Avid says No to NAB 2008

[Rennie Klymyk]

I didn’t realize these were un-audited numbers. Now I’m feeling guilty…I registered for the 1st time in 7 years with hopes of going last year only to have my plans dashed by some work opportunities which took precedence.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Rennie] “I didn’t realize these were un-audited numbers. Now I’m feeling guilty…I registered for the 1st time in 7 years with hopes of going last year only to have my plans dashed by some work opportunities which took precedence.”

Making money is good, Rennie.

;o)

At least that’s what I hear from all those old guys up at the top of this forum. (I am not like them, I look far younger in person — it’s just a bad picture.)

“Yeah right, Lindeboom,” mutters those whose retinas have been burned by hall lights reflecting off too much white hair, while chatting at the COW booth during past NABs.

Have fun,

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Bob Cole]

Okay, I have to ask whether this is true or just an urban legend:

A major provider of editing equipment was planning to show their new, voice-actuated editing console at NAB. Problem was, it wasn’t ready. So the “editor” on the stage would give a verbal command, which the EDITOR behind the curtain would punch into the machine manually, and the edit would magically perform. Very impressive, until someone tripped on a curtain and revealed the Wizard of Oz and the trick.

That can’t be a true story. Or… is it?

btw, I agree with all the comments here about NAB, both pro and con. Mainly though, I’m just sort of tired of NAB.

Bob C

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[Grahams]

Hey guys,

great discussion – and btw, we deserve it.

Just let me say one thing – we do care about our user base and we are starting to listen ( I agree we didn’t used to do either).

I find the concept of NAB arrogant – we plant a big flag in the middle of Vegas and say ‘come to us’ – the few thousand that do show up we then shout at for an hour in the din – what a great concept!

I am acutely aware you guys pay my (and every other Avid employees salary) so you have my attention.

Things are changing.

tx,G.

ps. Thanks to Ron, Tim and others for defending us. Time to fight back.

[Randall Raymond]

[Bob Cole] “A major provider of editing equipment was planning to show their new, voice-actuated editing console at NAB. Problem was, it wasn’t ready. So the “editor” on the stage would give a verbal command, which the EDITOR behind the curtain would punch into the machine manually, and the edit would magically perform. Very impressive, until someone tripped on a curtain and revealed the Wizard of Oz and the trick.

That can’t be a true story. Or… is it?”

Oh, come on! Trade Shows, by definition, assume a knowledgeable crowd. Exhibitors are not there to deceive you…as your myth implies. I really detest that attitude. I’m in advertising – if you think I’m trying to trick you – fine. And, yes, we do take that attitude in consideration.

[David Roth weiss]

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “Exhibitors are not there to deceive you… I really detest that attitude. I’m in advertising…”

Advertising, such a noble business, and always with the consumer’s best interest in mind.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Randall Raymond]

[David Roth Weiss] “Advertising, such a noble business, and always with the consumer’s best interest in mind.”

It is noble and needed. The communication of truth is advertising. Look at what lasts against those who lie. Has the paradigm shifted all that much from the ads on the Pompeii walls?

[Tim Wilson]

[GrahamS] “you have my attention.”

I swear to whomever, I SWEAR I was working on this reply when I saw Graham’s post, so I moved this one down.

Cows, meet Graham Sharp, VP and General Manager of Avid Video. He’s the straightest-shooting guy in the business, and relentlessly customer-focused. When he was in charge of the European business, he had no use for posturing or going through the motions, especially at trade shows. Him becoming GM of Avid Video is the most encouraging thing I’ve seen from Avid in a looooong time.

And since I never had the pleasure of reporting directly to him, this doesn’t count as sucking up. 🙂

Anyway, here’s what I was going to say. This conversation is headed exactly away from what’s important about road shows, and irrelevant about tradeshows.

Let’s say that a tradeshow costs $4 for a vendor to attend. Let’s say that vendors could do everything they need to do with 4 people.

Tradeshows still bite.

Are tradeshows a good place to meet management, from product managers to GMs and CEOs of the multi-billion dollar companies that are most important to us? Are tradeshows a good place for you to expect a long conversation about your work so that these managers will understand your very specific and personal needs?

No.

Are road shows? Yes.

Are tradeshows a good place to discuss development strategies with the people developing those strategies?

No.

Are road shows? Yes.

