Brooks Instrument Blog

As a vendor exhibiting at Intersolar you get to see the show from a little different perspective than the average show visitor.  Through your interaction with numerous customers visiting your booth you start to get a sense of the mood of the attendees and the opportunities that exist in the solar industries.

My first observation is that I was glad Brooks Instrument participated in the Intersolar portion of the combined Semicon/Intersolar show.  From a facilities perspective, the two venues for the shows almost reflected the state of the two industries.  Intersolar is located in Moscone West, a new exhibit hall which features large windows that let in the sun and generates a positive atmosphere on the show floor.  The solar industry is the future and these facilities reflect that optimism.

Visiting the Semicon portion of the show in the south hall of Moscone gives you almost the opposite feeling.  You enter an old building and proceed down the escalator to a subterranean world without any outside light, with large expanses of hard surfaces, large columns, low levels of lighting, and with exhibit space clearly not being used.  This exhibit hall is a metaphor for the state of health of the semiconductor industry.   We met many traditional semiconductor visitors at the Intersolar show.  I am sure many of them have a curiosity about this growing business.

The attendees we met at Intersolar covered a wide range, from students, financial analyst to engineers and scientists.  They had a common interest in how the solar industry was going to change their lives and what future opportunities it held for them.  They were interested in how Brooks Instrument played a part in the solar industry.  They wanted solutions to problems or opportunities for growth.  In general the attendees were very positive and hopeful of the future.

The attention getter we used to attract people to our booth was a display showing a ping pong ball balanced in a jet of air (check out the video).  Being an engineer by training, I frankly was amazed at the interest this simple display generated.  In talking to the people watching the “magic” of the floating ball I explained the basic scientific principle being used to levitate the ball.  It was easy to transition from the concept of this flow to the real reason for this demonstration which was the incredible stability of the Brooks GF Series mass flow controller when exposed to a fluctuating input pressure.

The key marketing message for the show was Brooks Instrument has solutions for deposition of Transparent Conducting Oxides (TCO).  The purpose of messaging at a trade show is to get visitors to stop and ask questions.  TCO films are a key for efficiency of many solar technologies.  This messaging was very successful and resulted in many questions from interested visitors.

With the growth of the solar industry, 2011 Intersolar should be even more successful.  I hope to see you there.