I guess it’s time to call it a recurring theme, but with only 3 days left to go, it’s time for my annual “how to survive CES” post.  As per my disclaimer last year, I am copy-and-pasting anything that is still relevant (and with so little time I don’t think I have a lot of the funny in me right now).

1. Wear comfortable shoes. It was #1 last year and is again. Even if you are the guy wearing the $6500 suit (come on!), put on your Adidas or Reeboks or whatever to go with it. Few will notice, and if anyone questions, saying “yeah, I decided it’s smarter to be comfortable than look pretty at CES” probably trumps any kind of rebuttal. It’s a BIG show and you’ll end up walking a few miles every day. Freebie bonus tip: while walking the show floor, try to walk on the booths as they tend to have better padding than the walkways between booths.
2. Leave your remote control where it belongs – at home. There is absolutely zero upside to pranking booths. Don’t do it.
3. Bring Purel and some chapstick. Wash before eating, because CES 2009 is also International Germfest 2009. Also, Vegas is in the middle of a desert, so having chapstick (and some moisturizer) will help.
4. Go counter the traffic flow. I’m not the only one with this theory – the Sands Expo is opening at 8am on Thursday, while the Convention Center only opens at 10am.  Skip the huge taxi lines and head over to the Sands on Thursday, then save the LVCC for the rest of the show.The worst thing that can happen is you won’t get your hands on some crappy t-shirt you’ll never wear. Which brings me to
5. Skip the swag. Do you really want a Panasonic pen, or a Sony plastic bag, or a brochure from TiVo? Really? My wife has actually forbidden me from bringing home anything, period. Also, for those of you into conservation (which should be, you know, everyone), no better way to send a message than to leave LG with an extra truckfull of mints.
6. Don’t harass booth workers. They all have jobs to do (booth babes included), and just because they are there doesn’t mean they are the right person for you to give your 30 minute lecture as to why you are unhappy with your DVD player. It’s also not fair to beat up on some marketing guy who doesn’t have a uber-techie-detail question (although if they don’t help find you the right person, well, then they’ve asked for it). Also, if you see 12 people from CNN trying to set up a video shoot, you should probably realize you’ve become a lower priority, try to grab a business card and head out rather than wait for that awkward moment…
7. Don’t hide your badge. First, it’s just a nuisance. Second, people like me train all our booth staffers to ask people like you who you are. Third, good booth staffers will treat you the same as anyone else, although they might just filter you to the right person. If you are an important member of the press or a senior guy at a huge company, well odds are you shouldn’t be talking to the 23 year old QA person who was roped into coming to CES to help with some booth shifts. Flip side comment here: if you are working the booth and someone comes up that is a competitor, don’t be rude or glib. Treat them the same as any random booth visitor. It’s just stupid to tell them they can’t see something or take pictures, when any random schmo can do exactly that.
8. Hydrate yourself and your hotel room: If you carry only one thing (and you should – more later), it should be a bottle of water.  Also, since your hotel room will be quite dry, leave the bathtub 1/4 full of water overnight, you’ll feel better in the morning.
9. Plan ahead. If you have not registered for the show, you aren’t getting in (this happened to a commentor here back in 2007). If you forget your badge, you are paying a fee to get it back. Pick up your badge at one of the non-primary locations (Sands, several hotels, Hilton, etc). Traveling between any two destinations could easily take an hour, even as early as 8am. Despite “CES is sounding light” stories, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised and adjust accordingly than be late for anything.
10. Need Connections? Figure it out ahead of time. Every year it gets better, but every year it’s still bad. Internet connectivity is unreliable anywhere in the convention center. Even the press room’s Internet service went down last year. If you MUST be online for a call/meeting/briefing/WoW session, have a place in mind to do it.
11. Use SMS to coordinate. Texting is the easiest and most reliable means of communicating across the extremely loud and busy show. Forget any “advanced” types of technology and go with something that works.
12. Bring business cards. I would say roughly 97% of the people that I’ve met at CES over the years who don’t have cards regret not having them. Maybe it seems cool now not to carry them. Maybe you think they are so 1990s. The truth is, there’s almost no reason not to carry cards, and even looking at it from a potential loss vs potential gain perspective says: carry the darn things! And Moo cards don’t count, people.  Updated for 2009:  Still true.
13. Pack lightly. My recommendation is to walk the floor with either nothing or a near-empty backpack. Forget shoulder straps, you’ll be aching by the end of the day. Bring nothing you do not need during the day. Also, try to dump your bag prior to dinner, so you can spend the night on the town without having to remember anything later. What happens in Vegas…
14. Check the live coverage. Engadget puts up a post every 3.8 seconds during CES (this is not a fact, I am just guessing). Make sure you tap into theirs (or Gizmodos or your own favorite gadget blog) during the course of the show. They might find something you hadn’t heard of before, and you might miss it otherwise.
15. Lower your expectations. If memory serves, the last time a company introduced something that was genuinely new and interesting at CES was Moxi, about 6 years ago (which was about the last time they were really interesting, unfortunately). The show is rarely the place where a company will launch newly innovative products, although it is a great place to see the ones that were announced in the past. Expect bigger/flashier screens, cameras, etc, but don’t expect something new and amazing.
    Expect some cool stuff. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this year will be a cooler one than expected at CES.  First, the way mainstream media is positioning it sounds like there’s only 4 companies left demoing and about 17 attendees at the show.  Sure, the count is down from last year, but so what?  The truth is we’ve seen more, and pardon the phrase, “riffraff” come to CES than ever before.  This is an industry show, not just some random tech meetup or Web conference, and major manufacturers and retailers are here for business.  I’ve received tons of interesting pitches so far, and I think we may be pleasantly surprised with CES 2009.

