Maine Media Market and Portland Marketing Association After-Hours

I was at the Maine Media Market yesterday. It was mostly functional but the freebies were kind of lacking. I got there kinda late and didn't get a chance to visit the lower level. I did get on camera at the OurMaine.com booth, look for me in a couple of months. I'm thinking that you really can't have enough bags certainly their weren't any to be seen at that show. On the upside I was very selective about the stuff I brought home and didn't bring any big catalogs or brochures to immediately recycle. It's important to have a bag for people to carry stuff to many is better than none at all.

The Portland Marketing Association sponsored an after hours event at the Portland harbor hotel. Good food, met a few potential clients. One of whom bought me a beer. I met a potential new host for client sites but they didn't by me a beer either not sure I like that.

A note about the Portland Marketing Association website. Get a freaking clue! It's a redirect to the American Marketing site with not one but two popups one of which is just another window with the AMA homepage. How can they call themselves a marketing association when they can't even convince one of their members to build them a clean site. I'm thinking they aren't quite done with it yet but how much time does it take to put up a mission statement and a contact page. I mean really.

The ratings

Maine Media Market.     2.8 OK but giraffe events has done much better. So have the people that exhibited. What does it say about the state of marketing in Portland when you go to a trade show and don't come home with a bagful of office supplies and some stuff for your kids. OK some stuff but ...

Portland Marketing Association After hours event.

Food      3.0 simple but tasty could have been a bit more varied and plentiful. The fondue while tasty ran out of bread. Still it was almost enough for the group that showed up. Much better than some of the other parties I've been to in the last few months.

Drinks    4.0 should have had more people buying me drinks but I didn't pay for my beer so that was OK.

People    4.0 not really well attended but I met a strong potential client who took a bunch of my cards for her friends. Caron, http://portcitymodels.com/, showed up, always nice to see her. So that was good. Stayed looking for an invitation to more but it didn't show up. Although, I did hear someone say, Schuyler just left as I was going out the door. So I may have left a tad to soon.

Overall for the day  3.9 I finished up a piece of a project for a client. Met some interesting people, got some good leads. I was given some stuff, a good beer and some tasty food. I didn't spend any money.