[Tim Wilson]

[Tim Kolb:] “I think that since the discussion somehow morphed from NAB Pro vs Con to NAB vs CreativeCow.net.”

It’s much, much bigger than either NAB or the Cow. Our dynamic is a single example among a multitude.

ALL tradeshows have been on the decline for years. Comdex and KIPI are gone. CES is shrinking fast. MacWorld went from 2 massive shows (at its peak, the Boston show took up 3 area convention centers in area — shuttles galore) to one teensy one (New York) and the moderately sized one in SF that remains.

Not many among us attend Siggraph anymore — remember when we DID, because that show MATTERED? Now, it’s mostly a job fair. The last time I went, the biggest booth was for Full Sail, soliciting students.

Part of our audience attends the DV Expo…but an increasingly smaller part. The New York expo is gone. The last year I attended, vendors were double and tripled up in dealer’s booths. (I, at Boris, and 4 guys from Apple were all camped at one such dealer, the only presence for either of our companies at the show.) The LA show is a shockingly small shadow of its former self.

The once-important LADV and NYDV shows are both gone.

I know I’m missing others in the media biz, so I did a speedy Google search for other industries.

The first result that GOOG returned says that B2B tradeshows used to return their investment, but now they just don’t.

–New products are first announced on the Internet
–Vendors and manufacturers do their competitive analysis on the Internet
–Potential buyers or existing customers gather information over the Internet.
–And Sales people are spoiling their time on booths, waiting for a visitor to pass along.

Moreover Sales are starting to spend more time on the mobile phone or behind their portable during tradeshows, than actively looking to capture leads on the trade show. This due to the fact of the ever-decreasing number of visitors on the trade shows.

…The whole Internet with all it’s websites, have become the biggest tradeshow, night and day and worldwide reach.

Industrial expos are far larger in scope than anything in our little pond. Sorry for the long quote, but it’s a really good one.

The Hannover Fair in Germany was easily the largest of all industrial exhibitions, housed in its own self-contained city with major entrances on all four sides, streets, traffic light, buses and its own train station with an express direct from Frankfurt, some 200 kilometers away.

During exhibition week, hotels in a radius of some 50 kilometers are typically overbooked, and lodging arrangements are made with local people to take in guests. Busses brought exhibitors and attendees every day from as far away as 100 kilometers.

…Attendance at all the large automation exhibitions has declined to a fraction of former times. Attendance at the annual ISA exhibition has declined to about 15,000.

The vendor to end-user ratio which used to be as much as 10 to 1 is more like 2:1 today and sometimes less (my estimates). Traffic is sparse, with forlorn exhibitors spending their time reviewing each others products and bemoaning hard times.

Many explanations have been given for this decline of exhibitions:

–Cost of participation for both exhibitors and attendees;
–Business decline, which has reduced budgets and personnel;
–Because of constrained development expenditures, there is very little new to see that can’t be reviewed via the Internet;
–Greed on the part of the organizers – charging huge booth and overhead fees;
–Gross overspending by exhibitors on booths/stands.

C’mon man — any of this sounding familiar? It’s a worldwide phenomenon, in every industry, and it’s truly staggering when you look at the whole picture.

And every trade show I can find blames the internet for the decline. You don’t have to like it, but that’s what THEY say.

We see that the decline of NAB is exactly in line with other shows, including such forces as greedy organizers leading to fewer vendors, fewer qualified leads, overspending, etc. It’s just not efficient anymore, which is why the two biggest non-camera exhibitors (by a long shot) have dropped their booths.

So, since every other industry blames the internet for the decline of its tradeshows, why is there such a hub-bub when we make the same observation for ours? Not just NAB, but all the others I mentioned.

The Cow is far from the only online resource in our industry. We’re just larger than the rest combined. We didn’t actually know this until we looked up easily available public numbers, so I invite you to do the same.

So when we’re talking about the decline of NAB due to the internet, we absolutely take some of the credit…or blame if you prefer. Not all of it, mind you. Not by any means. But with nearly 1 million unique monthly visitors — and nearly 3 million totally unique visitors since last August — I hope you can understand why we feel that we are in fact a large part of the problem or solution re: NAB, depending on your perspective.

To underscore Brendan’s points, NAB is the third most heinous lobby on my list. (The other two are a discussion for another day.) Like Brendan, these lobbyists represent the opposite of almost everything I care about in this industry where I’ve lived for 30 years. I like lobbyists just fine, and support a number of them with my money. But these are evil dudes.

