To get four computers online at his booth, David Phillips, CEO, NKP Medical Marketing Inc., Los Angeles, says he used to spend “a minimum” of $1,500 to $1,600 for Internet service at each of the six or seven trade shows his company attends each year. But he’s found a way to cut that cost by about 80 percent, with a DIY Internet service that mails exhibitors everything they need to get online.

Here’s the scoop on the startup connectivity provider Trade Show Internet, which sells three days of high-speed Internet service for four computers for $299. Too good to be true?

If you’re looking down the barrel of a big cancellation penalty, a new online service could help save your budget. Chicago-based MeetingTrader, a clearinghouse for canceled meeting space, expects to come out of its beta-test phase in the first quarter of 2010, but meeting professionals are already making use of the service to help resell their meeting contracts and mitigate cancellation fees. Here’s how it works.

For your attendees, the next best thing to being at your incentive conference is looking at their conference photos. Even better is sharing those photos with friends and family—days before arriving home. With the latest version of redbutton.tv’s eCard conference kiosks, the process is faster and includes easy uploads to Facebook. Read all about it.

How many times can we in the presentation consulting/training community repeat the tired old chestnuts about using larger fonts, less text, more graphics, greater contrast, etc., etc., etc.? It doesn’t seem to be having any significant effect on the average quality of presentation design and preparation.

So I started thinking about it from a different angle. How are we not “thinking like our audience” when presenting these tips? And I realized that perhaps we are addressing the wrong audience entirely!

Here’s hoping attendees still look to your conferences for answers instead of to Google. With that said, it can be useful to get a feel for what the world in general is looking to know more about. We’ve got a link to the 2009 Year-End Google Zeitgeist, an analysis of what people have used Google to search for most this year. A few previews: Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and acai berries.