This year was my third visit to this immense event, and for us it was a memorable week. Quite unrelated to the bookfair, we received very positive news about a tender we participated in, more on that later! But it lead to us driving to Frankfurt with a smile on our face!

Like many things in life, things go smoother when you are in a good mood. And a positive attitude is definitely helpful when having meetings at the Frankfurt Bookfair because the schedule was packed, as usual. In less than 48 hours we’ve had 20 meetings, 2 networkdinners and 1 beerfest. It was great to catch up with customers, partners and many potential new customers and partners. There were quite some comments about less people from the States attending, which might be true but the fair seemed to be as big and crowded as every year. 

With such a big crowd there are numerous relevant rumors you hear about vendors, publishers and the sector in general. But, outside the rumors and meetings, it is so nice to experience the difference between this time and my first visit to the Bookfair 3 years ago. In 2022, I went from meeting to meeting, with some work in between, because I actually had some time in between. This year, in between meetings, there are basically more informal meetups because there are more familiar faces attending than there is time to meet them all. 

General observations after almost 3 days in Frankfurt:

• Booking a hotel outside of the Central Station area is great. Last year we made the mistake to book close to the train station - never again. We can confirm, with this year staying in a hotel outside that area, that you should avoid the central station area at all cost! 
• People know Global Campus. Last year we already felt that our offering was more known than before. But this year people we have never met before already knew what Global Campus was. 
• With ScholarOne now being part of Silverchair for a year, things clearly have changed a bit. A lot of journals are on ScholarOne, and it seems that all of them are exploring the wide range of vendors that are currently integrating with ScholarOne. Which is great because it leads to a vibrant and active mindset, and of course provides us with opportunities to demonstrate the value of Global Campus!

Again, Frankfurt was a big success and we are now getting ready for the last two months which most likely will be a two month sprint. The things we have on our agenda in the coming months:

• Global Campus user day on 6 November
• Onboarding several customers that will start in November
• Finalizing and evaluating some major pilots
• STM Innovation Fair in December
• Loads of data consulting projects with universities to map their researchers to Horizon Europe funding opportunities.

And of course the follow up from all the Frankfurt conversations.