Rich is a man who eats, sleeps, breaths IP communications. In fact, he barely slept this week at ITEXPO since he was so busy meeting with VoIP service providers and VoIP vendors, as well as speaking at the show and walking the show floor. I'm at the show myself, but I always keep one eye on Rich's blog to see what he's writing about. This morning, Rich woke up at an ungodly hour of 3:30am and then at 5:29am Rich posted an excellent recap of all the happenings at ITEXPO. He potentially has the scoop about a new Skype offering called Skype Pro that is worth checking out.

What I like about Rich is that he's not a sleazy sales person or circus ringmaster just blindly promoting ITEXPO as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Rich's background is actually computer engineering, so he's a techie at heart, not a marketer, though he does a fine job promoting TMC's tradeshows. Just as an example, in his recap post, Rich humbly accepted responsibility for not having enough food for TMC's ITEXPO dinner reception whose attendance exceeded everyone's expectations. Admitting your mistakes takes a humble person, so I tip my hat to Rich. In today's cut-throat competitive business environment, admitting mistakes that your business has made is very rare.

Just before the dinner reception was the keynotes and the raffle. In his recap, Rich talks about the tremendous crowd at the keynote, which was followed-up by a raffle of a Harley-Davidson. I was at the keynotes and the raffle drawing and it was one of the biggest - if not he biggest crowd I've seen for a keynote at a VoIP tradeshow. You can check out the enormous crowd in the keynote room via this video that TMC's Manuel Lirio captured. It's a bit long, so if you want to see pans of the crowd go to 2:28 and 3:30.

I have to say, I have been to more VoIP tradeshows than just about anyone. Well, actually Rich beats me there... but I have to say that of all the VoIP or IP communications tradeshows I have been to in over 11 years, ITEXPO Ft. Lauderdale had the best attendance, the best "buzz factor", and the happiest attendees, conferees, and exhibitors. I don't say this lightly. I have talked with several exhibitors who told me this is the best VoIP tradeshow they've ever been to and I've heard that the conferees were very impressed with our conferences and have given ITEXPO speakers very high marks on speaker evaluation forms.

Most tradeshows tend to peak after 3-5 years, but ITEXPO appears to be growing year-over-year, which bodes well for the IP communications industry. I for one can't wait for ITEXPO West in Los Angeles!