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Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Rearview Mirror: NAB 2008

Why do we torture ourselves this way every year?

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” So begins one of my favorite books, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by the late Hunter S. Thompson. We too drive from Los Angeles to Vegas every year for the NAB show, but the only drugs involved were various forms of back, body, and head aspirin in anticipation of the sensory onslaught, endless walking, and bags laden with brochures that define the NAB experience. And huge quantities of vitamins, attempting to stave off this year’s strain of the NAB Flu.

In an earlier blog post, we mentioned some of the more intriguing products we saw at NAB; in this one, I want to share some of the “flavor” of what the show was like. As a warning - before the amnesia sets in - to make sure no one repeats our mistakes.

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. If so, then most gamblers are insane. So are we, for staying at New York New York again. To be fair, it has a few redeeming features (such as a fine Irish pub and a sane Italian restaurant with attentive service), but it is surrounded by a roller coaster. With screaming patrons. While you’re trying to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow morning’s presentation. Two years ago we were on a corner, so we got them coming and going. This year, we asked to be placed as high as possible. We got a room right by the first incline and drop. At least the kind folks at Post|Production World didn’t have any of our sessions start before 10 AM. (Hot tip: Given a choice, stay at Paris Las Vegas. More charming, great buffet, and crepes even a manly man can fall in love with.)

Trish is Irish by birth, and I am by adoption (as in, adopted by Trish’s country after our marriage; indeed, we’re both dual citizens now). If she has one requirement in this world, it is to have a good cup of tea. Alas, most Americans don’t know how to serve tea. The cafe at New York New York uses these abominations called “tea coddles” that look like ultramodern beakers which are incapable of keeping water hot. Why do they use them? Because patrons stole the tea pots that actually worked. Trish promises a blog on the inability to get a good cup of tea as an analogy for bad product development cycles. At the end of our stay, even I had sworn off coffee. Unless it has Kahlua or Irish Whiskey in it, of course.

Whenever we are asked to propose talks for Post|Production World, they always say throw in a couple of extras so they can have a choice. This is akin to Lucy promising Charlie Brown she really won’t yank away the football this time; they always take the extras as well. This year, we were slated for seven talks, including a double session on audio. No problem; we loaded them all onto our handy new 17” high-resolution 7200-rpm maxed-out-RAM MacBook Pro (the last few years, we brought a full workstation). We plugged in the projector...and it didn’t come up. All the normal tricks didn’t work. Finally, we put it to sleep...and it wouldn’t wake up. Tapped the power button, and woke up in a kernel panic (the Mac equivalent of the Windows Blue Screen of Death). After a reboot, no Adobe applications would run. (We’ve blogged about that particular problem - and its recovery - earlier.) Guess what: We were demonstrating mostly Adobe applications.

Jeff Foster (he of After Effects and Photoshop fame, and now acquisitions editor at Lynda.com) dropped by before our first talk to say hi, and noticed we were in a more intense mood than usual. A timely loan of a 8 Gb USB memory dongle by him allowed us to get all of our presentations off of our PowerBook. We noted the in-room computer we were transferring our files to didn’t have Illustrator (which Trish needed for our first presentation), so the helpful tech support from PPW proceeded to install the entire Adobe CS3 Production Premium Suite, thinking it would just skip applications already installed - nope. Meanwhile, Trish made small talk with the audience. (By the way, the audience at PPW was great; we also noted in informal polls that there were far more advanced users there this year than the previous two. The slow economy seems to have raised the importance of training...) Fortunately, most of our other talks went off without a hitch (with the exception of the blown speaker in the room where I was demonstrating subtle audio details for 3 hours...you know, the large echoey box with the loud party going on next door...).

It is important, when at a trade show, to find a gregarious individual with a company expense account that has a particularly fine-tuned love of eating, drinking, or partying. The improbably-named but much-loved Amacker Bullwinkle used to be the archetype of that very person when she was the third-party plug-in evangelist at Adobe. Many of the nights she spent “supporting the community” are legend - assuming we could remember them. (For those who don’t know, Amacker was in a horrific motorcycle accident in June 2007. The story of her long, painful, successful recovery is detailed here - start at the bottom and work up.) This role is now being taken over by the fine folks at Lynda.com, many of which have become foodies, and some of which are also serious wine aficionados - including the aforementioned Jeff Foster. Jeff kindly helped us drown our sorrows over our dead Mac Saturday night.

Next: The Parties...

NAB 08 •

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