Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

 

Those involved in health, science or engineering exhibitions and conferences know the importance of having a portion of your floor space dedicated to posters.

 

Posters, which are painstakingly prepared by researchers, academics and health care professionals, provide a visual opportunity to tell a story. Posters provide a vehicle for sharing valuable information with the community, informing colleagues of current directions with the hope of collaboration, informing funding agencies of advances or enticing potential partners. The value of posters is undisputed.

 

The problem is that posters typically have a short life-span. They are created for a specific event and then relegated to a wall in the back of the laboratory or a box in a storage room.

 

What if there were an alternative to posters at a live event?

 

One initiative is SKOIR, http://www.skolr.org/, which is a publically funded digital repository for posters. SKOIR gives the poster a longer life, can be changed and updated easily and economically and provides a broader audience than those who attend a conference.

 

SKOIR seems to make a great deal of sense but at what cost? From the organizers perspective it could mean the loss of a valuable part of the fair as well as a reduction in revenue.

 

Is the world of posters at live events coming to an end?

 

What are you doing to compensate for the loss of this potential revenue?

 

Have you seen this as an issue?