Capt. Midnight – Epilogue, thank yous and the WCS 2001 Booth

From:  Ramon Chen
Sent: Saturday, December 02, 2000 1:35 PM
To: *ALL MetaTV
Subject: Capt. Midnight – Epilogue, thank yous and the WCS 2001 Booth space draft

A half-day show time on the final day at WCS 2000 meant that we only had 4 hours in which to continue to impress and drive for the finish line. We continued execute on all fronts right up until the end. There are no additional words I can say (I’m sure some of you will be relieved by that J) that could emphasize how proud everyone should be at MetaTV of the efforts put in here as well as back at home-base. To everyone who did not have the opportunity to attend WCS, a very sincere thank you keeping things executing at home-base to ensure that we had the opportunity to showcase ourselves in the best possible light and for all the hard work and effort developing the technology that everyone here was oooing and ahhing over.

A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE COMPANY. WCS 2000 WAS A BIG SUCCESS FOR METATV!

So when the lights turned off on the show floor at 1pm was it over for MetaTV?
No way! Packing up and closing down, shipping everything back is a huge task, as was putting everything together in the first place. I want everyone to know that fully 8 hours after we had all left L.A Jeff K and Craig were still there packing up the suite having done the booth. A tremendous continuous effort which should not go unnoticed.

I also have great news to report for WCS 2001. Yes WCS 2001! On the final day of the show, booth allocation for next year (in Anaheim starts getting allocated. Each company is assigned a booth space “draft” sequence number (determine by seniority – how many years you have exhibited at the show and whether or not the show management likes you) and you enter this dark forbidding room where it looks like the NFL draft is taking place. Each company is announced on the podium e.g.”Microsoft is now selecting, you have 60 seconds ….” “Microsoft has selected space 6213, a 60×60 for 3600 square feet”. All this time, other companies are trying to see by the updating map where each company is locating themselves and what space is still available. As time goes by slots get filled, people are on their cell phones chatting to people. It is literally like the NFL draft!

To paint the picture, MetaTV was given draft sequence 156. John Carney, David De Andrade and I were in the room an hour before our turn, planning, watching the allocations, checking out the competition, (Respond was draft 150, 6 slots ahead of us) and constantly updating our show floor plan to see what we could take when our turn came up. While other companies were drafting their spaces on proximity to the café, toilets and other general criteria, we were planning based on partnerships, showcasing technology, running CAT 5 cables to our partner booths as well as the other general criteria. With Engineering and Marketing teaming up to come up with a plan for the best slot, did we succeed? Read on to find out …

With Microsoft drafting at 100, we already knew by then they had selected booth #6213. We also knew the positions of some of the other key players, PowerTV selected booth #5826 and was also very close to Microsoft and an area seemed to be forming where all the leading middleware vendors were going to congregate.

All was going according to plan but then something strange happened, when they announced “Next up, Liberate … drafting at 145”. “Liberate? Is Liberate here?” Disaster, Liberate was a no show! So what happens when you are a no show? You get given a booth a pretty much random. Liberate got put “out in Sibera” the furthest point away from the other middleware vendors at booth #420! This was not good news for us, we want to be at least near Microsoft and Liberate but we had to stick with the plan to try and get near the majority of our partners and we couldn’t take the risk of chasing a space near the current Liberate spot in order to get near them because we were sure that once Liberate found out where they were, they would move. So …. What to do? What would RespondTV do? They were 6 slots ahead of us? Read on to find out …

“Now selecting RespondTV ….” “RespondTV selects booth 2606 a 40×20 for a total of 800 square feet.”
Luckly true to form, we think RespondTV messed up! They chose a space for it’s ETC (Entrance, toilet and Café) location to one of the many entrances and in the center of the hall.
They are in effect a football field away from Microsoft and Liberate’s current position. They are among pretty much a bunch of content booths with Intel being the exception. Now they have a nice space for general traffic, just not well positioned in our opinion for qualified traffic and tight partnerships with middleware providers.

Now the moment of truth, “Now selecting MetaTV ….”
Drum roll please ….. “MetaTV selects booth #6220 a 30×50 for a total of 1500 square feet”
Yes we are right next to Microsoft! And just across the way from PowerTV, with Oxygen Media (a potential future content partner) and Tivo nearby. That slot was originally selected by ACTV – 40 slots ahead of us but they changed their mind during their selection process and went away back to another location! The whole hour we were there, we were eying that slot and others around it praying that no one would take it. Respond had a shot at it but they didn’t take it.
Also we broke all the rules getting it! The show rules are that you can only increase your booth allocation space by 10 from your previous showing. So how did we get a 30×50 from a 10×20? Thanks to Jeff K for smoozing the show management over the course of the last 2 months and requesting a 40×40. The show management likes MetaTV and knows us so well that when I went to the draft board, they knew me by name and they just let us do it! To give some perspective, a 30×50 is only slightly smaller than what Liberate had this time with their 40×40!

So with our objective accomplished, we went down to Jeff K to tell him the good news. We also told him how Liberate had been put out in Siberia. Jeff immediately took us over to the Liberate booth where a “new events manager for Liberate” was organizing pack-up and told her of the situation. It turns out that this was her first WCS and she was unfamiliar with the procedures. We marched her up to the booth draft room and told her that she needed to fix their booth space and pointed out several open booths near us that she should move herself next to. She agreed and thanked us profusely for helping her out.
When we left, both her and OpenTV were going to jostle for the spaces next to MetaTV!

Yes, we will be upgrading our “Little Booth that Could” for WCS 2001. At WCS 2001, MetaTV will be in an enormous booth, in a “hub” location with all the middleware companies gathered around us.
As far as booth location goes, it doesn’t get any better than this. Also, to give everyone added confidence, there were NO OTHER engineering representatives from other companies that I could see attending this “draft” selection. MetaTV is truly unique in our ability to work tightly across departments with Engineering interested in Marketing issues and Marketing through Product Management and tightly coupled value propositions and messaging working hand in hand with Engineering requirements. In something as simple as selecting a booth – that to other companies may seem like a minor thing – MetaTV continues to go above and beyond in our preparation and IAA (INNOVATE. ADAPT. AMAZE) efforts.

What a perfect cap to a wonderful show for us, there are many other big shows along the way to the next WCS 2001. NCTA, NAB and even IBC in Europe. But for now, it’s time to take a deep breath and congratulate ourselves for a job well done.

Capt.

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