Working at NAB

That spring I was offered a job as a demo artist at NAB, the big tradeshow I attended every year.  I would be spending a week in Las Vegas, demonstrating Cineform’s software in their booth at the show.  It was the same company that had supplied me with software on my 3D Lego project in college a few years before, and I was one of their highest end customers in my job at Bandito.  I don’t do much customer service work in my regular job, I am more comfortable in a less visible behind-the-scenes role, so being a demo artist is a big change of pace.  I had done it once for Adobe at the LA Film Festival for an evening, filling in for my boss, but type of work was more his strength than mine.

It ended up going really well at NAB, once I got going.  But it took a bit to get started and really getting into a flow.  I don’t do as well initiating conversations one-on-one, but I can answer nearly any technical question possible about Cineform’s software, as well as their competitor’s.  Once someone realizes that I am a good source of new information, they keep the dialog going by asking more good questions.  I start showing them all sorts of other related features in the software, which catches the attention of others in the booth.  A good phrase I heard this year at the climbing convention was “nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.”  Once I had three of four people watching what I was demonstrating, it would really keep the questions coming, and attract quite a bit of attention.  I would occasionally have large crowds straining to hear and see what I was doing.  But if it ever petered out for some reason, I was left starting from scratch, with awkward attempts to start conversations with potential customers.  But overall it was a good experience, and I continued for the next four years.  It has helped me develop a strong relationship with a versatile and responsive software development company, which continues to be helpful to this day, if I need a solution to be programmed for a new workflow problem.

About that time, I began the first steps in an online conversation with P, which was a much more consistent level of communication than I was used to, and a good dialog on many different topics.  I was really looking forward to returning to camp that summer, but there were a number of challenges that had to be overcome to allow that to happen again.  My bosses were not satisfied with how things had gone the last time I was away that long, and they were not in favor of me leaving again.  So this time around, I started preparing and convincing them much earlier on.