Yes, instead of vegetating on the sofa yesterday, I spent my afternoon at the Franchise Expo, which is put on by the China Chainstore and Franchise Association. For those of you who do not get excited by the terms "area development," "royalty structure," and "master franchisor," this may not have been the event for you.

At the risk of doing a bit of professional advertising (normally I assiduously avoid this), I will note that my firm had a small amount of space in the exhibition center, and we had the chance to talk to a lot of franchisors and some prospective franchisees. Here's a pic taken with my phone camera of Sunday's team – looks like they're having fun.

There was quite a lot of activity at the expo, more than I would have thought for a rainy Sunday afternoon. A couple of general comments. First, I've been to a LOT of conferences/exhibitions over the years, and there were quite a lot of exhibitors and a decent amount of money poured into the exhibits. Franchising is hot here, so no huge surprises. The big excitement was centered around the S.A. Michael booth – this is a South African diamond company, and they brought a bunch of models with them from home. Everyone was gawking and taking pics – mine did not come out well, must have been all the heavy breathing.

The other popular exhibits were definitely the ones that were giving out free stuff – there was a long line at the soft ice cream booth, and the coffee and tea folks seemed to be getting a lot of attention. To my disappointment, I could not find any free pizza, although all the major players were there.

Second comment: the variety of businesses at the expo is something to wonder at, particularly if you are not a franchise person. Everyone knows about the restaurants, real estate brokers, and convenience stores, but what about vinegar supermarkets? foot massage outlets? yoga facilities?

OK, full disclosure. This entire post was mostly an excuse to try out my new camera and see whether it will be of any use for the blog. My ability to take shots, upload immediately to Picasa with only one intermediate step, and post is quite easy. Therefore unless the picture quality sucks really bad, I might do this more often.