Are tradeshows the best way for you to kiss your wife and kids every night before you go to sleep? The best way to keep your work on track and your clients happy?

Uhm, no.

Roadshows blah blah blah.

Look, I’ve done both booth time and road shows with Avid, Boris, Media 100, and even though I didn’t do any for Adobe, I certainly saw it in action. The people you want most to meet are at road shows. The conversations you most want to have are at roadshows.

Road shows are the place for meaningful communication. Trade shows are just about the worst.

So why should this be an either/or proposition?

Because the people you want doing the work are exactly the ones sucked into tradeshow planning, starting in October, and pedal to the metal from January to May. Is this really what you want them to do?

The advantage for companies opting out is that they free up as much as tens of thousands of person-hours to do exactly what you want them to do — fix the existing bugs and build new features. They free themselves from arbitrary deadlines.

Tradeshows are most valuable for you to meet the people you already know, and to meet some that you only know online. They may be an okay place for you to learn a few things about a product, but if you had the chance to talk with GM or CEO of your favorite company face to face, and sleep in your own bed, wouldn’t you make that trade off?

So this is about twice as long as I meant it to be…but typical for me. Neither Avid nor Graham need me to speak for them. This is me telling you that tradeshows are already irrelevant for anything important between you and your favorite vendors.

And my own experience that you’ll get the contact you most want, face to face, closer to where you live, from a road show.

This is a business forum. This strategy is good business. Once you experience this yourself, your word of mouth will be the best marketing imaginable.

The sermon is ended. Go in peace to love and serve your wife.

tw

[Ron Lindeboom]

Hello Graham,

I must say, we appreciate you taking the time to sign up here at the COW and to don your bullet-proof vest and come in here and address the crowd.

This kind of appearance is exactly the kind of thing that Tim and I (and others) have been arguing is far more apt to happen online or at a roadshow, than on the battlefloor of NAB.

I have met many Avid leaders in the past, David Krall, Chas Smith, et al, but it is always just a few minutes and then they are off to something else or I have to run to an appointment. It’s the nature of the beast.

But it’s different in the roadshows that I have been to, the most recent was a two day trip to San Jose to hang out with about 10 key people from Adobe to see the CS3 line before it shipped. We went to breakfast lunch and dinner together. We talked. I complained about some of the most obvious things that they had done wrong, core things that really needed to be addressed. Around the table sat some pretty savvy people and they piped in with their own versions and additions to what I was saying.

It was something the like of which I have never seen in all my years at NAB. It just doesn’t happen. Well, at least not for me.

One of the things that surprised me in your recent move, is that you were able to pull it off as quickly as you did. Tim and I had been talking that we expected that Avid would be the first major to put down their foot and say “no more” to NAB’s ever skyrocketing costs and fees. But we figured that you had at least one more year of being there. That you did it in your first year at the helm is a surprise.

So, gutsy move, Graham. :o)

Thank you for stopping by and I’m glad someone warned you to don the asbestos undies before you came, you will likely need them with some of the people who visit here at the COW.

If you have the time, Tim and I would like to record a podcast with you discussing your recent appointment, what you are up to, your goals, why no booth at NAB in 2008, etc., if you have the time. Interested?

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
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[Bob Cole]

Wow. Welcome, Graham.

I used to look forward to NAB as a source of information. It seemed like an oasis in the desert: the few days in the year when you could feast on the latest in tv technology. With this website, Google, and the Internet in general, you can have all you want, every day.

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “if you think I’m trying to trick you – fine.”

Not you personally, of course. But NAB trickery is well-documented, as in a demo I attended for an NLE system which had a big booth at NAB and enjoyed a brief vogue. The presenter must have had his script vetted by the legal department. He would very quickly do some basic edits in a pre-produced, dazzling video full of special effects, and say, “The XYZ now has REAL-TIME dissolves, chroma-keying, split-screens, particle wipes…” trying to convey the idea that the whole video we were watching had been created in real-time. I was a bit more naive at the time, until a friend took me aside and said, “The only real-time effect was the dissolve — and most of the rest was probably After Effects.”

I’m a happy FCP user, but at the last NAB I attended (2006) the Apple reps kept saying, even one-on-one, “it’s all real-time,” even after I said, “You mean, it has a LOT of real-time features, right? Not all.” I guess it’s not lying, if they believed it.

Just curious Raymond: What do you mean by “we take that attitude into consideration?”

Bob C

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