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© 2006 by Rick Altman. All Rights Reserved.
It is the largest trade show dedicated to the audio/visual industry and my annual pilgrimage to it is never without some trepidation. The gadget-envy that ensues practically requires medication to combat and the number of miles that you must walk in an unfathomably-vast convention center (in this case, the one in Orlando) should require a note from your doctor.
And then there is the annual question of exactly what we get out of InfoComm. InfoComm is the name for both the convention and the organization that helps guide the very destiny of the A/V industry, and the “we” is a group, tadpole-sized by comparison, called the Presentation Council. The 50 of us on the Council seemingly split our time between pursuing a healthier community for presentation professionals and trying to get noticed by InfoComm officials. Okay, that’s an exaggeration – it only seems that way – but the good news is that this behemoth organization has begun to stand up and take notice of us tadpoles swimming around their ankles.
And this respect was recently moved forward by the efforts of Presenters University editor Lisa Lindgren and PowerPoint Live featured speaker Korie Pelka, who together helped spearhead an ambitious industry-wide survey of the presentation community. Many reading this column participated, and thanks to you, the survey attracted more respondents than any other survey conducted by an InfoComm council, a fact lost on none of the brass there.
The day before the trade show, the Council hosted an all-day seminar, attracting over 60 attendees and featuring the brilliant work of four Council members:
The Council had a presence during the trade show, as well, as the Digital Content Creation Pavilion served as home base for presenters, designers, creators, and PowerPoint jockeys. Seminars on the show floor are particularly challenging as you compete with surround-sound noise from hundreds of vendors and battle attention spans of passers-by that are worse than the average male television viewer with a remote control in his hand. Yet, seminars delivered by Council members Tom Bunzel, Julie Irvin, Lee Potts, and this intrepid reporter were well-attended and well-received.
This is Chapter Two in InfoComm’s attempt to create a niche for vendors who cater to the presentation community with products and services decidedly less ostentatious than 50-foot display panels and 5,000-lumen projectors. And to be frank, Chapter One, last year, was a bit of a disaster. In 2005, InfoComm reserved the farthest reaches of the Las Vegas Convention Center for its Presentations Pavilion and foot traffic and visibility were abysmal. This year was better, and there is optimism that next year’s event in Anaheim CA will be better still.
As for the trade show itself, there were plenty of vendors with products and announcements that made us presentation junkies stop in our tracks. Here is a laundry list of items that will be worth a closer look:
In the ultra-competitive space of wireless presentation remote transmitters, a small division of Honeywell has been quietly carving out a niche with a series of respectable products. With the 4-in-1 Media Presenter, however, the company is making a much louder statement.
The 4-in-1 integrates slide control, cursor control, audio control, and a bright laser into a remarkably comfortable and easy-to-hold size, all for $60. It gets our nod as current best of breed. It’s a jungle out there, and this designation might be short-lived, but at the moment, we don’t see anything with its range of features and controls.
There are four ways to handle audio on the go: 1) Purchase a large and expensive audio system, with its own amplifier, which you would have to ship to the destination; 2) Buy a lousy sound system that may or may not be small enough to carry on or check as luggage; 3) Make do with your notebook’s speakers; 4) Buy a Boom Bag.
This innovative company manufactures suitcases that have high-fidelity sound systems built in. You don’t need to fit them into your luggage; they are your luggage. From 18 inches up to 27 inches, these rolling suitcases contain high-fidelity speakers, sufficient power to drive a conference room or small seminar ballroom, and inputs for a microphone, notebook audio, and an iPod or other media player. All sizes include a compartment for your notebook, and the larger ones also fit a projector, a change of clothes, and overnight essentials.
This isn’t new to us; we’ve known about Boom Bags for a few years now. But what really caught our eye is the new Rolling Back Pack Boom Bag. It’s the perfect solution for the presentation downtown at the chamber of commerce, speaking engagement at the local user group, or slide show you want to play for your kid’s soccer team party.
Just how small can they go? At Mitsubishi, the holy grail of in-the-palm-of-your-hand has been achieved. And while we need to qualify this, we’ll first let that notion sink in for a moment.
The just-announced PocketProjector measures under five inches wide, less than four inches deep, and below two inches high. It includes inputs for a computer, PDA, DVD player, digital camera, and iPod. It shines at approximately 250 lumens, and offers input terminals for-...what? Go back to brightness? Um, okay, it’s rated at, uh, 250 lumens.
This little guy isn’t trying to become the projector you take for your next presentation. It wants to be the one into which you plug your iPod. Or your phone. Or camera...and project onto about 20 inches of wall space. No fools they, the Mitsubishi reps showcased the PocketProjector in a darkened part of their exhibit and projected an image that was only about a foot across. And boy, did the cartoons coming out of their iPod Video look cool!
