Confession time: I have a love-hate relationship with RSNA. I love going, attending educational sessions (the handful that interest me and that my brain can wrap around) and cruising the technical exhibits to see what’s new and interesting. My experiences as an exhibitor, well, they were universally disappointing… until this year that is…
First, I must also confess a fatally-flawed preconception about RSNA. I had always figured that – with the sheer number of attendees – making sales would be as difficult as ‘shooting fish in a barrel.’ I couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, the raw numbers of people and exhibits require that each attendee must exercise a laser-like focus to see what they want to see during the week. If you weren’t one of their priorities at home before Thanksgiving, you won’t be one the following week in Chicago.
This year, however, the (metaphorical) heavens parted and a slender, brilliant beam of enlightenment struck me as I sat sipping coffee in our booth. It’s not the mass of thousands of people that make RSNA worthwhile, it’s the fact that there are so many individuals that I’d like to talk with, gathered together under one roof, that makes RSNA so amazing. So, I started seeking-out those people I wanted to have conversations with.
We met at my booth. We met at their booths. We met in the educational sessions. We met at dinner. We shared coffee. We bumped into each other walking through the halls.
The tens of thousands who attended this most recent RSNA are just the ‘long list’ of people that I hope to have a chance to talk with in the years ahead. This year, however, my epiphany revolved around just a couple dozen people that I couldn’t have talked with in any venue other than RSNA.
I believe that this was really a major breakthrough… recognizing that the RSNA forest really is a bunch of individual trees… individuals that I really want to relate to on a one-to-one basis.
For the first time, I ended RSNA not focused on the too-little sleep, or sore feet, or hotel-induced-Alzheimers of not being able to remember my room number. This time, as I was headed to the airport in Chicago, I was genuinely excited about next year’s meeting.
This epiphany may have been patently obvious to others a long time ago, but for me it has totally changed my outlook on RSNA.
Tobias Gilk, President & MRI Safety Director Mednovus, Inc. Tobias.Gilk@Mednovus.com www.MEDNOVUS.com
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