VoiceCon 2010: I Survived
After four long days with only 4-5 hours of sleep each night, I’m happy to say I survived another VoiceCon. Monday started early with team meetings in advance of the show. After lunch, it was time to join the workshops so I could tweet live from the event by sharing highlights, interesting quotes, and tidbits from the sessions. Later that evening, the show floor opened and the evening reception kicked off. Below are a few pics from the exhibit hall.
The 2010 Booth
TelePresence Room
Members of the team
The view at VoiceCon
Demos, demos, demos
On Tuesday, the live tweeting continued. First from the keynote and then from other workshops and panel discussions. I also had one of the members of my team working with a video crew on the booth capturing interviews, demos and whiteboarding sessions. It was a busy day. In the evening, we held our customer appreciation reception for about 400 customers who were attending the show. After it was over, the team headed to Downtown Disney for a very late dinner at a Cuban restaurant. Before wrapping up the night, we stopped at an Irish restaurant and pub for some entertainment and music. The musicians consisted of one acoustic guitarist and a violinist playing lively Irish songs. On some of the songs, a young woman would even step on the stage and perform a “river dance” along with the music. It was great–and a nice break from the stress of working VoiceCon. Upon returning to the hotel, I had to meet up with the video editors, approve the final cuts, and help upload the videos to our social media sites before falling into bed. I think it was about 3 am before we got it all finished…gotta love working a show.
Video Crew Filming
Our Tweets appearing in the show feed
Working the customer reception
Keynote presentation and demo
On Wednesday, I got up early and repeated it all over again. However, I was happy because it was supposed to be my last day in Orlando. I was booked on the 8:15 pm and was able to upgrade to first class. It was perfect. We boarded the plane like normal, and just when it seemed like we were ready to push away from the gate bridge, I received a call from Gary asking me if my flight had been cancelled. Surprised, I told him no (after all, I was already on the plane and nothing seemed to be wrong). Ten seconds later, I see the pilot grab the microphone. “No, this is not happening,” I thought. But, it was happening. The pilot announced that because of the massive storms in Dallas (which happened to stretch from Chicago to San Antonio), our flight was being cancelled. ARGH! It was the last flight out, so I was stuck in Orlando for another night.
View inside the Orlando airport from the Hyatt Regency Hotel (where I got a last minute room after my flight was cancelled)
Sunrise over the Orlando airport the next morning
Even though flights were still being cancelled on Thursday morning due to the weather the previous night, I was able to catch the 9:30 am flight which put me back in Dallas a little after noon. After arriving back home, I worked the rest of the afternoon and then crashed. It’ll take me a few days to get caught up on sleep, but I’m just happy that I’m home and I survived another VoiceCon!
