Fair Game

This article highlights the benefits of conducting a fair to increase business visibility. Many emerging industrial nations are using fairs to increase their visibility. Russia used more than 7000 square meters at the 2005 fair to display the country's skills in fields ranging from aerospace, energy, and metallurgy to materials, transportation, and automation. Eighty-one companies competed for the prestigious Hermes Award for pioneering technology. The Hermes finalists were selected by a jury, but the people's choice was clearly the Airacuda, a pneumatically powered fish that dived, turned, and swam like its biological antecedents. In addition to Chancellor Merkel, it drew a steady stream of engineers who came to watch it swim in its 60,000-liter aquarium at the Festo AG & Co. KG exhibit. The article concludes that the objects are playful; however, they have a serious purpose-the advancement of industrial technology and perhaps of medicine as well.