Almost exactly one year ago, I posted my 2007 CES in Retrospect article. So, how did things pan out this year, and did I stick to my goals from last year?
To sum things up, comparing this year to last year was like night and day. As much as I hate flying, it was SOO much easier and faster to just fly there and get it over in about three hours… instead of 30 (yes, we drove last year). I decided that we would stay on the Vegas Strip this year at Treasure Island. Last year, we stayed with one of Keith’s friends who lives just outside of Vegas. This had its benefits - free shelter - but at a cost… that cost being time and convenience. Staying on the Strip saved us a ton of time and allowed us the freedom to attend more events than last year and meet up with some friends for dinner, to hang out, etc.
As far as productivity this year, things were much better as well. Last year, we posted a total of 10 CES coverage articles. This year, we wrapped things up with a total of 17 articles, which are listed below.
CES: Unveiled
Bill Gates Keynote
Booth Babes
Tagan, Data Drive Thru
OCZ Technology
AEE Show Floor
Arctic Cooling
Art Lebedev
Logitech
Yoggie Security Systems
The Parties
Thermaltake
Cooler Master, CSX, Zalman
Razer
Jook
The Cars
Tycrid
Splitting into teams worked pretty well this year, but I still have some planning to do for next year to fine-tune time management. I booked too many meetings and didn’t set aside enough “downtime” to write articles, which resulted in some pretty late (or early) nights and lack of sleep.
So what changes will I make next year? Well, that all depends on who/how many people from the site go next year. Early guesses would tell me four once again, which would be desired. Next year, I will aim to get two hotel rooms. Four people in one room… while it did work, was a bit cramped and can suck when some people are tired while others are working on articles.
Another change I have in mind, that I didn’t even consider this year, is switching up the job of taking pictures and taking notes. I discovered that if one person took all the photos and the other did all of the note-taking, only the note-taker was able to write an article because the photographer was busy taking pictures and didn’t know anything about the products. This isn’t really fair, making one person do all the writing when it comes time to do an article, so next year, I will look to rotate this job.
Finally, I am thinking about having a “day” and “evening” team. The day crew would get up and out on the show floor early, do some meetings, floor coverage, then have the rest of the day to relax a bit and get some articles done on the day’s coverage and be able to get in bed at a reasonable time. The evening crew would get things started later in the day and be responsible for hitting up the evening press events and parties at night. Parties are a great place to network and meet new people. This crew would of course be out real late, so they would get to sleep in the next day, then wake up, do some article writing and start all over again later that evening.
These are just some things I have to think about over the coming year, but either way, CES was a big success and I can’t wait until next year’s show! Big thanks to Josh, Keith and Airica for attending this year - your help was greatly appreciated!