Second, a point I made in the Avid part of the festivities that Brendan mentions here, that there are many, many other places to get better information and better hands-on experience than any big tradeshow in any industry.

In conclusion (honest), I’ve never said that there’s NO reason to go to NAB. I’ve named plenty of them in other posts. Just that it’s highly inefficient, and that those inefficiences are driving NAB’s decline no less than every other tradeshow, in every other industry.

The contrasting efficiency of the web is also a factor, in ever other industry, and in ours.

Yr pal,
Tim

[Tim Wilson]

[walter biscardi] “I just really took offense to Tim lumping all folks on the Show Floor as not knowing what they are talking about and not being able to get any useful information on the show floor. Especially when I work alongside other Cow leaders like Shane Ross, Jerry Hofmann to name a few.”

My point precisely. The only people who provide reliable, real-world information at trade shows are people like the folks you mention, Tim Kolb, and a multitude of others…

…none of whom work full time for vendors, and all of whom are available in the Cow.

To refine my target…without otherwise backing down one whit… corporate reps, including the smart and well-intentioned (which is almost all of them, btw), are not qualified to talk about the real world.

To get that, people need to talk to YOU.

Vendors know this. That’s why they invite you to speak on their behalf. YOU know how products work in the real world because you live there, and they don’t.

Which is why contact here in the Cow is more valuable than a trade show for finding how things really work.

You mentioned in another post, Walter, that people can get bad information from the Cow every bit as easily from a trade show, but I don’t exactly agree.

The benefit of the Cow is that it’s self-correcting. Bad advice is never the last word. Not when you guys are on the thread anyway.

The people here aren’t getting PAID BY anyone to say nice things about their own stuff. Cows have PAID FOR their stuff, often risking their businesses on their choices.

Or in my case, my business AND my house. I bought my first pro editing set-up by taking out TWO mortgages, because the editing gear cost MORE than my house.(This was the early 90s, so the numbers for either wouldn’t be nearly the same today.)

And I gambled the roof over my family’s head without going to a single video trade show. I asked the people I trusted in the Cow’s ancestral forum. After years online, it was easy to see who knew what they were talking about. I ignored everyone else. No way I was going to get that kind of reliability at a show, where I had no idea who to trust and who to ignore.

Which is why vendors have people like you, Shane, Jerry, Tim and others in their booths. No company, not even The Big Three, have as much credibility as you guys. Small companies may have NO credibility besides you guys.

My advice to anyone is to save time and money by going direct. Eliminate the middle man. Skip shows and get the information you need to protect your business at Cow.

The first thing you should do with the money you save is buy something nice for your Most Significant Other. Then take the rest of it, plus the time you’ve saved, and have a VACATION.

Note that this, like all but one of my posts on this thread, is my own opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of anyone anywhere.

I’m RIGHT, I’m just not speaking officially. 🙂

Yr pal,
Timmy

[Tim Wilson]

So any, Wargo says: it started a tradition that extends into today…

MY Clutch Cargo tradition is that I’m barely animated except for my mouth.

Tim Wilson, Creative Cow
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[Tim Wilson]

I’ll add that millions of buying decisions by pros in our industry have been made without going to tradeshows. They’re made in the much closer contact provided by road shows, and in the MUCH closer contact provided by VARs, many of whom will provide eval units for the asking.

There’s absolutely not one single thing about a purchasing decision at a tradeshow that can’t happen more efficiently and effectively somewhere else.

Not in theory. In reality.

Somebody is going to argue that I’m wrong, that shows are essential, etc. etc. But I see that as theory only, not verified in anything beyond individual experience. I went to all my NABs AFTER I spent more on my equipment than I did on my house, and I lived to tell the tale…as, again, millions of others have.

I’ll go farther than Ron did…as I usually do…which is why his are the bylines on such articles. I believe that it’s the responsibility of every customer to demand that their favorite vendors NOT have booths at tradeshows.

Sure, go to make deals as Avid and Apple will, but which is better for you as an FCP customer — better for the entire FCP community today and its future growth: the development team creating artificial deadlines and demos, or spending those million person hours actually working on the product?

A no-brainer. Staying home is best for the product. Best for the company. Best for its customers, all of whom have a multitude of better ways — ALL of them are better — to find out the details of a product.

