It was an interesting experience speaking about social media to an audience of conference and mostly exhibition organisers in Bangkok last week. (UFI is the global association of the exhibitions industry.)

This is one industry segment that, to me, is heaven-made for social media. After all, what are conferences and exhibitions about but bringing community around content (be it knowledge, products or services) and facilitating the sharing and transacting of?

But it's an industry that has been relatively slow to catch on to this new phenomenon of communication and sharing by a new generation; yet it realizes it has to embrace it if it is to remain relevant in a new business world as well as nurture a generation of customers who will actually come to attend live events, but want a different way of interaction and engagement.

Essentially, I spoke about how social media can be used to prolong a physical event experience by continuous engagement with the same customer and thus offering customers extended value beyond the physical event.

I also argued that it is no longer possible to operate within silos – this is us and this is them – with the way walls were collapsing around industries, and new models needed to emerge.

When I was working with trade publishing companies like Miller Freeman and Reed Elsevier (which run huge exhibitions), publishing and exhibitions were kept separate, even though we were essentially serving the same customer.

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