From the Inside Out

I made it back from VoiceCon safe and sound in spite of the 40 mile per hour winds and 50+ gusts at DFW airport. My flight was delayed because only two runways were open, but after a bumpy ride we finally touched down and taxied to the gate.

VoiceCon is alot of work. I’m glad to be home, but I’m bringing some good memories back with me. Below is another short video with a few of the highlights from the week.

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.

I arrived in San Diego yesterday, the day before the launch of our new collaboration portfolio.  More than 600 partners, employees, analysts and consultants converged on this location to be the first to hear the announcements and participate in various conferences being held throughout the week.  Thousands more participated via live Webcasts.  Over a 24-hour period, we hosted TelePresence sessions in more than 30 cities across the United States and Canada, Europe, Emerging Markets, Japan, and Asia Pacific.  It’s been a crazy couple of days.

 Now that the launch has occurred and the press announcements have been made, the pressure is off for me.  I am able to participate in the sessions and network with the attendees now.  It’s still work, but it’s not as stressful as what I’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks. 

The event opened with a welcome reception at the hotel last night.  Afterwards, my team went to dinner together at the Indigo Grill in Little Italy.  Since most of the people I work with are not located in Texas, it’s nice to get together, relax and hang out as a team.  It was a late night, but we had a good time — anytime you get 35 “type A” marketing people together you will have lots of fun and great conversation. 

I’m staying at the US Grant hotel in downtown San Diego. It’s a lovely hotel, ranked as one of the Top 128 Hotels in the World by Conde Naste Traveler.  They are also the winner of “Best Luxury Guestroom Design” at HotelWorld’s International Design Competition.  I can see why.  Their rooms, lobby, and meeting facilities are outstanding.  If you plan to visit San Diego, I highly recommend it.  See pictures below.

Wednesday kicked off with the much anticipated Cisco keynote session.  Using TelePresence, Al Gore and John Chambers joined Sue Bostrom on the VoiceCon stage for an interactive panel discussion.  Al Gore was located in Nashville while John Chambers joined from the Cisco headquarters in San Jose.  Sue Bostrom was on the VoiceCon stage in Orlando.  The panel moderator was a noted media representative from the UK; he joined live from London along with a studio audience.

The panel discussion was focused on the critical role that innovation and technology can play in mitigating climate change.  Although the dialog was lively and entertaining, the highlight for me was seeing everyone come together through the magic of TelePresence.  It’s truly amazing to watch.  Unlike traditional video conferencing, it is remarkably lifelike.  The video is high def, and there’s virtually no delay.  Even when the images were enlarged on the huge overhead screens, the quality was perfect.  It was just as good as the live TV feed.  You have to see it to believe it!

Pictures are courtesy of VoiceCon (these are much better than my camera phone pics).

Afterwards, I grabbed a quick lunch and joined the CIO panel, which was insightful.  I then headed down to the booth for my last shift of booth duty.  The traffic was much slower today.  You can always tell when it’s the last day of exhibits.  The traffic dies off towards the end of the evening. 

Booth duty ended at 6 pm.  There were a few of us who were catching late flights, so we shared a ride to the airport and grabbed dinner at Macaroni Grill while waiting for our flight. 

On the plane, the gate bridge connected to the economy section side entrance instead of the front entrance by the cockpit.  Usually, that’s not a big deal, but tonight my seat was right in front of that door.  So, as hundreds of passengers were trying to enter the plane, me and my neighbor were in their way.  We decided to stand in the aisle between first class and economy while they were boarding.  We had a friendly flight attendant who joked to us that we could just do her job and welcome everyone onto the plane.  So, we decided to have fun with it and did just that.  We were giving them the standard reminders about putting one bag in the overhead and the other bag below and moving out of the aisle so others could pass. 

My neighbor in crime was in a surprisingly good mood considering his flight in Tampa had been cancelled three times, and he had to drive to Orlando to catch this flight.  He was having a good time.  I guess he was just happy to be on the plane.

Finally, everyone boarded, and we got our seats back.  The rest of the flight was the way I like it — uneventful and quiet. 

I made it back to DFW around 11:15 pm and got home at 12:30 am.  It was late, but I was glad to be there.

Here are my parting pictures of the day:

-more pics of the booth (courtesy of VoiceCon)

-the ship at the Gaylord Seafood restaurant where I ate on Sunday