Read this article for all the details:

‘Unbelievable’ sportsmanship in softball game

That’s the definition of sportsmanship. On a technicality, they could have forced the opposing coach into a decision to sub a player and only make it a single. But she hit the home run. She deserved the home run.

Good stuff. Play hard, but play fair; and sometimes fairness isn’t the letter of the law (rules).

More people in business should play (compete) this way.

Mark Cuban just reposted an article he wrote back in 2005 called The Sport of Business.

If you’re an entrepreneur, or have aspirations to be one, you need to go read it. And then find a way to get your edge.

This week has been interesting. I think it was my shot at my 15 minutes of fame. I’ve been ‘in the news’ 3 times.

First, Utah Business’s cover article for August 2007 was called The State of Small Business: Building the Most Dynamic Economy in the Nation. In this article, Jacob Moon interviews several Utah entrepreneurs about the interactions of cooperation, competition, and Utah specific culture in their efforts to build and grow companies. Recently, the 2007 State New Economy Index, a major study performed by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ranked Utah # 1 in the country for “economic dynamism” and I put in my $0.02 about some of the challenges and opportunities that Doba has faced and seen in that type of economic environment. I think it’s a great article. And with my call out quote in the article (see pic below), I’m sure the folks running Omniture and MyFamily.com are trembling in their boots cause Doba’s coming for their best and brightest one day!

Note, I only put the pics up so that you could see that: a) I can wear a nice button-down shirt and look good doing it (right on for the Doba green background!), and b) I can wear a nice plain gray t-shirt and look good doing it too. Shoot, maybe I just look good no matter what I wear.

Next, I was Interviewed on Wednesday for the Online Marketing with RSS Ray radio show that is produced by wsRadio.com.

There are 2 segments to the show. In the first segment, I talked about Doba and some of the common challenges and best practices that online sellers could be faced with and should be aware of. The second segment talks more about my books and what I’ll be talking about at Online Market World in San Francisco Oct 3-5. Links to both: Segment 1 Segment 2

Finally, last week, Brad Baldwin from Rocky Mountain Voices came down to interview me about Doba and that was posted up on PodTech yesterday. You can watch the embedded interview below, or visit the Drop Ship Product Sourcing with Doba page at Podtech.

I think that’s what they call a ‘trifecta’ for being in the news: Print, Radio, Video. 15 minutes over, now back to work.

In most major cities across the United States, if your company chooses to set up a conference or trade show exhibit booth at a hotel or convention center, chances are that you’re going to run into a company like GES Exposition Services or Freeman. Technically called a show ‘decorator,’ the Freeman’s and GES’s of the world are hired by conference or trade show organizers–or they have exclusive contracts with hotels and convention centers–to provide infrastructure-type products and services to exhibitors.

Often, companies like mine have no choice (because of preexisting union-type agreements) but to contract with these decorators for things like booth set-up and teardown, carpeting, display tables and skirting, and chairs and cleaning services. Why should any of this matter? Take one look at a decorator’s price sheet and you see exactly why!

Here’s a short list of prices (charged by Freeman—the only game in town—for a 3-day conference they’re ‘decorating’ at a union hotel in California):

• Black Leather Sofa: $807.05
• Matching Loveseat: $726.86
• Matching Chair: $540.85

Okay, so maybe you’re thinking, “What’s the big deal… who needs a leather couch?? Fair enough. How about a standard table and two plastic chairs (every exhibitor needs a table and a couple of chairs, right?):

• 6’ Table (undraped): $137.85
• 2 Black Diamond Side Chairs: $218.00

Wow, that’s something, isn’t it? And the list of over-inflated prices doesn’t end there (not by a long shot). Want your booth vacuumed at the end of each night? That’s going to run you an extra $93.00. Want your trashcans emptied before your booth opens the following morning? That’s going to cost $71.45 (but don’t forget to pay for that trash can: $85.65).

If you ship your booth to the show ahead of time, the decorator gets away with charging you between $600 and $2,000 to deliver your booth to the exhibit hall (from a storage room, mind you, that’s less than 100 feet away from your spot in the exhibit hall). And since the hotel and decorator are both union shops, you–as the owner of your booth–are not even allowed to set-up or tear down the display yourself. Instead, you’re forced to pay $78.80 per hour on a weekday–or double that on Saturday or Sunday–for the privledge of having a union worker handle a job that you could accomplish in half the time with the care and touch your display deserves.

My point is this… these so-called ‘decorators’ are about the most anti-competitive forces I’ve ever encountered as a small business owner/entrepreneur. Trade shows and conferences are such a key component to small business success that I for one would like to see an Elliot Ness-type of effort to shut down what has so clearly become The Trade Show Mafia.