Lastly, for a moment of brash self-promotion… I’m working with five cool companies at CES 2009 (several of these have new stuff coming just in time for the show!), and would love for y’all to get some time to see them at the show.  They are: Boxee, Bug Labs, DeviceVM/Splashtop, TuneUp Media, and a new startup who’s actually launching a new gadget at the show. Yup, it’s going to be a very exciting CES!

And it’s not an HD Video Scuba Mask (yes, that’s a genuine product being pitched at the show)!

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is coming up.  I’ll probably add some new tips to my annual CES Tips list, but ultimately there’s a lot of same-old, same-old going on.  Which, to people like me, is great.  To a lot of people, it’s awful.  I think the show could use some change (this year’s I-Stage event was definitely a step in the right direction), and I’ll post on that soon enough.  But for those of you debating attending, here are 6 reasons why CES is Awesome, and 6 reasons why CES is Lame.

The Awesome List

1. The CrazyNation Pavillions.  Located every year in the Sands hotel, many countries purchase booths for local vendors to show up with their wares.  Invariably these booths have some of the weirdest hybrid gadgets you’ll ever see, most of which will never, ever come to market, anywhere.  But it’s “Days of Thunder” bad, in other words you hate it til you get sucked into it, because after all, it’s pure entertainment.
2. Vegas. Anything more than 3 days in Vegas is too long, but if 2/3 of your time is spent at a big gadget show, that only really leaves ~1 day there.  Which is perfect. And honestly, where else could they possibly put a show like this?
3. Something New and Exciting. There’s always the chance for something new and fun at CES.  I know already of two gadgets that will debut there, both of which are interesting and worth checking out.  While the recent trends have shifted to independent launch events, I think this might be the perfect year to launch at CES.
4. The Innovations Zone. Much like the International Zones above, the Innovations Pods (also in the Sands hotel) are a way for startups to bring their gadgets to the world for the right price.  Keep in mind both Sling Media and Bug Labs first attended CES in the Innovations Pods (yup, I’m biased).  Don’t forget – this year there are two Innovation Pods areas in the Sands, so make sure you get to both!
5. Really Really Big Stuff.  Huge.  Just because nobody will ever buy a One-Hundred-And-Six-Inch Plasma doesn’t mean we don’t want to see it!  Or $150,000 projectors.  Or big crazy gaming rigs.  It would be like going to a car show and not seeing Ferraris and Maybachs…
6. Cheap Hotel Rooms.  While I don’t agree with my friend Dan that CES will be a “dud”, there are definitely more hotel rooms available than in prior years.  Which also means shorter taxi lines.  No matter what, for those of us who do go, it’s a win.

