SIGGRAPH 2009 - Post Mortem

Well, we made it back home after our trip to New Orleans for SIGGRAPH. The experience was great for us. It was rewarding to show something unique, in a big booth, right up front. Thanks to GarageGames for giving us a chance back at GDC San Francisco, where we made the connections that got us to SIGGRAPH four short months later. We made some good contacts and learned alot. The following are some tips, tricks and warnings I picked up from personal experiences:
 
(To just see the tech video and skip the blog…scroll down....way down)
 

Watch what you eat
Local cuisine can be a double-edged sword. Great risks promising untold rewards – I say go for it! Gator meat was good, but just about anything you batter fry is ok in my book. We tried Jambalaya, Creole, Etouffe, and lots of Po’ Boys. Last one was brutal. The trick to safely sampling food in foreign land is to get started early in your trip. If you “don’t drink the water,” you’ll never build up a tolerance. This can leave you compromised at the wrong time. I touched down at 11:00pm, hot and swampy. Entered the lobby of our hotel and promptly ordered a shrimp Po’ Boy with hot sauce and cheese fries, then I checked in.


The best food-defense is a good food-offense!
 
 
Go with the flow
Expect some strange customs in new places; people live in different ways. Some bars have horses in them…some have dogs.




Its easy to forget when traveling, you’re the alien, they are the normal ones.
 

Right tools for the job
A bit of prep is worth a gig of not_failing. Lots of things went wrong in pre-production of our demo. No capture suit was sent for Chris to demo in, not a big deal they had extras, just had to set the markers up. No appropriate shoes for markers meant another industry-first, the motion capture sandal (may cause some chaffing).


No problem, we got shoes over-nighted for day two.

Monday evening was our first live test at the show, where we quickly realized we did not properly prepare for the display system we would be demo-ing on. The $50,000 display screen matrix absolutely had to be fed a 1920x1080 video signal, which our app did not like. Some quick text fixes on the .gui files and crisis averted. GUI has never been our strong point, but at least now it wasn’t splattered all over the screen. Next issue was the frame rate. We had some nice stuff to show, but 14 frames a second was not helping sell the dream. Advanced lighting /off – 40 frames a second. Back home, I was pulling 150fps in the same zones, so point is: know the spec in advance, and have a backup plan. Good thing the scene artist sent a set of baked-lighting textures as well. Ok now we can calm down and get the Katana working…

 
Less moving parts
We narrowed the scope of our short demos to show only our best stuff. I mean the flashiest, most eye-candy laden aspects of our wares. Another display snafu was that movies weren’t pushing through the big video feeds, and I didn’t have time to troubleshoot it. We stuck with what worked, which fortunately was our best looking stuff. We didn’t spend much time demonstrating the technical functionality of the app, though we mentioned it repeatedly. It was obvious to us that the crowd was reacting to the “interactive techniques”, so that’s what we gave them.
 

Pacing and energy levels
Public speaking and martial arts can be a dicey combo. We realized that I should probably do the narration/barking/crowd interaction stuff myself, and let Chris focus on the seemingly endless stream of ninja attackers. That was a better option than "fat-guy in a mocap suit", but I am sure the youtube hits would have been through the roof. After the first presentation, Tuesday, we limped back to the hotel for a mid-day nap. What a relief to have the first demo over!


Proudly, neither of us vomited and the demos did, in fact, get easier.

 
Stay late
You’ve only got one shot to impress most people, or get their attention for better or worse. If you can tighten down the bolts on your presentation, do something to improve it, fix bugs… don’t wait till you get home. Do it on-site, stay late or work from you hotel room. We had some failure with the Katana on day one, also some repeated crashes when exiting levels. We stayed on the expo floor fixing bugs until midnight on the pre-show day, but by day one we only had to stay until 10pm to resolve the Katana problem and the crash bug.


This meant we could get an earlier start partying, which is always for_teh_win in New Orleans.
 

Never miss networking opportunities
You don’t have to meet everyone at these shows, but make sure you put a good face forward when you do socialize. If new associates or colleagues want you to go out to dinner, go drinking, bar crawling, whatever it is… you do it. These encounters can generate leads, clues and connections that are invaluable. And don’t forget the napkin contract deals we’ve all heard of… that stuff happens. People want to know how you act in social settings when they are considering working with you, its an indication of how you might reflect on their business.


Even if you’ve got a buzz going, pay attention to the discussion. Especially when it pertains to your product or industry.

 
Do the mixers
If we learned one thing from Ted Southard, it’s DO THE MIXERS! They might seem a bit awkward at first (that’s because they are), but that can be offset with a few drinks. These industry-mixers often include a free drink or some food, which can be a bonus on the road. They are hybrids between networking on the expo floor and the after-hour meetings.  We did the motion capture mixer, since our benefactors were one of the sponsors, we figured we’d have “mad-clout”. We didn’t, but it was cool. We actually made some good connections.

 
Have a support team
It was a big bummer that we couldn’t afford to send our whole team to the show, but having these guys back at HQ was a good feeling. Imagine forgetting something important to your gameplan and having your wife, for example, having to navigate through your hard drive to find your pie charts or action item list. Your home-team can be invaluable for web updates, remotes fixes, etc. It came up a couple times for us, so that was helpful. Thanks guys.

 
Have cards and documentation
This should go without saying, but don’t overlook the obvious. We thought our flyers might be overkill, and it was a pain in the arse to get 1000 6x9 cardstock glossies to the show, last minute - but it paid off. We were clearly the “Dominant Flyer Force” ™, as other companies were “too big” to worry about it, had huge booths, and media desks to handle the PR. Our flyers were actually a big hit, we often got stuck talking for 3-5 minutes to interested show-goers. I repeatedly got tapped on the shoulder by folks who wanted a flyer. It helps if your flyer says “free beer and lap dances”.


Even if its just a printout of your specs, some schwag or a simple business card – give them a piece of the dream to take home.


Follow up
Go through your cards, contacts, competitor’s specs, everything. Get ‘em on Linked-In, do-the-whole-do. You had a great show, but you still gotta turn these connections into something tangible. Sometimes, all it takes is one lead, so don’t overlook anybody.

 
Have 3 more ideas
Whatever your focus may be, don’t ignore the other features of your product or service. Rehearse your spiel on each aspect, you never know which idea or bullet point will get their attention, sometimes its the last thing you expected. They might really like you, but hate your ideas – so have a few more handy.

 
Show something awesome
Last tip… stun them. The main thing to focus on when doing these shows, of course, is your product or technology itself! Schmoozing is no replacement for hard work. No one wants to hear about vapor-ware. These tips work best when you are pushing a product that’s unique, independently-awesome, and full of ninjas!

Thanks for reading,

Here’s the video:


Additional photos by Russell Fincher of "Oh Snap! Photography"