LIVEdigitally

Beyond all the travel tales, tradeshows, product launches and whatnot was Sling Media’s most important asset: it’s people. Some of the people I worked with while at Sling were some of the best I’ve ever worked with in my career. As I observed in my post on the acquisition, I believe the talent is a huge asset that Echostar gets in the deal.

It’s extremely challenging to put together an all-star team. I’m not exactly sure how it was pulled off, but virtually every player in the Sling lineup was extremely well suited for their role. Some with 20 years experience, others with 2. For some it was a major learning curve, for others it was like riding a bicycle. Not to say it was all perfect, there were certainly hiccups along the way, but by and large it was a pretty impressive cast of characters.

I could probably write another 10 pages worth of individual stories and escapades. I’ll attempt brevity:

• Driving to San Diego with Blake and Jason (luckily I passed on the drive to Vegas – there’s only so much Carl’s Jr a man can eat).
• Gregg Wilkes educating me on the right beverage to drink when out with the sales guy (answer: vodka soda)
• Stogies on the balcony with Rich (truthfully there are dozens of great times I had with Mr. B., but the times at the tiki bar were some of my favorites)
• Handing off IR programming responsibilities to Brian M (sorry!)
• Lunches with Judy
• Time spent in the dungeon annex with Teresa, Jeff C, and Chris B. Do the phones work there yet?
• Mutual venting with Dee
• Tami putting together CES so efficiently that all I had to do was show up (a personal first in 8 years of going)
• Sharon, who I got about 3 weeks of time with, and Dave, who accepted, then rejected, then accepted the gig, after I left.
• Handing off SlingPlayer Mobile to Vicky (sorry!)
• Indian buffet with Raghu, Alex, Bhupen, and John. Many more joined after, but they never made it to Sneha.
• Little Mattie Whitlock, who wasn’t an employee, but still had to put up with my antics.
• About 100 stories with Brian J, especially trying to find a cab in NYC at 5:30pm in the rain on a Friday outside of Javitz (we walked about 2 miles until we found one); and trying to figure out why our waitress couldn’t calculate 60% of a bill without freaking out. But especially for our unique style of walking tradeshow floors.
• and countless others – Slingers, please do leave comments if I’ve left something out that you remember fondly…

Thanks again for the memories everybody. If you need me, I’ll be at the colo.

I have one final post for the SlingMemories series, but I decided to switcharoo the order. I left Sling Media in October 2006, and unlike all my ex-girlfriends, we managed to break up and remain on good terms. This was really important to me, as I felt (don’t laugh) pretty emotionally tied to the company. Even today when I talk to clients and talk about “how we did it back at Sling” I still use the word “we” not “them”.

At CES 2007 I was reunited with the crew as I lingered at the bigger, better booth Rich and Tami had put together. I sat a row away from the team when Blake was on stage during the CBS keynote to announce Clip+Sling. I saw their impressive partner pavilion. And I had my chance to hold the Emmy the Slingbox won. That too was a great moment – how often does a tech/product/marketing geek like me get to be part of something that wins an Emmy?

Over the course of 2007 I’ve watched (and often blogged) Sling’s news (here’s my highlight of the year). I still check on the display of the units when I walk into a Best Buy. I IM with someone from the team every few days, and love seeing them pop up on TechMeme when news comes a-flying. Actually, as I read this, one could almost accuse me of being a stalker.

There are many ways to look back on the ventures we’ve participated in; the products we’ve built. Most of the people I talk to seem to reminisce with negativity, either toward “the management” or to the product/service/company itself. After all, it’s easy to do this, as odds are fairly decent the relationship came to an end at a low note. Heck, we all remember the past either rosier or darker than it once was.

For me, watching Sling in 2007 was generally with pride. I wondered if they’d pull off Clip+Sling. I remained curious about the SlingCatcher. Were there doubts? Yup, I don’t deny. But Sling remained true to the first description I gave my friends when I joined the company: it’s going to be like a rocket ship. I don’t know if it’ll burst into flames on the launchpad, go massively off-course, or make it into orbit, but no matter what it’d gonna be a heck of a lotta fun to watch. I certainly wasn’t wrong about that!