The Lame List

1. It’s still in early January.  This is my 10th CES, of which only 3 did not have me there as a demonstrator (this year included).  Which means for 7 of the past 10 years, my December is generally spent planning and executing on CES.  This, in a word, sucks.
2. Hooligans.  Consider the above comment.  Now pretend you work for a big firm that spends hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on the show every year.  Now pretend you are doing demos for 8 hours a day with inadequate sleep.  Now pretend some young whippersnapper comes along and screws with your demo.  Funny (I guess) to anyone but the demoer, but just an unpleasant thing to do to someone.
3. Nothing New and Exciting.  While I have hopes for Something New and Exciting, the reality is there won’t be more than a handful of standout new products at the show.  Which means literally thousands of gadgets you’ve seen before.
4. Apple Doesn’t Want to Share With the Other Kids. Of all computer and consumer electronics companies, Apple unquestionably produces the most intrigue around new products.  Considering they make the #1 selling MP3 player and also the current king of the hill iPhone, they’d fit quite well at CES.  But they don’t come, and I think it’s a shame.  Granted they have little to actually gain (considering they make great products, have all the PR they need, and own their own retail channel), but it would be nice to see them participate in such an industry-defining event.
5. The CES Flu.  It comes every year, it’s unpreventable, and unstoppable.
6. It’s Too Damned Big.  When the show expanded to the South Hall, we all thought it was too big.  Expansion to the Sands helped CES as much as teams in Phoenix, Raleigh, and Tampa Bay helped hockey.

See y’all in Vegas!

The “missed connection” was invented by Craigslist as a way for two people who “met” somewhere, but were unable to actually exchange names, phone numbers, or emails. They tend to go a little something like this:

You were the cute Asian girl with a beer standing by the side of the stage. I wish I had introduced myself because think you were there by yourself. You caught me looking at you and smiled. Hopefully you’ll see this because I’d love to take you out for a drink.

I had an interesting moment last week on a flight, and I thought I’d do my own little “missed connection” despite the fact that I made no effort whatsoever to get any contact information from the individual at hand. But that’ll probably make more sense by the time you get to the end of this. I may even cross-post this on Craigslist, just for funsies.

United Flight xx, Seat 8B

You were the middle aged guy who pulled out your iPhone as we were on final descent. I was the guy sitting next to you who politely asked you to put it away while we landed. You may recall looking at me with disgust and putting your phone away while telling me to mind my own business. I did assert that it was “my business” since you were taking an action that put my life in jeopardy (well, maybe, but I’ll get to that later), and proceeded to loudly say “thank you” over and over at me until I raised my voice above you, and with a menacing glare said “you are welcome.” You turned away, probably realizing you weren’t really too sure about the guy a foot taller than you who looked like he had had enough of your childish behavior.

I was really quite surprised by the incident, especially considering I was polite, and asked you to turn it off while smiling. Since you were in business class with me, and sported the iPhone, I was under the assumption that you, like myself, might be a frequent business traveler. I was also surprised by your retort of “it’s in flight mode”, considering every flight you’ve ever flown has similarly had you turn off all electronic devices upon descent.

Now I think we are probably in the same boat: it seems so ridiculously unlikely that you and your cute little phone could possibly wreak havoc on an airplane. I mean really, how on Earth could that happen? Seems crazy. But yet, they have this annoying rule, and it’s imposed by the FAA, and well, I guess since I don’t work for the FAA and I don’t know all that much about landing planes myself that I’m going to follow that rule. I’ve even gone looking around the Internet for a “fact” to prove the FAA wrong, and, well, bummer, I couldn’t find one (although there’s a lively discussion a Mythbusters fan site and this article is good too). So until someone changes that rule or disproves the FAA, I’m going to keep following it, because, hey, knock on wood – it’s worked for me so far (100% landing rate, FTW)!