Besides, that $15 million to go to NAB comes out of YOUR POCKET. Why on earth would you want Apple to spend your money like that? Or the proportionally MUCH larger expenditures that smaller companies incur? It’s a colossal waste that’s not doing you any good, and not doing the company nearly as much good as it might have around the turn of the century.

I’ll go further (again) and say that tradeshows are the least reliable ways to find out if a product will work for YOU in the real world, because the people in the booth are the least qualified to tell you anything about how it works in the real world.

Yes, information from actual people is important for making decisions. And there are thousands of people here in the Cow who can tell you EXACTLY how something works — IF it works — in far more detail than a product person in a booth will ever experience.

So I go back to my starting point. For every person who makes a decision based on a tradeshow, there are thousands who make their decisions in other venues. HUNDREDS of thousands of those decisions are made outside of NAB every month. It’s not going to be any different in April than it is today.

[Tim Wilson]

No no no no no way that Avid started this rumor. Absolutely inconceivable. Read my posts above — this would be an utter disaster for Avid, in ways that FCP at Apple never, ever will be.

I know that we live in post, but seriously guys, Thomson saddling up on FCP would wreak havoc in digital newsrooms, real-time multi-format encoding, playout servers, broadcast graphics, IT infrastructure, largescale collaboration tools…all areas where Avid is currently growing like gangbusters, but FCP/Thomson would shut right down.

In other words, this is ALREADY creating FUD **within** Avid. They don’t have any FUD around this to push out.

Note that I don’t think it’s true at all. Even though I think it really would be interesting for Thomson, I truly believe FCP is staying at Apple…

…and after working at Avid, I’m POSITIVE that they would be the last ones on earth to start a rumor that, if it came true, would be a disaster beyond imagination, far more devastating than anything that could possibly happen in post alone.

There are a bunch of posts about this earlier in the thread, too.

PS. Writing personally here, not officially.

[Tim Wilson]

[Ron Lindeboom] “[Christopher Wright] “I can definitely say that the experience of attending NAB and the experience of “manning” a booth are quite different indeed!”

I have done both. I find that both are actually quite a burn-out.

There was a time when NAB was the only place to see everything important in one place. There was no internet, and there were no local dealers who carried enough of this stuff.

Both of those are simply not true anymore. Tradeshows don’t show what’s important, or what actually works outside a demo — they demo new features, period. It’s artificial and anti-informative.

I came to those opinions as a visitor. I became an exhibitor hoping to change that. Unfortunately, as a big tradeshow, the force of gravity is away from information and toward spectacle there more than anywhere else.

So my perspective is less one burnout than frustration. Tradeshows are a massive effort to provide the OPPOSITE of real-world information. This is why I left corporate life screaming, and came back to Bessie’s warm embrace. THIS is where you get real information, NOT tradeshows.

“All in all, NAB is not really geared for answering technical questions.”

The product managers you really want to speak to at NAB spend more time in meetings than they do in the booth.

However, they’re here in the Cow, and very quick to answer questions. This not only applies to software, but to hardware, including cameras, as well.

But the most important technical questions — will this work for ME — can’t possibly be answered at a show. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how few configurations and use cases most companies encounter…although if you think about it, you’ll see why.

If you want to know if it works in PRACTICE, the Cow is the place. Any configuration questions you have that you can’t get answered here, will get answered by a dealer, not at a tradeshow.

Even if the spirit is willing, the opportunity is weak.

Last word about opportunity. One very high profile Cow leader intentionally skips the show for one reason: he harvests new clients at a shocking rate. Clients come to him because their “regular” guy is at the show. They become THIS guy’s regular clients now.

We suggest you skip NAB because we want you to get good information.

We suggest you skip NAB because we want you to get real-world information.

We suggest you skip NAB because we here at the Cow are committed to helping you make the most money possible.

We suggest you skip it because we love you. 🙂

tw

Tim Wilson, Creative Cow
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[Tim Wilson]

[walter biscardi] “So if you get a denial, it won’t be worth anything really.”

In fact, they called me to see if I could do anything to stop the year-end speculation that Apple wasn’t going to NAB. Of COURSE we’re going they said.

The guy who told me this is a straight shooter. He wouldn’t have told me what I did if he didn’t believe it to be true.

As is often the case at big companies, the decisions are being made far above the heads of anyone public-facing.

[walter biscardi] “They were absolutely going to NAB and have a large presence at the show.”

FWIW, Apple hasn’t said they won’t be at the show. Just not in a booth. Avid was on the record from day one that they WILL be at the show…just not in a booth.

