From: Ramon Chen
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 1:01 AM
To: *ALL MetaTV
Subject: Capt Midnight: pre-WCS, The calm before the storm
Hello to everyone back at homebase!
Well here we are, just 10 hours to go before the doors open to the exhibit hall at WCS.
I have the pleasure of reporting to you that “all systems are go” in preparation for MetaTV’s WCS launch.
Our booth is looking quite fabulous (thanks to Jeff Kirsopp who has done a masterful job getting it set up through all the chaos on the exhibit floor). There are some stories of set up madness that I’ll leave to Jeff to tell when he gets back to the office, but if any of you have ever been/attended or worked a show of this magnitude, you’ll know that it’s not the one big thing going wrong that hurts, it’s the tiny little pin prick things that add up to a lot of scrambling and hard work (ask him about forklifts crashing through our signage and see what his reaction is when he’s back in the office). But that’s where MetaTV being Adaptive comes into play!
It’s small booth (10×20) but very classy (we’ll be e-mailing you digital pics tomorrow) and thanks to the efforts of John C, David De, Michelle B, Ali, Viva, Aloka, Craig, Matt, David B, Linda T and Glenys, Lena and more, we are good to go for all demos at not only our booth but at the Microsoft booth as well as the Liberate booths.
Other vendors may have larger booths … but I think the saying goes “if you have great products and demos … you don’t need to drive a Mercedes … ” or something like that.
Also fully set up at a suite in the Bonaventure hotel is a meeting command center equipped with demos and presentations to wow the prospects and partners that we are scheduled to meet with. Diane Sasson is doing a masterful job managing that and also getting it stocked up with food and drink for our many visitors.
We have shipped to WCS (rough numbers):
On the first day of WCS …
• 800 t-shirts
• 300 clocks (most complete with batteries we hand-stuffed ourselves)
• 150 pens
• 1500-3000 each of 20+ datasheets approximately 60,000 pieces of literature. Being hand-collated into packs by everyone.
• 150 press packets
• 1500 MetaTV folders
• DVD player giveaways
• 5000 MetaTV Stickers
(thanks to Lisa Kolb and Mcarthur Design for all premiums and printed collateral design and for everyone who contributed in writing, editing and reading and re-editing and re-reading and re-editing and re-reading)
and a portal partridge in a pear tree ….
Here’s what to expect reports on tomorrow, Thursday and Friday:
• We have a Liberate joint press release going out tomorrow (making some noise but strategically holding back our best news for post WCS)
• We are in the Big Band Booth being manned by John Bartlett showing new VOD Portal technology (what an amazing feat to even be in a position to show it off!)
• We are in the Microsoft booth demoing Portal Designer (looking fabulous)
• We are in the Liberate booth in 3 places (including 2 theatre presentations)
• We are jointly sponsoring what should be a very much talked about party on Thursday night
• We have a very cool DVD (brought to life by Peter Coleman and Lisa K) to show off
• We’ve got Etrade enhanced TV demo looking very hot on the show floor (It rocks)
• We have lots of great press meetings scheduled by our fab PR firm msrdotcomm
• We have QVC demo ready primed and in the suite and are ready for a barrage of exciting meetings (Biz Dev and Sales have lined up an all star cast of prospects and partners to meet with)
This is … the calm before the storm (not the “perfect storm”) and we have come a long way to be positioned to execute tomorrow as a leading player in this “Interactive Television” space.
MetaTV is now have our own custom designed booth, professionally done collateral, very cool products, an incredible looking reference portal and a whole host of kick-butt demos. Collectively as a company we are pulling together like a well oiled machine and breaking all sorts of time-to-readiness records in the process.
Tomorrow we’ll issue a report on our execution on day one.
Stay tuned … it’s gonna be a doozy.
(Doors open at WCS in T-minus …. 8 hours 55 mins and counting)
The Capt.