King Arthur had his Knights of the Round Table. The life insurance industry has its Million Dollar Roundtable.

And now you can join an industry Roundtable during the 31st Annual Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo in Louisville March 2-5. On Saturday, March 5, COLE Publishing will hold a Roundtable Discussion and Pancake Breakfast from 8 to 10 a.m. It’s a chance to spend time with professionals in the pipe and drain maintenance and other environmental service industries and share ideas and best practices as they relate to pressing issues facing service businesses.

Part of the network

A big reason to attend the Expo (or any industry trade show) is to network with your peers from around the country. The Roundtable event is designed to bring a tighter focus to networking by putting you in a group with others who have concerns and questions similar to yours.

Choose your group carefully and you’re likely to come away with a couple of profit-boosting ideas, or a solution to a persistent problem, or an approach that can help you run your business and lead your people more effectively.

The beauty of a trade show is that you get to talk with others in the business who are not your competitors, and so are willing to share ideas freely. You are unlikely to experience that kind of sharing back home.

Here’s how it works

We’ve set up this event to maximize sharing. While you’ll be asked to select just one Roundtable group in which to take part, each group will report to the entire room at the end of the discussion, so you get insights on a variety of important issues.

We’ll start by selecting, by show of hands, several topics for discussion. Then we’ll devote a group of tables to each topic and ask those present to choose the topic of greatest interest and go to that area of the room.

After around-the-table introduction of group members, each group will select a leader who will guide the discussion, record comments on the flip chart, and give the report at the end of the session.

The discussion will be free-flowing, with just a few basic ground rules, such as: no criticizing of anyone’s ideas, keep comments short and concise, stay on topic, and give everyone a chance to speak.

The discussion will last about 30 minutes, after which each group will summarize the items discussed and decide what to present to the larger audience. Each group leader will then have about five minutes to give a report.

Get involved

That’s the basic format – we’ll provide all the instructions and materials to make the experience easy for everyone. In return, here’s what we ask of you:

1. Register. To help us plan for the event and set up the room, we need participants to register in advance. Go to www.pumpershow.com/roundtable.

2. Suggest a topic for discussion. We’ll be looking for discussion topics from now until the start of the Expo on March 2. We will consider all ideas carefully before selecting those to present to the group. Suggest your topic at the Web address above.

3. Come to the event ready to learn and share. The more focused the group members are, the more everyone will get out of this event.

The breakfast price is $10 and includes fresh fruit salad, buttermilk and blueberry pancakes, link sausage, maple syrup and butter, orange juice and coffee. I’ll be the master of ceremonies for the Roundtable, and I look forward to seeing you there.