@CES Worst of the Week: A mind is a terrible thing to waste

Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
LAS VEGAS — Not sure how it happened, but I again attended the annual Consumer Electronics Show after having sworn off ever attending this celebration to all-things electronic the last time I attended. I either have a very short memory, or the lure of attending a trade show in Las Vegas with 100,000 of not-my-closest friends at some point over the past 12 months seemed appealing.
Like every other time I have attended this show I am amazed that any one entity can actually put on such an event. The sheer magnitude of resources and planning involved with putting on CES every year must rival those needed to invade a small country or at least what’s involved in procuring tickets to see the 3D IMAX version of Avatar while it’s still in theaters. (I know that movie has made like a trillion dollars, but as of yet my hard-earned cash is not part of that sum despite repeated attempts to see it only to be stymied with every show for that day being sold out. Are people seeing this flick multiple times? Are there really that many people who want to see a modern Smurf story? What the deuce?)
So, instead of continuing this diatribe in the usually non-sensical manner, I figured I would take a page from the endless number of PowerPoint presentations I was forced to sit through and use some awesome-sounding bullet points.
–I saw an electronic billboard while screaming around town in a cab – and I do mean screaming as the cabbie’s driving had me yelling at the top of my modest lungs – that was advertising Clearwire’s Clear service that is available in the Las Vegas area and it’s ability to stream live television. I guess that is what having triple-figure spectrum depth and relatively few customers can provide. Not so sure Verizon Wireless or AT&T Mobility will be making similar claims when they start rolling out their LTE networks.
–If Las Vegas is good for anything it’s for wagering on nearly everything. I started taking cues from the local sports books by laying down odds on just about everything I encountered while in town. Odds of finding a cab line filled with 5 people or fewer: 1,000 to 1. Odds of finding a cab line filled with 1,000 people or more: 5 to 1. Odds of finding a set of escalators where the one going down was working and the one going up was broken: 2 to 1. Odds of winning money at a craps table when someone you know is watching: 2,000,000 to 1. Odds of winning money at a craps table when no one you know is watching: 1,999,999 to 1.
–I appreciate all the hard work the public relations employees of these monstrous technology firms put in while attending these large trade shows. I can’t imagine the stamina and restraint it would take to handle any questions I may pose let alone the thousands they must put up with on a daily basis, all with a smile on their face. But I do have one complaint and I know it’s not something they cannot fix. There is little value in news coming from the show unless the wonder-product or service being unveiled has a launch date or a price. What’s the point of hyping the next super phone if it costs $5,000 and won’t be available until Haley’s Comet takes another pass by Earth? Again, I know this is usually out of just about anyone’s control, but if there is no price and date, spare the hyperbole.
–As a person that has no business being in front of a crowd, I have very little room to make a comment on this, but I attended several “unveilings” at CES that used one of two methods of making a stage event. One was to have the CEO or other executive-level person at a company take the stage as master of ceremonies during the unveiling, while the other was to have a company hire some third-rate “celebrity” that seem to be a dime a dozen in Las Vegas to handle the duties. My general observation of each is that it’s obvious executives are executives and not performers for a reason. And, that hiring some comedian to talk about your high-tech electronic device may sound like a good idea in a marketing meeting, but typically fails miserably when it transitions into the real world.
–Verizon Wireless must employ some sort of reverse penny jar thing with their employees if they don’t mention the phrase “We have the most reliable network” at least 44 times in every conversation or speech. It’s almost enough to make me forget the dropped data connections I seemed to have experienced while at CES this year using a Verizon Wireless device. Almost.
–Thanks to some inspirational words from my colleague Matt Kapko as he was screaming across the desert en route to Las Vegas mixed with some internal arguments brought on by a lack of sleep and too much “Las Vegas,” I think I figured out a succinct way to describe CES to the friends and family back home. It’s like the biggest Best Buy store during Black Friday mixed with just a bit too large of a hit out of the little brown bottle in Dr. Gonzo’s shaving kit.
–I managed to make a few sorties onto the numerous show floors at this year’s event and I must say that the ever-increasing screen sizes and overall thinness of televisions is amazingly alarming (or is that alarmingly amazing?). Yet I think I speak for many when I say that I would give up any advancement in television size beyond 21 inches if these technology giants would focus their considerable resources on perfecting teleportation. I know I have railed on this lack of instantaneous travel before, but that was in 2009. It’s now 2010 for crying out loud. Shouldn’t we have teleportation nailed down? Why can I stand dumb founded in front of a 165 inch, 3D television screen that is thinner than most of my arguments yet I can’t snap my fingers and be back in my own bed every night when attending trade shows. Get with it you so-called “tech-giants.” I am giving you until next year’s CES to perfect this desperately needed technology. And the fact that I am already committing to attending next year’s CES event is all the proof you need as to the damaging effects such a show in such a place has on me.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@ardenmediaco.com.