I attended the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference last year in Las Vegas and again this year in Chicago. Even though the Vegas metro is much smaller than the Chicago metro, the Vegas conference was much bigger than the Chicago conference.

I didn't go to the sessions and I don't know how many attendees SHRM had for the two conferences. I spent all of my time in the exhibition area so that I could get some great face time with clients, vendors, and partners. As wonderful as email and the phone are, nothing beats looking someone in the eye and figuring out how to better help each other.

So what was bigger about Vegas? The number of exhibitors. It took me 1.5 days last year to walk through the exhibit hall. This year it took about half that time. I'm in much better physical shape this year than I was last year but that's not it. I bet there were 30 to 40 percent fewer booths this year and some of the booths had nothing to do with human resources, such as one for Sleep Number beds and another for Mercedes cars.

Is SHRM hurting because of the economy? Or did the exhibitors expect Chicago to draw fewer attendees than Vegas? Or something else?