So, PMA 2010 finally comes to a close. Thank you everyone for attending or exhibiting – you make the event so worthwhile.

PMA 2010 saw lots of great camera-related announcements, a visit from Guy Kawasaki at the first ever PMA tweet-up, and great ideas for retailers and photographers.

Mark your calendars for January 30-February 1, 2011. We return to Las Vegas for another look at the latest gadgets, gear, and ideas for making money from photos.

Here’s some great video from G4’s “Attack of the Show” from the PMA 2010 trade show floor:

The Ultimate Event for Everything Photo is almost here – are you ready?

Here’s everything you need to know about PMA 2010:

Event Updates

Cameras@PMA – A complete list of all the cameras launching at PMA 2010.

Deals at PMA – Exhibitor specials, prizes, and more are all featured here.

MyPMA – Customize your schedule, floor map, and more with apps for the web and smart phones, including the free iPhone app.

Text Updates – Get text updates with keyword “PMA10.”

Newsline International – Check daily for the latest news, product updates, and more.

Follow Us on Twitter – Tweeting from the show? Use the #PMA2010 hashtag and follow these PMA tweeps! You’ll even find great last-minute registration offers.

Trade Show

Exhibitor List – See the growing list of exhibitors.

Floor Plan – Find the booths you want to visit and customize your route.

Trade Show Highlights – see side-by-side comparisons at the DIMA Shoot-Outs, hit the PMA Photo App Pavilion, International Pavilions, and more.

Trade Show Hours – Don’t miss a moment! See when the show opens and closes.

Education

Official Business Session Keynotes – Don’t miss a moment with Peter Sheahan, George Whalin, or Guy Kawasaki in these thought-provoking and entertaining sessions.

Session Search – Looking for a specific topic? Find it here.

Session Handouts – Want to print it out before class? Or need another copy? Here you go.

Networking

Social Events – Share ideas and meet new people at these events.

PMA Big Night at the House of Blues – Relax and unwind with friends, music, buffet-style BBQ, and an open bar (beer and soft drinks). Tickets are $49 member/$79 nonmember (discounted price of $39 member/$69 nonmember with the purchase of an All Conference Connection Pass).

Planning Ahead

Shuttles – Forget the cabs. Save big with these shuttle discounts.

Hotels – Save on rooms at the Hilton Anaheim, Sheraton Park Hotel, and the Hyatt Regency Orange County

Show Your Badge and Save – Anaheim welcomes PMA 2010 attendees with savings at local restaurants and more.

Can’t wait to see you there!

Bill McCurry knows a thing or two about attending PMA events. He’s shared some of his tips last year for our blog, and we’re posting them again:

Sleep well before the show – Focus on picking the brains of the people who you will meet at the convention center. Ron Inkley taught me years (decades?) ago to be an early arrival at all the education sessions and meet people. Ask them about their business and what their best success of 2009 was. Then listen and determine what germ of wisdom you hear can you incorporate into your business. Everyone has at least one good idea in them… your job is to find it, adopt it as your own and adapt it to the uniqueness of your own operation.

Drink lots of water – When you are on the trade show floor, try to stand on the carpeted area when you stop to talk with folks – at the end of the day your back will appreciate it. If your back starts to hurt take and hold deep breaths, this somehow changes the pressure on your spine. Bring breath mints as a courtesy to your fellow PMA members. Drink lots of water, can’t overstate the need to keep hydrated.

Make your meals count – If you meet someone you think is interesting ask them if they are free for lunch or dinner and make it clear you’re thinking each party pays their own. This is true for people who are speaking as well. You would be amazed the number of times speakers eat alone. I had heard this (and know it from personal experience) when I was at a meeting where a VP from Microsoft spoke. I went up after to talk to her and said I was going to lunch, would she like to join me and she was happy (no accounting for some people’s tastes) because she knew nobody at this particular convention. So we ate and she told me PowerPoint ‘secrets’. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know… most people will be pre-committed but not all of them so don’t be shy.

Bring lots of business cards – make sure your email address is on them – bring about 5 times more than you think you need – you can always take the extra home. You will give out more than you think if you are intelligently working the crowd and meeting friends. Also, bring a small note book that fits in your pocket so you can write down what you hear.

Traditionally, the larger the booth, the lower the margin for the reseller – don’t ignore the small booths in the back recesses of the convention center. Look at booths that aren’t real slick or shiny – that’s where the next new thing is likely coming from.

