I was down at NAB the last few days and wanted to share a few observations from the show. First, a few comments about the show itself:
Your Feet Will Hate You: This is the fourth year in a row that I have been coming to NAB. And it’s bigger than ever. There are hundreds of sessions and thousands of vendors clamoring for the attention of tens of thousands of attendees from around the world. This is the first year that someone else was walking the show floor and I got to show up for pre-scheduled meetings. He got to experience the pain of walking up and down hundreds of aisles stretched across at least a handful of football fields.
Meh: While NAB was bigger than ever this year’s show had a bit of a “been there, done that” feel to it. There wasn’t really anything all that exciting that had everyone buzzing. Even the keynotes didn’t pack the same punch as in year’s past. Its to be expected every now and then. The industry can’t be expected to produce eye popping excitement every year. Or maybe it can. Keep reading for our Anti-Meh moment.
Expense Account Crushing: Everything in Vegas seems to be bigger than anywhere else. Even the prices. And that includes what you’ll pay at the concession stalls at the conference site. A burger and a drink will set you back close to $15. I should have been brining in pizzas and selling slices as I was meandering around the show floor. It would have paid for the whole trip.
That’s enough of my sideline commentary about the show. Based on what I just wrote it might sound like the show was a bit of a dud for the ConceptShare team. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
This was the best NAB outing that we have ever had … for 3 reasons:
1. See ConceptShare Here, There, Everywhere: We didn’t have our own booth at the show (hard to compete with the six to seven figure spectacles that tradeshow booths that get all of the attention and traffic), but we had multiple partners that were showcasing ConceptShare. Over at the OpenText booth they were showing how they integrated ConceptShare with OpenText Media Manager (OTTM) to deliver a module called Creative Review. They were demonstrating Creative Review as part of their Customer Experience Management demo pod. We saw dozens of companies and hundreds of people stop by the Open Text booth and there was fantastic reaction to Creative Review.
Over at the HP booth they were showing their integration between MediaBin and ConceptShare. Over there the reaction was also very positive with many show attendees expressing a great deal of interest in the integration between the products. And over at the Aria hotel (a welcome respite from the tsunami of human beings on the show floor) we were invited by Cognizant to participate in their demo suite. They were speaking to their customers about leveraging DAM for other workflows. In our case they asked us to spend time with each customer speaking to them about how ConceptShare can be integrated with DAM to support an organization’s work in progress workflow.
2. From Closed Arms to Open Arms: When I first started coming to the NAB Show on behalf of ConceptShare it was like pulling teeth to get anyone to speak to me. Four years ago the same cast of characters were there. DAM, MAM and all sorts of other companies that offer products that we wanted to OEM our technology to. We tried to convince them that their customers would be looking to them to support a creative operations or creative review workflow. No dice four years ago. No dice three years ago. No dice two years ago. A bit more luck last year. Then this year was a huge transformation. Dozens of DAM, MAM and other companies actively looking at how they were going to support this workflow for their customers. Its an indication of the increased activity we are seeing through our direct sales channels. The same customers we are speaking to directly are pushing their technology partners (for DAM, MAM, etc.) to support their creative operations workflow through their products.
3. Our Anti-Meh Moment: If you have had a member of our team visit with you and your team then you know we are fond of saying “we like hearing your compliments, but we LOVE hearing what you hate about the product so that we can fix it and make it better.” And we mean that. But every now and then you hear (or in this case overhear) a compliment that makes you want to scream like you just won the lottery. I can’t name names due to this company’s corporate policy of going on the record, but I can tell you that they are one of the five most recognized brands in the world.
The Setting: Day 4 of the show at the booth of a ConceptShare Partner
(we were a couple of feet away doing our best to
eavesdrop without being obvious)
The Players: ConceptShare Partner + Senior Marketing Executives from Client
Organization
ConceptShare Partner: “So have you seen anything at this year’s show that
has impressed you?”
The Client: “The one thing that has blown us away is ConceptShare–
best thing we have seen at the show.”
They were blown away? I was blown away! This show is inhabited by hundreds of companies that invest hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D every year. Some of the biggest names in technology are at NAB. And they thought that ConceptShare was the best thing they saw at the show. Now I realize that their opinion is shaped by what is important to them. Nonetheless it was a great compliment to hear (ok, overhear) and just validates all of the hard work that our team puts in.
Overall it was a successful NAB for ConceptShare. See you there next April.