From the Inside Out

For me, day two of VoiceCon started with the Cisco keynote given by Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer.  I watched the session from my hotel room via Cisco’s virtual event portal and sent out live Twitter updates about the keynote.  Isn’t technology great?

Padmasree talked about the future of Collaboration and provided an interesting demonstration showing how doctors could use collaborative technology to provide remote healthcare to patients.

Immediately after the keynote, I ran (well, fast walked) to the booth to start my 6.5 hour shift.  The foot traffic in the exhibit hall was much busier than yesterday.  That was a relief.  There’s nothing I hate worse than being on a booth with no customers. 

A few issues arose with our video blogging portal, so I left the show floor in the middle of the afternoon to get things back in order.  Since I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I also grabbed a quick bite to eat.  Fueling your body is so important, but it’s such a hassle when you’re busy!

After booth duty, I met with our vendor to select the top video blogs of the day.  Everything was going smoothly until we realized there was an issue with the audio/video synch on the videos which would require the vendor to reload all 300 videos onto YouTube…argh!  We decided to make it happen late tonight, but then YouTube took their site down for maintenance.  It’s almost 1:30 am, and it’s still not back up.  I’m sitting here waiting on it so I can fix broken links and set-up the voting area for today’s videos.  I may just have to give up and fix it in the morning.

I didn’t have time to take pictures today, but here’s a short video with some shots from yesterday.

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Day one of VoiceCon is in the books. It was a 16-hour work day starting with early morning meetings and working sessions followed by 6 hours of booth duty including an after-hours reception for analysts and consultants.

It’s now 1:40 am. Since I only got 4 1/2 hours of sleep last night, I’m too tired to write a proper blog.

Tune in tomorrow for a better update including pics and videos from the show.

In the mean time, you can check out short video blogs from VoiceCon here or watch demos here.

How many planes does it take to get to Orlando from Dallas? Well, today it required two. After boarding all passengers this morning, AA announced that our plane was experiencing issues with its pressurization system.

We sat at the gate waiting to see if it could be fixed, but finally they announced that the plane was being taken out of service. We had to disembark and move to another plane a few gates down from where we were stationed.

Ah, the joys of air travel! I guess that’s one good thing about the economic downturn and the resulting travel restrictions at Cisco. I’m traveling less and not wasting as much time dealing with flight delays.

After boarding the second plane, we had to wait again — this time for fuel. Once we got in the air, the flight was mostly uneventful. Amazingly enough, there were no screaming, unruly children on this flight. I think it’s the first time in all my flights to Orlando that I actually had a pleasant flight.

Due to the delays, I didn’t have any time to spare once I arrived in Orlando. I shared a cab with co-workers, checked into the hotel, dropped off my luggage, and went to the pre-show meeting to hear about all the great things Cisco has planned for the VoiceCon 2009.

The meeting wrapped around 8:45 pm. After chatting with colleagues and catching up with those I haven’t seen in months, we decided to run downstairs for a late dinner at a sushi bar.

Okay, don’t freak out. I did not eat sushi. I will not eat sushi. It’s just not my thing. Luckily, they did have some cooked food, but I stuck with the edamame and steamed pork dumplings. The eel dragon rolls were just too adventurous for me!

VoiceCon begins tomorrow. It will be a long day, starting around 7:30 am and running til 9:30 pm with almost no break.

Oh yeah, trade shows are just great.

I did get a room with a decent view at the Gaylord this year. My room has a balcony overlooking the “everglades” area of the atrium. Here’s the view taken from my cell phone at night…enjoy!

We hosted our first murder mystery party tonight for the young married’s group at church. This particular mystery centered around popular children’s book characters. They come to life in the library each evening to fellowship and frolic…that is, until King Henry VIII was murdered.

The famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, assembled all the characters in the library to determine who committed this heinous act.

The entire cast of characters

I was Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother

Little Red Riding Hood and Pinocchio

Inspector Sherlock Holmes

Gepetto pulling Pinocchio’s strings

Aladdin and the Genie

Dr. Frankenstein

Pondering the evidence

Dorothy and the Wicked Witch

Introductions and the list of suspects

For the complete picture album, check out the photos section of my blog.

If you watch TV, listen to the radio, or read the news, then it’s likely you’ve heard about Bernard Madoff. Madoff’s resume boasts 40+ years of experience as a trader, chairman of the Nasdaq stock market and hedge fund manager. He was well-respected, but for years there were rumors on Wall Street about his hedge fund. The returns were too high, and his operation was slim considering the tens of billions of dollars that were being managed.

Federal prosecutors recently charged Madoff with securities fraud that may have cost investors up to $50 billion. Madoff is accused of operating a giant Ponzi scheme in which money is taken from new investors to pay earlier investors. This could be one of the biggest Wall Street scams ever.

To help explain a ponzi scheme, Ernie and the Cookie Monster break it down into simple terms that anyone can understand, even a child. Check it out.