Which brings us around full circle to you – did you have an email you were waiting on that you felt was more important that, say, a safe landing? Again, even against infinitesimal odds it seems like there are very few emails that could be worth it, right? And even so, you’ve made it for almost 6 hours already, what could have happened in that last 4 minutes? Really, we were on the ground a mere 4 minutes later!

So I’ll end my letter to you, fine sir, with the request that you consider the world around you a bit more thoughtfully. I know you are clearly a Very Important Person because, after all, you do own an iPhone and sat in business class. You must be extremely busy with work, because you were willing to endanger us all just to see what emails may have arrived on a Friday night after work hours were done on this continent. I cannot stand on solid ground and assert for a fact that your phone would (or would not) cause any interference with the airplane’s landing systems – but then again, you cannot prove the opposite to be true, and all things considered, I’ll take my safety over your email any day of the week.

In short (too late), just stop being such a grade-A moron, the world already has enough of them.
<end of rant>

Despite me writing a rather scathing commentary on the Kindle when it debuted, Amazon recently sent me a loaner to try out for a couple of weeks. Without a doubt, I will say I enjoyed using the Kindle in a variety of locales, and it’s a rather well-thought-out product (more eye-catching action photos are all at the bottom of this post). I’ll also state up front I feel it’s overpriced, the content (books and blogs) are also overpriced, and I still don’t believe books are in any danger of vanishing in the short term.

Let’s start with the good. The packaging is great, it has a very “book-y” feel to it, it’s very inviting, and also looks professional enough to go along with the price of the unit. The OOBE (out of box experience) was also well done, as the first “boot” of the Kindle had a nice “Welcome Jeremy” letter from Jeff Bezos (thought I’m pretty sure it wasn’t unique). While there are a few quirks to the user interface, the learning curve was fairly close to zero, I’d be surprised to see someone needing a lot of help to get started.

Browsing the Amazon store on “Whispernet” works great, I was able to easily find numerous lists of books that were interesting to me from a variety of criteria (most popular, newest, etc). There’s a well-done integration with my Amazon.com account, so I didn’t need to register anything new to pay for titles. Also, the download speed for content (books, web pages, etc) was much better than I anticipated, definitely fast enough to provide a decent experience.

Reading books was also quite pleasant. If you’ve never seen an e-ink interface, it’s much slower than LCD (think about a second per page – it’s definitely noticeable). That’s the con, the pro is that is looks very close to paper-like and uses almost no power. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t change the font density or size, as it used a spacing that ended up making me feel like I was reading one of my 1-year-old’s jumbo books with 3 sentences per page. There’s also no backlighting (not even Indiglo), which I think is an essential feature for a 2nd Edition.

The Kindle is fairly light, and feels nice to hold in your hands. That said, it can be awkward to hold one-handed (ex: on the bus) and I think it should have a strap on the back so you can slide your palm into it without worrying about dropping it. The buttons click well, though I feel the keyboard is in the way a lot of the time, and think it could be better suited as a slide-out or other ‘hidden’ key setup. The primary navigation wheel is nicely responsive, though definitely has oddities in the on-screen menus.

Now for my short list of problems, and they have little to do with the gadget itself. First up it’s a half-closed system. I don’t like Amazon charging for blogs I want to read, especially when they are free on every other platform possible. Secondly is the price for books themselves. While $9.99 is a bargain compared to a $19.99 (or higher) new hardcover, it’s not great relative to $6.99 and less for softcover, and laughable next to used book prices. That plus the sticker price for the device itself and we’re well beyond yuppie territory. At current pricing I’d say the product is really only for those with ready supplies of disposable income.

While I believe the Kindle is probably one of the better e-book readers on the market, I am still (very) squeamish about the category. While it’s nice to have the ability to have hundreds of books with you on a long trip, it’s not nice to worry about dropping a Kindle in the bathtub (or the beach, pool, forest, or basically anywhere else). As the “all the books I want” argument tends to be the big point for those in favor of e-readers, I’ve truly never known that as a real issue. I’m an avid and fairly fast book reader, and even on my three-week honeymoon I didn’t run out of books on the trip, and I wasn’t exactly overburdened in my luggage.