At a suggested list of nearly $800, you’re not going to run out and get one as a sweet sixteen birthday present for your daughter, but we predict that the price will free-fall down to a figure that could become an impulse buy for a kid who deserves to be spoiled a bit. We’re not sure what niche this new projector will fill, or how well it will fill it, but it will be lots of fun watching.
All in all, Orlando in June wasn’t such a bad place to be. We saw lots of cool toys on the show floor, ate dinner at a restaurant where all of the wait staff serenaded us, and the weather was surprisingly pleasant. And hey, if Jim Endicott says it was worth it, who are we to complain. He left Vancouver Monday evening, flew all night diagonally across the continent, and was ready to speak at 9:30am on Tuesday. There needs to be some sort of Glutton for Punishment award given out at these things...
Copyright 2006, All rights reserved. Have an opinion? Share it with the Corel community at the Graphics Unleashed Discussion Forum. There is already quite a bit of discussion about this story. Join in.
May 2007: As simple as possible, but not simpler... · April 2007: Killer Keystrokes · March 2007: Resolution Confusion · January 2007: Fearless Forecasts for 2007 · November 2006: Epiphanies at PowerPoint Live 2006 · August 2006: Escaping Death by PowerPoint · July 2006: Notes from the Floor of InfoComm · June 2006: Beyond PowerPoint--Making Movies for Business and Pleasure, Part II · May 2006: Beyond PowerPoint--From Photos to DVDs · April 2006: It’s Your Music!--Overcoming the oppressive restrictions of iTunes · March 2006: CorelDraw X3—A few must-haves and a few missed opportunities, all in all, a credible upgrade · February 2006: Making Windows Inhabitable · January 2006: Fearless Forecasts for 2006 · September 2005: Just What is a Background Anyway? · August 2005: Meet David Dobson, Corel's New CEO · July 2005: Community, Blind Dates. and Albert Einstein: An Interview with the PowerPoint Live Conference Host · June 2005: CorelWorld 2005: Image Editors, Executive Appearances, and Krispy Kremes · May 2005: As Adobe's Shadow Grows, Is Corel Better off or Worse? · March 2005: Delivering Your Presentation: How Close to the Source Can You Get? · February 2005: Digital Photography: The Killer App of this Generation Part II · January 2005: Digital Photography: The Killer App of this Generation · November 2004: A Killer Deal for Corel Or Another Distraction? · September 2004: The Scourge that is Kazaa and AOL Instant Messenger · August 2004: The Golden Triangle: Presenter, Audience, and Slides · July 2004: A Blast from the Past: How Fast is Fast Enough? · June 2004: Guilty Pleasures · May 2004: A Personal Wish List for PowerPoint 12 · April 2004: Eyedropping: Version 12 makes a good tool even better... · March 2004: Deadly Sins Of Modern PowerPoint Usage · February 2004: Is the even-numbered curse finally over? · January 2004: Another take on Achieving Absence of Ugliness · November 2003: What can we do it again??--Debut of PowerPoint Live Leaves Unquenchable Thirst with the Host · September 2003: Corel Corp. Has a New Custodian · July 2003: Candor and Contrition at CorelWORLD · June 2003: What a Long, Great Trip It’s Been! · May 2003: The Boat that Corel is Missing · April 2003: No Fooling...Is Corel Breaking Up? · March 2003: The Annual Design-a-Brochure Contest · February 2003: Symbolism is Everything · January 2003: Mania, Our Semi-Annual Pilgrimage to Holland · October 2002: On Creativity, Problem-Solving, and Paper Bags · July 2002: CorelDRAW 11: Surprise, Surprise... · May 2002: The Sound of Silence: What does it mean when a company plays its cards so close to its chest? · April 2002: The Art and Science of Presentation Graphics--Creating for the Screen Has its own Challenges · March 2002: CorelDRAW 11: What kind of personality and attitude should a software program have today? · February 2002: Oy, my aching fingers... · December 2001: Digital Photography · November 2001: Can we say goodbye to the Rolls Royce Mentality? · October 2001: An Unforgettable Week: The drama that unfolded around CorelWORLD · August-September 2001: The Art of Paragraphics: New-age ingredients for success with Corel VENTURA · July 2001: Your Very Own Interface: How to make Corel applications read your mind · June 2001: Fighting the Font Wars: How to stay sane with your sans · May 2001--Turning the Key at Nicholas-Applegate · April 2001--A Modest Proposal for Reviving VENTURA Publisher
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