Now – before you leave, read the brochure about all the educational sessions so you can pick the ones where you need the most new ideas. There are great opportunities – don’t be bashful about looking at the framers’ or school photographers’ sessions. Good ideas are where you find them.

PMA has added a superb resource for attendees this year – nobody has the time to investigate every single booth – there’s too much. Imagine having a “staff” to go out and dig for the gems of the show and possibly paying you to listen to their ideas. It will be Tuesday, February 23 – “Retail Hot Picks.”

PMA is participating in the Clean The World program during PMA 2010 in Anaheim. All unused hotel soaps and toiletries deposited at the Clean The World donation station will be sent to Haiti.

On the way to your meeting, kindly drop the amenities at the designated Clean The World donation station located at the trade show entrance (near the publication bins).

Repeat each day. It’s that simple!

Clean the World is a non-profit, charitable organization that recycles gently used hotel bathroom amenities into life saving goods. They have delivered over 500,000 bars of soap to Haiti.

Follow their progress here.

With everything there is to do at the Ultimate Event for Everything Photo, how can you stay on top of it all?

Try MyPMA, an event planner that helps you:

• Create an exhibitor list
• Search for products
• Navigate the trade show floor
• Organize your session schedule

Want to keep track of it on your phone as you navigate the show?

Use Follow Me to access your MyPMA information on your iPhone or other smartphone. Download myPMA mobile to:

• Organize and schedule your trade show information on the fly or download it to your phone
• Instead of carrying exhibitor marketing material and brochures around the show, simply download them to your phone.
• Navigate using interactive trade show floor maps
• Enjoy complementary coupons from local merchants for discounts and free offers.

Get the Apps now:

• myPMA web portal
• Download app (for iPhone* and iPod Touch* users)
• Web-based app (all other smart phones)

Think Twitter is a waste of time? Many heavy Twitter users turn to the site first for breaking news. Some are even finding special deals.

If you follow @pma2010, you’ll find that you can get a free PMA 2010 trade show badge, insights into the upcoming event, and industry-related news.

Why should you join Twitter?

Well Guy Kawasaki is a big user, and he sat down with PMA Magazine to discuss how businesses can use Twitter:

PMA: Many business owners are skeptical about the value of being on Twitter. What’s your response?

Kawasaki: I can’t say I blame them, because the first time you look at Twitter, you think: “What is this crap? Why do I care if Lonely-Boy15’s cat rolled over?”

That is a very logical, understandable re-sponse indeed. If you don’t have that response, something is wrong with you.

The thing to do is to push beyond that. I think the scales come off your eyes when you start using searches. Let’s say I’m the vice president of marketing for Nikon. I would get on Twitter and immediately start doing dedicated searches for “Nikon,” plus “Canon” and all my other competitors. I would also search for the word “photography.” I would constantly monitor what people are saying about my brand, my competitors, and the general subject of photography.

My goal would be for my “@Nikon” Twitter account to be known as a source of information, not just about Nikon, but also about photography in general. The @Nikon account can be used just to push out coupons, promotions, and similar things – that’s a very legitimate use. If you want to go beyond that, you tweet about photography-related things you find on other websites, such as, “Check out this incredible collection of inauguration pic-tures from the Boston Globe,” and you include the link. Or, “Here is a link to some great portrait tips.” So your tweets are not just about the brand, but also about the utilization of cameras.

What will happen is Nikon will tweet that out to their thousands of followers. Their thousands of followers say: “Wow, this is really useful. I will retweet this to my thousands of followers.” Pretty soon, hundreds of thousands of people will see this thing that originated with a Nikon tweet. Many of those people will begin to follow Nikon, and it just gets better and better. That’s the way to use Twitter.

Guy Kawasaki will show PMA 2010 attendees how to use one of the most powerful tools on the internet, Twitter, to increase sales and customer loyalty at his Official Business Session on Feb. 23 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif.

With time flying as fast as it seems to do, PMA 2010 is just around the corner.

So, what makes PMA 2010 the “Ultimate Event for Everything Photo?” Oh, how about:

• New product solutions to excite loyal customers
• Ideas for attracting and connecting with new customers
• Strategic partnerships for building success
• Energy to pursue new opportunities

Look forward to seeing you in Anaheim!

Who’s up for a road trip? PMA 2010 is heading to sunny Southern California for another knockout show. It’s never too early to plan ahead, right?

PMA 2010
Trade Show – February 21-23, 2010
Conferences – February 19-23, 2010

See you in Southern Cal!