Some specific product recommendations for a “2nd edition“:

• Allow me to customize the font size/weight (will really help users with poor eyesight)
• One word: backlight
• Redesign the front to have the keyboard hidden when not in use (slide-out?)
• Put a strap on the back of the reader that I can slide my hand into for comfort
• Automatically synchronize my wishlist from Amazon.com
• Ship the Kindle with samples of books that are currently popular
• Have the ability to auto-subscribe to certain book ‘feeds’ for sample delivery
• Offer a subscription model for all-you-can-read pricing
• Set a precedent with a peer-to-peer licensed and monetized “used eBook” system (use an open market for it, give a %age of the resale price back to the publisher. it’ll work, trust me)

In summary, I think the Kindle is a good product but trapped inside the wrong price points and business model around e-books. If you are like me, and buy most of your books used, it’s definitely going to seem like a ludicrously priced gadget. If, on the other hand, you buy two or more new hardcover books a month, it’s worth checking out (probably pays itself off in about a year or so). Overall the good user experience combined with the auto-download features with a huge library behind it absolutely make the Kindle a great e-reader. That said, I’m still opting for used books for my personal needs, and I’m still pretty bearish on the whole concept of e-readers.

And now… zany Kindle photos!

Let me open by saying I think my Nuvi 350 is one of my favorite devices.  While there are a few improvements I could point out, for the most part it works very intuitively and reliably.  With the exception of the one time I was trying to find a Dairy Queen (Blizzard? hells yes.) and I ended up outside of someone’s house while hearing “you have arrived.”  And the guy didn’t even have ice cream.  Fail.

Today I received the following email from Garmin:

Garmin is pleased to announce the new Map Update 2009 for North America. For the most up-to-date maps and navigation on your portable Garmin GPS unit, this is the software you want. This $69.99 update offers full coverage for the U.S, Canada and Puerto Rico – making it easy and convenient to update the detailed maps and latest points of interest into your compatible Garmin unit.

The update includes:

• Over 8 million miles of road coverage
• Updated, fully routable, detailed maps for the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico
• Nearly 6 million points of interest
• Postal code support for Canada

Purchase the Map Update 2009 today!

Now I’m sure Garmin is paying someone (Navteq?) for their maps & data, and have costs to recoup.  I have no problem with paying for an update, if the price is right.  And maybe back 10 years ago $70 was a fair price, but today it isn’t.  The Internet has effectively trashed the value of data to consumers, and price points need to reflect that changed mentality.

As I write this, the Nuvi 350 is $203 on Amazon, meaning new updates are over 1/3 the price of the hardware.  Whereas going to Google Maps is free, always.  Granted, my Nuvi is more convenient than printing maps, and I am willing to pay something.  How about $9.99?  Or maybe $19.99?  Those seem like a “fair” price to pay for a map update.

There’s simply no way in the current market to accept $69.99 as a fair market value for a map update. Especially in context of a certain new phone that’s going to cause even more issues for a slowly failing GPS market.

My two posts last year on CES (1 and 2) had a lot of great comments and I got good feedback from colleagues long after the show. So I’m back again with a new version for ’08. Some of the content is recycled, some is brand spankin’ new.

