First time journey to CES

Michael Payne | January 10th, 2007 | ,

I am back from the CES show with my initial observations:

  1. Bring a good pair of walking shoes, you are going to walk until exhaustion..
  2. Be careful when taking pictures…only the press can take photos in some places (learned that one the hard way). UPDATE: Apparently I’m not the only one irked by this.
  3. Two cups of coffee cost $6.70 (classic supply and demand).
  4. Everyone was talking about the iPhone. Macs ability to build buzz is quite amazing…even when they’re not at the show.
  5. Expect lots and lots and lots of people.
  6. If you are not there to do business, it’s actually probably easier to follow the show via CNET’s CES Buzz Blog

Back to my original question in the previous blog entry about small business and whether or not it has a place at CES. I would say yes and no.

  • There definitely were a healthy amount of small businesses there with creative ideas. Dopi Karaoke is one of our clients at Pelago and they were at the Sands Expo. They fit the CES very nicely.
  • There were a lot of productivity type products there that perfectly fit small business. For example:
    • Low cost and easy to setup home offices
    • Network attached storage devices- such as Netgear’s network attached storage device. I’ve worked in and around a lot of small business and their data backup and management is often terrible. It’s becoming easier and easier to backup critical data without having IT skills.
    • Remote access to the office
    • Mobile devices that do more and more and do things better. We have become reliant on handhelds and they just keep getting better and more advanced. We currently use Blackberry’s and Cingular’s 8125. As handhelds become more advanced I believe they help small business communicate better internally and service clients better.
    • Devices to create marketing materials in house (videos, product demos, CD’s, print materials, etc.) are all very accessible to small business. This isn’t new to this year, but the volume of products out there is impressive.

Obviously this is an event for the big boys to break out their latest and greatest, but there are a lot of nuggets for small business. The challenge is sifting through all of the information and thinking creatively about how to fit the things in that make the biggest impact.

-Michael

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John Reeve
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John Reeve

John is a co-founder, web designer and developer at Pelago. His blog posts are inspired by everyday encounters with designers, developers, creatives and small businesses in general. John is an avid reader and road cyclist.
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Jennifer Payne
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Jennifer Payne

Jennifer is the Director of Quality and Efficiency at Pelago. Her blog posts are based largely on her experience working with teams to improve harmony and productivity. Jennifer is a cat person.
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Michael Payne
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Michael Payne

Michael is a co-founder and product architect at Pelago. His contributions stem from experiences managing the development process behind web sites and web-based applications such as Intervals. Michael drives a 1990 Volkswagen Carat with a rebuilt 2.4 liter engine from GoWesty.
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