Change doesn't happen all of a sudden

As I prepare to travel to Las Vegas to work on IMEX America 2014 I can't help thinking back to when we started working on the systems for the show in 2001.

This chain of thought started when I was in Germany for IMEX Frankfurt this year. I was staying in a hotel and eating in restaurants that didn't exist when we did the first show in 2003.

In May 2014 we had the 12th show in Frankfurt and this will be the 4th show in America and I think it's fair to say that there have been some dramatic changes in the world since it all started.

We've had the first black President of America, a number of countries that were dictatorships now aren't, fully electric cars are on general sale and BlackBerry has gone from world leader to struggling also-ran.

In that same time, the events industry has moved forwards, but I don't believe we've seen any dramatic shifts in the events world. Of course, if you compared the first IMEX Frankfurt 2003 to an IMEX 2014 show then you would definitely see some significant differences but these haven't been "big bang" changes – they have occurred much more gradually over time and will continue to do so.

Back in 2003, the iPhone was just a glint in Steve Jobs' eye and when it was released in 2007 it was definitely a defining moment that ultimately transformed the world we live in. That said, the iPhone was the culmination of years of work and gradual improvements in technology (battery life, touch screens, processors, memory) and while the world did sit up and take notice, proper penetration of smartphones into the general business world took a fair while longer. So much so that it has only been in the past 4 years or so that event apps have really started to become much more commonplace.

The iPad was released in 2011 and we soon saw those appearing on show floors as a useful alternative to laptops. This was partly because of their portability and partly due to the fact that most people only want to browse the web, compose emails and write documents on their devices.

Equally, in 2003 I doubt if free public Wi-Fi existed in most places but these days it's fairly normal for a café, bar, hotel or restaurant to have it and it transforms the experience of being in a foreign country. Now I can sit in a rooftop bar on a beautiful sunny day with a nice cold beer while keeping up to date with my email rather than having to be in the office!

There was no social media of any note back in 2003 – Facebook and Twitter were founded in 2004 and 2006 respectively but took a good while to reach any kind of market penetration and while people were talking about "web 2.0" we didn't really see any discernable effects of it in the events world until much later.

I think it's fair to say that the changes we have seen have mainly come in the form of technology in one way or another and whilst there has been some incredibly significant changes in the world, they don't happen overnight and don't effect the events industry quickly.

So the next time someone asks me "how is this going to change the events industry" I think the most appropriate response is "gradually".