1. Wear comfortable shoes. It was #1 last year and is again. Even if you are the guy wearing the $6500 suit (come on!), put on your Adidas or Reeboks or whatever to go with it. Few will notice, and if anyone questions, saying “yeah, I decided it’s smarter to be comfortable than look pretty at CES” probably trumps any kind of rebuttal. It’s a BIG show and you’ll end up walking a few miles every day. Freebie bonus tip: while walking the show floor, try to walk on the booths as they tend to have better padding than the walkways between booths.
2. Bring Purel and some chapstick. Wash before eating, because CES 2008 is also International Germfest 2008. Also, Vegas is in the middle of a desert, so having chapstick (and some moisturizer) will help. Bonus: if you have a overly dry hotel room, leave the bathtub 1/4 full of water overnight, you’ll feel better in the morning.
3. Go counter the traffic flow. Day one will have the North and Central Halls buzzing. Head to the South Hall or Sands (do NOT miss the Sands!). If you are there through all four days, don’t even walk into the North/Central halls until Wednesday. The worst thing that can happen is you won’t get your hands on some crappy t-shirt you’ll never wear. Which brings me to
4. Discriminate on swag. Do you really want a Panasonic pen, or a Sony plastic bag, or a brochure from TiVo? Really? My wife has actually forbidden me from bringing home anything we won’t actually use, unless it’s a gift. New for 2008: I’m not allowed to bring mints home anymore either!
5. Don’t harass booth workers. They all have jobs to do (booth babes included), and just because they are there doesn’t mean they are the right person for you to give your 30 minute lecture as to why you are unhappy with your DVD player. It’s also not fair to beat up on some marketing guy who doesn’t have a uber-techie-detail question (although if they don’t help find you the right person, well, then they’ve asked for it). Also, if you see 12 people from CNN trying to set up a video shoot, you should probably realize you’ve become a lower priority, try to grab a business card and head out rather than wait for that awkward moment…
6. Don’t hide your badge. First, it’s just a nuisance. Second, people like me train all our booth staffers to ask people like you who you are. Third, good booth staffers will treat you the same as anyone else, although they might just filter you to the right person. If you are an important member of the press or a senior guy at a huge company, well odds are you shouldn’t be talking to the 23 year old QA person who was roped into coming to CES to help with some booth shifts. Flip side comment here: if you are working the booth and someone comes up that is a competitor, don’t be rude or glib. Treat them the same as any random booth visitor. It’s just stupid to tell them they can’t see something or take pictures, when any random schmo can do exactly that.
7. Plan ahead. If you have not registered for the show, you aren’t getting in (this happened to a commentor here last year). If you forget your badge, you are paying a fee to get it back. Pick up your badge at one o fthe non-primary locations (Sands, hotels, Hilton, etc). Traveling between any two destinations could easily take an hour, even as early as 8am (my calendar has 45 minutes of travel time between every two meetings, even if they are close to each other).
8. Need Connections? Figure it out ahead of time. Every year it gets better, but every year it’s still bad. Internet connectivity is unreliable anywhere in the convention center. Even the press room’s Internet service went down last year. If you MUST be online for a call/meeting/briefing/WoW session, have a place in mind to do it. I recommend either your own hotel room, or if you are a blogger, the PodTech BlogHaus (which is a lot out of the way, but supposedly has awesome connectivity).
9. Use SMS to coordinate. Last year’s CES was where I mastered the T9 10-key texting interface on my phone. You have to yell and scream to be heard on a phone call from the show floor, but texting works great. Even at night at the various industry parties we were still texting to find each other. If your cell phone plan doesn’t have texting, or you have waited to really try it out, now’s the time.
10. Bring business cards. I would say roughly 97% of the people that I’ve met at CES over the years who don’t have cards regret not having them. Maybe it seems cool now not to carry them. Maybe you think they are so 1990s. The truth is, there’s almost no reason not to carry cards, and even looking at it from a potential loss vs potential gain perspective says: carry the darn things! And Moo cards don’t count, people.
11. Pack lightly. My recommendation is to walk the floor with either nothing or a near-empty backpack. Forget shoulder straps, you’ll be aching by the end of the day. Bring nothing you do not need during the day. Also, try to dump your bag prior to dinner, so you can spend the night on the town without having to remember anything later. What happens in Vegas…
12. Check the live coverage. Engadget puts up a post every 3.8 seconds during CES (this is not a fact, I am just guessing). Make sure you tap into theirs (or Gizmodos or your own favorite gadget blog) during the course of the show. They might find something you hadn’t heard of before, and you might miss it otherwise.
13. Lower your expectations. If memory serves, the last time a company introduced something that was genuinely new and interesting at CES was Moxi, about 6 years ago (which was about the last time they were really interesting, unfortunately). The show is rarely the place where a company will launch newly innovative products, although it is a great place to see the ones that were announced in the past. Expect bigger/flashier screens, cameras, etc, but don’t expect something new and amazing. Heck, one of the top CE analysts in the country isn’t even going!

That’s it folks, 13 tips for maximizing your CES experience. Have a great show!

Updated: I decided to put some tips for people whose job is to work the booths over on my company blog. Check em out!

