Well Comdex has come and gone. If you were watching the trade magazines, many people might thing that there may not be a Comdex next year. Key 3 Media has record losses and Comdex attendance was way down from years past. We only had 75,000 people register this year.
They did it right though, they pack every booth in amongst the others so it looks quite large. Like each and every year. It still was held in the Convention Center and the North Hall. However, the North Hall was divided so it appeared that it was only as large was the walls in was held in. In fact, they were dividers that were full height walls and it was only half the normal size.
Registration was on the other side of the North Hall and on Monday, it was just as packed as any other year. Since I usually go with a friend of mine, Rollie Cole from Indianapolis, we pre-registered so we would have to wait in that long line. We've learned over the years. Of course, we also came in on Friday for our yearly User Group stuff. It turns out that Rollie and I were asked to be on an Intel Advisory Committee and so our first meeting was that Friday night. The next morning, all the User Groups from the Association of Personal Computer Users Groups (APCUG), for which our group is a part of, had round-tables. These round-tables consist of people getting together and discussing problems and solutions that each organization is experiencing. Each and every year, I take notes to compare how we stand.
Every group in the country is suffering the downsizing of membership, with the small exception of just a few. Senior groups seem to be growing for some reason. This brought up a few points such as, "How many groups are getting new members that are of a younger age?" Not many groups held up their hands and I don't think our group is getting any members that are in their twenties.
Even our scholarship that we give each and every year to two students does not keep them. They take our money and run. It would be nice to hold on to a few younger members just because they are new blood and it could help promote younger crowds. Maybe we should look more closely at what their needs are, can we provide appropriate services, and how well has the Internet succeeded at answering all their questions? Can we show them new tricks and tips? Let face it, we need more members and the younger members could help us.
Other round-tables consisted of tips that some groups are trying. One group is giving away a free three-month trial membership with full entitlements. Then after the free trial, following up with a phone call or email if they do not renew. They are asked what they liked about the group and what they did not. One group is placing an ad in the local paper and giving a discount on membership. Others are spamming people with information about their group.
One thing I looked at that might be interesting is that cable companies have to support local programming and they are always short of content. If we came up with a video production showing people how to do simple tasks or maybe giving an example of how to upgrade the motherboard in their machine, we could then broadcast this exercise on our local community channel and maybe get some exposure. Of course, user groups are all run by volunteers and it takes dedication and time to manage projects like this.
Location, date and times of local meetings was of a concern for many people as well. Maybe our meeting time and date does not work for everyone. I would hate to change but maybe that is what we need. Name changing might attract more members. Maybe we should consider changing our name to the "Sacramento Technology Group" or something like that so we could attract more members.
Another idea was to raise more money for each group by coming up with a CD that had all our newsletters and maybe the top 50 most frequently asked questions on it as well. No matter what we do, it has to attract more members. We are losing a small amount of members each and every month and we need to do something about it soon.
Well enough of the User group for right now, Comdex again answered some more of my questions about upcoming products and announcements. Microsoft released and promoted OneNote that works on the widest promoted Notepads that were the hot item on the show. Wireless was again a part of every company's promotions and this time most of the companies improved their software with wizards on how to setup security with these devices. The true Multimedia PC was also a big promotion as well. Think about it. You have a small computer next to your Entertainment System in your front room. It is tied into you cable box or Satellite System and your TV, it has connections to your stereo as well. It contains a very large hard drive as well as a DVD writer. You record and watch TV while it is playing. You can copy movies to your DVD writer as well as play MP3 files and even play a movie your recorded earlier in the week. You can even pause TV while it is playing in real-time. The future of the Multimedia PC is coming very fast. In ten years almost all households will have one. It even comes with a remote control.
The rest of the Comdex week was cut short for me when I had to fly over to Utah for a funeral. Other than that, unless Comdex is not there next year, I'll be there. Some people were talking about moving our round-tables over to the Consumer Electronics show, but I still believe in Comdex and will try to go each and every year as long as there is one.
