Tim McElligott Blog: B/OSS Blood Brothers

Less than 24 hours after signing off with an enormous sigh of relief from the stage of the 2010 Billing & OSS World Conference & Expo – where my colleagues chided me good-naturedly for being overly uptight all week – I sat in the hemodialysis center wearing my latex gloves and pressing leaky gauze to the fistula in my brother’s left arm.

Such has been our routine for over 20 years. As is the case with routines, we sometimes perform them without much thought. However, this particular Saturday as I looked around the dialysis center and noticed some familiar faces missing, which usually means only one of two things – neither of them good – and as I watched my brother’s blood being filtered by a machine and noticed the pained look on his face when his blood pressure occasionally bottomed out, only to hear him laughing a moment later when the feeling passed, I did start thinking. And I thought how foolish it was to get too uptight about minor, or even major, malfunctions in the trade show production process.

I thought it foolish to get too uptight over just about any damned thing. However, there is a fine line between letting things roll off your back and appearing not to care. The only way to find the middle ground is, obviously, to actually care, but also to prepare as best as one can and let come what may.

I am happy to say that what came to Washington, D.C., last week was a bevy of prepared, knowledgeable and entertaining speakers and a parade of solution-laden exhibitors and, as it turns out, more attendees than we had last year. In an economy that remains a challenge, this speaks well of the quality of our event and venue.

However, as positive as that initial sense of the show’s success may be, we would appreciate more direct feedback as well. So if you attended the show and didn’t fill out the evaluation forms – or even if you did – we would like to hear from you directly about your experience at the conference. So send a note to me and/or Tara Seals letting us know your thoughts. If you made it to the keynotes on Wednesday, then you know you can reach us both here: heyBOSS@vpico.com.

Be frank. Be honest. Be constructive. And be confident that whatever you have to say, I’m not going to freak out. Things are all back in perspective now.