[Tim Wilson]

Eric, David, we think you’re exactly right. My other posts on the thread are my own opinion, and don’t represent those of the Cow….which is why none of them had my sig.

THIS one represents the Cow’s official position, that NAB is dying…certainly less and less significant with every year…and that Apple is skipping a booth for the exact same reason Avid did — it just doesn’t make sense anymore.

Look! My sig!!

Tim Wilson, Creative Cow
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[Tim Wilson]

[David Roth Weiss] ” So, maybe Tim really knows something??? I certainly hope he’s just speculating”

I am, I am….but I have access to more tea leaves than many folks do.

And don’t forget, I see the purchase as great, great news for the Pro Apps. Even if this rumor turns out NOT to be true, it SHOULD be true.

The Pro Apps will be safest with a pro broadcast company, who’s motivated to add pro features fare more quickly…and far more of them…with far more software and hardware tools to support them…than are useful to Apple…whose core business is not pro apps, and is less so now than ever….especially now that they’ve dropped the word “Computer” from their name.

The main tea-leaf isn’t a tea-leaf. Apple’s NAB non-announcement (a short sentence or two in the industry’s least read and least significant publication) said explicitly that they’re focusing their sales efforts on Apple stores. Been in one lately? 🙂

Pro Apps are best off with a company who needs pros to survive. Apple has prospered without them. GVT is dead without video pros, far more so than Avid.

I don’t believe that Apple is the best company to own the pro apps, because I believe that pro video is far less a growth business for them as every single other part of the portfolio.

And I certainly believe that, if all this is true, that every key member of the pro apps team will be heartily welcomed to GVT, where they’ll have more support and more resources at their disposal than ever before.

Pro Apps users deserve someone better aligned with their goals than Apple is. We’re going to find out in a few weeks if I’m as big an idiot as usual…but I hope the rumors are true.

[Tim Wilson]

[Rennie Klymyk] “When you think about the history of Apple Computers these have to be the golden years. I don’t think macs ever been more popular or had as big a market share.

THIS is why I think it’s so likely that Apple will sell Pro Apps….and even if they don’t, they should. 🙂

They’re not Apple COMPUTER anymore. They’ve dropped the word “Computer” from their name.

Apple’s most dominant market share was with the Apple II. Since the introduction of the Mac, their market share has been a steady march down…until the last couple of years of course.

The thing to remember is that Pro Apps users like us account for a tiny number of overall Mac users. The last number I can find for Mac users was in 1997 (!!!), and it was 20,000,000. I think that number has easily tripled, if not more, even if the market share numbers were still down – which they’re not – because the market as a whole has grown so much.

The thing is, even if I personally owned the Pro Apps, Apple will still nothing but Macs to Pro Apps customers. 🙂 Who owns the Pro Apps has precisely zero effect on the sales of Mac computers.

Avid users buy tons of Macs, and established the dominance of Macs in Hollywood long before Apple bought Final Cut from Macromedia, and continues to be the app of choice there. (How many Oscar nominated films used Avid products? All of them, even No Country.) And before that, Adobe and Quark had more to do with Apple’s acceptance in desktop publishing than Apple itself.

But as far as applications go, the most popular Mac apps have been those from Microsoft (yes, Office sells more than Photoshop) and Adobe….

…until iTunes, thanks to iPods and iPhones.

<1>To think Apple would jeopardize this success with their line of computers to pursue a short term volatile market like cell phones and ipods seems unlikely. Where will iphones and ipods be in 5 years?”

They’ll be anywhere that Apple wants them to be. These are markets that Apple has changed far more than computers (where they’ve certainly been the prime mover), but they own the portable player business lock stock and barrel. Ditto the market for smart phones.

Portable music isn’t going anywhere. Neither are phones. Apple has plenty of room to grow in both markets.

That said, even though they’ve dropped “Computer” from their name, Apple sells plenty of computers. More iMacs than Mac Pros, and more MacBooks than MacBook pros.

This is underscored by Apple’s NAB announcement said that they’re putting their emphasis on Mac stores as sales venues…and those are dominated by iPods and consumer-ish computers.

All of which is why I still think that Apple selling the Pro Apps will be the best thing for Pro Appls folks. They’re increasingly a distraction from Apple’s core business, and if Thomson is the buyer, they’ll be part of a hardcore broadcast business that desperately needs content creation tools. They’ll dedicate far more resources to it than Apple will.