Saturday, January 07, 2006
Successful mobilization at CES
When you navigate the floors of CES, you need to travel light, but with plenty of juice.
The first day, I used the roll bag that CES gave all the press. It was very nice, but still a little too much.
The second day, all I carried was my Thinkpad X41 Tablet PC in its carrying case sleeve, along with a very light XM trade show bag for carrying swag. When I wanted to take notes, I simply brought the tablet pc out of standby, tilted the device toward me in landscape mode and wrote. I carried my camera in my jacket pocket.
When I was ready to post my blog entries, I plugged in my Verizon EVDO card and posted my entries – very seamless.
What do I consider the essentials for navigating a conference like that?
- Extended battery support – all I used was my 8 cell extended battery. I used my thinkpad on and off throughout the day (from 9:00 am – 10:00pm) and when I got back to the hotel, I still had 1.5 hours of battery left. Be sure to turn wireless off and bump your brightness all the way down.
- Get a good carrying case sleeve so you can write easily on tablet.
- Get an AirCard. There were countless reports of wireless connectivity issues at the hotel and conference. Using my AirCard, I never experience one. I posted from the bus, from meeting rooms, aiport shuttle, etc.
- A very thin and light weight camera / camera phone. You need a camera that can fit in your pocket. It helps a tremendous amount if your camera and tablet both support the same digital media. If not be sure to bring an adapter.
- Good notetaking software that autosaves – GoBinder and OneNote both do that.
- Tennis shoes with good arch supports
- Lots of coffee