All good things must end, and PMA 09 has come to a successful close.

It was certainly an event to remember. People are still all a twitter about the great products they saw and some of the big industry news announced. You can still find great show coverage at Newsline International – the reporters are still covering all the trends to emerge from the Ultimate Event for Everything Photo.

Finally if you took some pictures at PMA 09, be sure to share them with the PMA 09 Flickr pool. Here’s a look at what others have shared about PMA 09:

Bill McCurry knows a thing or two about attending PMA events. He’s shared some of his tips with the Best Photo List, and he’s allowed them to be posted here:

Sleep well before the show – Forget the attractions on the strip and focus on picking the brains of the people who you will meet at the convention center. Ron Inkley taught me years (decades?) ago to be an early arrival at all the education sessions and meet people. Ask them about their business and what their best success of 2008 was. Then listen and determine what germ of wisdom you hear can you incorporate into your business. Everyone has at least one good idea in them… your job is to find it, adopt it as your own and adapt it to the uniqueness of your own operation.

Drink lots of water – When you are on the trade show floor, try to stand on the carpeted area when you stop to talk with folks – at the end of the day your back will appreciate it. If your back starts to hurt take and hold deep breaths, this somehow changes the pressure on your spine. Bring breath mints as a courtesy to your fellow PMA members. Drink lots of water, can’t overstate the need to keep hydrated.

Make your meals count – If you meet someone you think is interesting ask them if they are free for lunch or dinner and make it clear you’re thinking each party pays their own. This is true for people who are speaking as well. You would be amazed the number of times speakers eat alone. I had heard this (and know it from personal experience) when I was at a meeting where a VP from Microsoft spoke. I went up after to talk to her and said I was going to lunch, would she like to join me and she was happy (no accounting for some people’s tastes) because she knew nobody at this particular convention. So we ate and she told me PowerPoint ‘secrets’. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know… most people will be pre-committed but not all of them so don’t be shy.

Bring lots of business cards – make sure your email address is on them – bring about 5 times more than you think you need – you can always take the extra home. You will give out more than you think if you are intelligently working the crowd and meeting friends. Also, bring a small note book that fits in your pocket so you can write down what you hear.

Traditionally, the larger the booth, the lower the margin for the reseller – don’t ignore the small booths in the back recesses of the convention center. Look at booths that aren’t real slick or shiny – that’s where the next new thing is likely coming from.

One of the “sleepers” of the convention is the Global Gala Reception on Tuesday night. It’s a super value also – cost as little as $29 for qualifying PMA members (max price is $49 for non-members) You can eat there plus hear some sounds and mix/mingle with folks from all over the world. In the past the food has been international as well. Many Yankees didn’t think they could attend because they didn’t have “International” on their badge but this session is really open to everyone. Great value, good fun and superb conversation.

The “A List” event for retailers is the PTN Dealer of The Year Party – Wednesday – 5:30pm to 7:00pm at the Renaissance Hotel – this year honoring Jerry and Rosemary Sullivan of Precision Camera – the presentation is usually at 6:15 – that’s when you hear some of the real story as to what makes these winners so unique. The attendance is usually the who’s who of camera store operators and top manufactures are there too. The free food and drink helps draw the crowd as well.

Here comes a self serving plug – there will be two Idea Exchanges this year – Monday and Tuesday (both are different/unique). You should be able to make at least 7 new acquaintances at each session – people you can you’ll be able to figure out who has similar operations to what you have and how you can share insights with each other. These connections are is very valuable. Plus, you’ll be able to pick up great marketing ideas. Communicate with during the year and meet up with them again next year.

Now – before you leave, read the brochure about all the educational sessions so you can pick the ones where you need the most new ideas. There are great opportunities – don’t be bashful about looking at the framers’ or school photographers’ sessions. Good ideas are where you find them.

PMA has added a superb resource for attendees this year – nobody has the time to investigate every single booth – there’s too much. Imagine having a “staff” to go out and dig for the gems of the show and possibly paying you to listen to their ideas. It will be Thursday, March 5 – “Hot Picks of The Show” starts with a drawing at 1:00 sharp for $1,000 cash. It will feature representatives of the major buying groups around the world showing their best finds of the show. And there will be another $1,000 given away at 2:00 which is the end of this session . . . pretty good reward for showing up to see the hidden gems others have found . . . it will be just before they give away the even bigger cash prizes at the Parting Shot event, so make sure your return flight isn’t so early you miss out.