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leadership not to focus too heavily on dry customer-satisfaction surveys that might not tell the entire story. "Tey wind up chasing a number or percentage," she said. y Jim Krager, a long-time labor lawyer, advised companies to pay attention to employee morale since there is a union- friendly president in the White House for potentially four more years. At the same time, he said, the National Labor Relations Board had given its blessing to organizing "micro units" of specialty workers within non-union companies, which would provide a beachhead for the eventual organizing of an entire firm. "Figure out what your exposures are and do something about it," he said. y Jim Tunney, a long-time referee in the National Football League and the father of Mark Tunney, the former senior vice presi- dent of sales for the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau, stressed the impor- tance of going the extra mile and main- taining a level of integrity while doing so. "Just do the right thing," he said. "Being a good person is what it is all about." y Ken Schmidt, who spent a long career as communications strategist for Harley- Davidson motorcycles, gave a spirited dismissal of corporate marketing clichés. He said terms like "quality" and "com- mitment to excellence" had become so standard that they would in the end be trumped by a lower price. Instead, he said that enthusiastic employees who simply listened — really listened — to custom- ers would build the kind of brand loyalty that had enabled Harley to dominate the motorcycle market, even though their bikes might be more expensive, but not particularly mechanically better than their competitors. "We don't react to met- rics and we don't react to data," Schmidt said. "You ask the customer what they want and then you do it — it's genius." Next year's Summer Education Confer- ence will take place June 23-26 at the La Costa Resort & Spa north of San Diego. Reach ESCA Executive Director Larry Arnaudet at (972) 447-8210 or larrya@augustagroup.com; Doug Ducate at (972) 687-9242 or dducate@ceir.org; David Causton at (312) 791-7000 or dcauston@mpea.com www.TradeShowExecutive.com | July 2012 17