Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1520492
104 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2024 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I n his keynote address at IPC APEX EXPO, mixed-media artist and technologist Paul Bailey quoted Simon Sinek: "Great leaders are idealists and optimists. They overestimate what we are capable of and inspire us to believe the same." Bailey sug- gested that staying between the lines often diminishes our creative potential. For him, achieving the impossible requires an initial passion for a subject, contact with mentors and subject matter experts who introduce you to alternative materials, processes, and people, and finally, empowerment to hand- pick resources and pass on your passion for completing a mission. For any attendee, technical presenter, or sales and marketing team, the IPC APEX EXPO experience begins as a standard-sized bare canvas does to an artist. Artists, how- ever, often resort to non-standard media to create works of art. By the end of the week, I realized how standardization and creativity mesh together in engineering. Personally, the show serves as a seedbed for my ideas, which get watered (sometimes over-watered) by my opinions as I traverse the aisles. I have learned through experience to temper my opinions. At the show, I am used to bouncing them off Managing Editor Andy Shaughnessy, who has a way of ver- bally "electroplating" my thoughts and help- ing me to roll and anneal them into some- thing of value for our publications. With the logistics and dynamics of the show quickly thinning our capability to cover our assign- Show Review by Kelly Dack Walking the Show in an EMS State of Mind