It’s been a crazy last couple of days. We arrive in Phoenix on Friday and got most of what we needed out of the way. Spent a couple of hours at Fry’s across the street, and then went to Cingular to cut a deal for cell phones (we need a bunch in our demo).
Saturday AM I got up early, and hiked the National Trail in South Mountain Preserve. The trail rises out of the parking lot at Pima Canyon at a pretty good rate, and then, after a mile or so, settles into a rocky ridge walk in the high desert. I hiked from Pima Canyon to Telegraph Hill Pass, which is about a 12 mile distance. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Of course, by the time I got back I was dehydrated (despite having taken two litres of water with me), and very sore. It’s been a long time since I did any hiking like that.
So, we did our rehearsal. We set up all the gear in our suite, and went through it. Frankly, it was a disaster. After two days of not practicing at least 5 times per day, I was flubbing lines, and Howard was slow on the keys. We practiced a bunch and got it into a little better shape. A big problem, though, was that the cellular service in our part of the hotel is so intermittent. Our demo has 18 cell phones in it! We now own cell phones on every major wirless carrier in the states.
Today we did the technical rehearsal. This is sitting with the team from DEMO, miking up the PC’s and other gear you need, and going through the transitions on screen. It was a thousand times better than yesterday. Moral of the story? Practice practice practice. We’ll be doing that tomorrow, and Tuesday.
And there’s a nice shot of Howard posing with our phones.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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