Bringing us all together (03/10/08)

The weather could hardly have been less cooperative this weekend, but if you ventured out and made your way to Jay County High School you saw plenty of smiling faces.

There may have been a winter weather warning outside, but inside plenty was going on at the Jay County Chamber of Commerce's Business Expo and Home Show.

The expo is one of those animals that's a little bit hard to describe.

In terms of the effort and investment, it may be tough to justify. And it's difficult to measure how effective it is connecting potential customers with local businesses who serve them.

For large industrial customers - FCC Indiana comes to mind because it always has a great display - it's even more difficult to measure.

How does a company quantify the impact of having kids walk up to a booth and see what it is Mom and Dad make every day?

Our guess is the impact is very real and in some cases extraordinary. But you'd drive yourself crazy if you tried to come up with a way of measuring it effectively.

The best answer may be that the virtue of an event like the Expo is that it gets lots of people in the same place, face-to-face, talking, probably complaining about the weather in this case, and making contact.

The over-used buzzword is networking.

And that's really a word intended for larger communities where folks don't interact as frequently as they do in Jay County.

But maintaining the network is important. Connecting folks is important. Giving people those little moments of "I didn't know they made that" or "I didn't know they sold that" or "I didn't know I could get that done locally" are important.

Why do it? Why go to all that trouble?

Because it brings us together, because we'd be weaker without it, and because - on a wintry weekend of lousy weather - it can be fun. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]