this evolution may within a few years lead to a totally different geomatics landscape. The season of inspiration has only just begun.