Trade Show Day 1
Day 1 of this trade show is over. I've been back in my room with my shoes off since just before 10pm. Not that this Day 1 is any big accomplishment. It's the easiest of the 3 days of this show.
Much of the day I spent flying from San Jose to Austin. The flight was uneventful, though it did fall a bit behind schedule. Then I hit some afternoon traffic getting over to the resort. In all I didn't get to the trade show floor until over an hour after the show started. But at least my room at the hotel is nice.
This is the Omni Resort Barton Creek in Austin. It's not the Omni "in" Austin, it's the one maybe 10 miles away from the city center. Out here they actually put some hills in the Hill Country of Texas.
The company running this conference generally picks nice, resort-y hotels for their events. And for me it's a bonus that it's not Las Vegas. I hate Las Vegas. It's so much more pleasant looking out the window and seeing this than seeing yet-another Strip view... or, more often, a parking garage and a freeway 30 stories below.
After working the booth for an hour in the evening shift I boarded a shuttle to a barbecue restaurant my company was co-sponsoring a dinner at. Lest you think, "Woohoo! Boondoggle!" the fact that my company is co-sponsoring means I attended as a co-host. That meant guiding people to the shuttle vans from the hotel lobby and working the room during cocktail hour to make sure nobody was left alone in a corner. (Because this is a techie conference there were several people being left alone in corners... and generally they wanted to be left alone... and generally it was better for everyone that they were. 😅) In between that and eating and drinking I had several good conversations with customers and prospects.
Much of the day I spent flying from San Jose to Austin. The flight was uneventful, though it did fall a bit behind schedule. Then I hit some afternoon traffic getting over to the resort. In all I didn't get to the trade show floor until over an hour after the show started. But at least my room at the hotel is nice.
This is the Omni Resort Barton Creek in Austin. It's not the Omni "in" Austin, it's the one maybe 10 miles away from the city center. Out here they actually put some hills in the Hill Country of Texas.
The company running this conference generally picks nice, resort-y hotels for their events. And for me it's a bonus that it's not Las Vegas. I hate Las Vegas. It's so much more pleasant looking out the window and seeing this than seeing yet-another Strip view... or, more often, a parking garage and a freeway 30 stories below.
After working the booth for an hour in the evening shift I boarded a shuttle to a barbecue restaurant my company was co-sponsoring a dinner at. Lest you think, "Woohoo! Boondoggle!" the fact that my company is co-sponsoring means I attended as a co-host. That meant guiding people to the shuttle vans from the hotel lobby and working the room during cocktail hour to make sure nobody was left alone in a corner. (Because this is a techie conference there were several people being left alone in corners... and generally they wanted to be left alone... and generally it was better for everyone that they were. 😅) In between that and eating and drinking I had several good conversations with customers and prospects.