Should You Attend a mining conference in Toronto like The Canadian Mining Expo: Lessons Learned.
Everyone knows that in order to build a successful career, or take the best decisions in an organization, you must put in the effort to be up to date with trends and breakthroughs. Constantly brushing up your knowledge of the industry with it’s thought leaders will inspire you to bring value back to your daily activities and allow you to get better at your craft. One of those ways is to attend your industry’s trade shows.
For a SaaS (software as a service) provider like us, attending or exhibiting at a trade show, can be crucial to understanding our market. To be directly in contact with its key players is always a privilege.
Because some of nSpek’s most important client-partners are pioneers in the Canadian mining industry, we thought it a great opportunity to connect once again by attending The Canadian Mining Expo in Timmins, Ontario this year.
In an ideal world, everyone in the industry would attend these key events. If you couldn’t make it, here are some key takeaways based of off a short interview we did with Oliver Marcotte, our business development manager:
Can you describe the 3 main types of people who you encountered at mining conference in Toronto?
The Canadian Mining Expo was a mixed bag of mining execs, miners, distributors, families and high school students. You could truly feel the passion that the folks from Northern Ontario have for mining. Many mining execs were either presenting new projects and investment opportunities or success stories during the many conferences held there. There was also a good quantity of these folks walking the show attempting to find interesting tools and services for their operations. In the booths, you could meet sales reps, and HR employees recruiting the next generation of miners.
With what primary objectives or with which pain points did they go to the conference with?
It varied from person to person, and on the different roles within their organizations of course. Sales representatives were promoting interesting new products and technologies, and HR were testing the grounds (mining joke) to hire new hands in, what seemed to be a lot of technical jobs and underground workers. Mining execs were there to promote new projects and perhaps find solutions to their existing problems.
After meeting with some of them, what common trends or need did you observe?
Mines need people! There is no need to dive deep into how important mining is in Canada, or it’s obviously crucial role in the economy. There is a massive lack of qualified workers on the market, especially in areas that are further from the larger centers. This fact seems to have opened the door to digital transformations: digital solution providers like us who help with automation of old-school processes are a lot more present than in past years. The mindset is no longer, “technology will take away jobs”. Instead, it seems to have evolved towards “technology will help fill in the gaps and optimize our people’s time.”
What feeling, idea or takeaway did “The Big Event” leave you with as a digital solutions provider to the mining industry?
We can’t offer or provide people to fill in the gaps, but we can absolutely streamline processes and give back precious human hours to more important tasks. People feel more valuable in their jobs while executing higher value tasks VS putting tasks aside in order to do tedious or redundant paperwork. Happier workers are more productive and more loyal. Which is very much aligned with the HR goals of the mining industry, especially in a labor shortage era.
Knowing what you know now, what would you like to tell people who didn’t attend?
The willingness to change, embrace the new, and try novel solutions is highly present in the Canadian mining industry. Some of the sector’s pioneers are at another level in the game, using cutting edge technology that truly sets them apart. Everyone should follow suit and fast, otherwise just as with each new phase of industrialization, some big household names will not be able to catch up.
Last thoughts, opinions, notes, or advice to readers, mining execs or future attendees?
Yes, a quote: “Work smarter, not harder.” -Allan F. Mogensen
To sum it up quickly: Yes, you should, without hesitation, attend the mining conference in toronto: Canadian Mining Expo 2023.
You can connect with Oliver Marcotte here.