I flew approximately 185,000 miles between January and October 2006. That included 5 trips to Europe, 4 trips to Asia, 2 to Canada, and a few hauls back and forth across the States. The purposes of my trips varied, but were all centered around a few recurring themes: go train the CSRs for a new international support center; go speak at an international launch; or go participate in a tradeshow or press/media event.

Launching the Slingbox in Canada was exciting for me personally, as I am from Montreal. For the first time in my life, a product I built was being brought to my home country, and I could tangibly show my family what the heck I do for a living. My parents, inlaws, and other relatives all followed the well-publicized Canadian launch which took place in Toronto. While I enjoyed presenting to the attendees at the event, again my highlight memory was walking into a FutureShop (a Best Buy competitor in Canada. it is owned by… Best Buy) with my Dad and seeing the Slingbox on store shelves. Despite the employee insisting that the product didn’t actually exist, that is…

The UK launch of the PAL Slingbox involved two different trips, the first was to Amsterdam to train the customer service and support department. It was a good trip, especially considering the location the knowledgeable CSRs there, as it turned out the team had previously supported either media products, networking products, or both. This makes a huge difference; believe it or not there are both good and bad ways to handle even the simplest situations, such as verifying cables are plugged in correctly. The things that seem the most obvious in life typically are anything but that.

The other trip was the actual media launch. The highlight of this story has nothing (well, little) to do with Sling whatsoever, so diehards may want to skip ahead. We were setting up the demos in the bar/club we were using for the event, and they had a few Sky+HD boxes with plasma displays hooked up. Their AV guy informed me they were one of the first HDTV deployments in the UK (HDTV only really launched there weeks after we left) and was showing off the picture quality to me. When I told him it seemed “off” he looked like I had kicked his dog. I asked if he was using HDMI, he said he was. I grabbed the remotes, went through all the settings. All seemed fine. I turned it all off and on again, still crappy looking picture (which, as you recall, they all thought looked great). Finally I went to check the connections myself and found that while he was using HDMI, he had also left a coaxial connector in place, and that was the active input! When I switched inputs to the HDMI, I think he was ready to lick the screen. As I handed back the remote I said “now THAT’s high definition TV.” Looks like a lot of people need some help with HD…

Another good time in Europe was 4 days in Barcelona with Gregg Wilkes, Sling’s outstanding VP of Sales (I think he might know every single CE retailer internationally!), for the RetailVision tradeshow. RV is a “real” industry event in that the only attendees are those who are absolutely part of the CE-retail food chain. Manufacturers, vendors, distributors, etailers, retailers, and channel support people. That’s it. Virtually no press, no consumers. Since the first time Sling Media showed up at a RetailVision the company won an award there, all the way up until the previous year’s RetailVision Europe when, due to too many overlapping events, nobody from the Sales or Marketing departments could attend, though two quite capable senior execs went in their stead. They came home empty handed. Gregg and I talked quite the smack-talk about it, so we had a lot riding on our demonstrations that session. Let me say this: I’d never, ever want to play poker against European retailers. No expressions, no reactions, no smiles, no guffaws. Even as they named us as a nominee, we had absolutely no insight as to whether or not we’d won until the end. When we did. Huzzah. Unfortunately I missed my flight home the next morning and spent about 18 hours in airports. But at least it was spent trophy in hand.

Over the course of the year I also did two 2-day trips to Taiwan, a few days in Japan, less than 48 hours in Sweden (plus the 41 hours of travel), and 2.5 days in Hong Kong. To some people this sounds amazing; to others dreadful. Japan was great, because for one, I love Japan (especially here and here), and also I was able to carve the trip out around a weekend and my wife joined me there (where she learned about the most important things: Shabu Shabu and Ippudo Ramen).

I did get to go to many interesting places last year, but would love a bit more time to actually see them. So it was both amazing and dreadful.  I certainly don’t miss the 16-hours flying to Sweden followed by 3.5 hours in a train for less than 2 days’ worth of meetings only to turn around and do it all over again.  But I did meet some great people in all these cities and countries, and will keep a lot of those relationships alive for years to come.  Plus the miles don’t hurt.