It's rare that reporters have time at a busy conference to just sit around and chat. If you happen to run into a reporter on the exhibit floor and can lasso them into spending a few minutes at your booth, terrific. But on the whole, meets and greets, while pleasant, are rarely productive for either party.

So, where does that leave you? How can you get an editor's attention–especially when they are stressed out from soliciations every time they pick up the phone?

MAKE NEWS! Reporters are under pressure to produce copy out of a conference, and they are always looking for interesting angles and prepackaged stories that will make their lives easier. Offer to help feed the beast with important content and you are far more likely to land an appointment.

How do you make news at a conference? Don't just introduce a new product or service. Everyone times product introductions to a major conference for their prospects, so for us to write about one and not all the others would invite those who didn't make the cut to gang up and come after us with torches.

To make news, you might consider doing a quick survey prior to the conference, and release the results at your booth or in your hospitality suite. Or do a study on a timely and controversial topic, and release your report (along with an executive summary, please…and graphics….editors love graphics!) during the conference. At one RIMS meeting, Lloyd's actually put together a group of syndicate managers for a 30-minute state of the market panel at their booth, which drew a healthy crowd. Now, that's real content, and easy to digest.

Yes, doing surveys and reports will take extra work and drive up costs, but do you want to get coverage at the conference, or listen to all the editors you call just grumble and blow you off?

ACORD and LOMA tried something different and interesting at their joint forum today. For the second straight year, they held a “speed-dating”-style of press conference, in which reporters rotated from vendor to vendor, allowing about five minutes for each to deliver their pitch.

When I first heard about this approach, I didn't like the idea of being taken hostage and coerced to see vendors that may have nothing important to say to me, but I actually found the experience very positive. It sure beat the mass press conference held by ACORD and LOMA in the past, when a parade of vendors took the podium to announce their latest initiatives, with most reporters nodding off or bailing out long before the event came to a close. Indeed, the vendors were forced to concentrate and focus their messages, and reporters had a chance to get a question or two in without having to share the information with their rivals.

In any case, the key point is that a reporter's time (and attention span) is very limited on the best of days. We are being buried by an avalanche of press releases, story suggestions and offers to serve as a source on a daily basis. That problem is multiplied exponentially at a conference.

Therefore, if we are short or even curt with you when you call to make an appointment with us at some conference, don't take it personally. It's the nature of the beast.

Indeed, on the whole, journalists are some of the most sociable people on Earth, but after being hounded for weeks, even the most even-tempered person will start snapping at the latest conference-related PR pitch, especially if they are empty-handed when it comes to making news.

We are, after all, in the news business. Make some news, and you have a much better shot at getting my attention.

Good luck!