http://www.lenovovision.com/lv2/mediaplayer.php?fid=water_tank&locale=en-ca
This is one weird video, there are more of them.
They want to be the "Chrysler" of PC's - Best Engineered!
What a losing proposition, ah, the tech marketers of today, making the same mistakes as their forebears, since, history repeats itself, and old men like me are let go from the ivory towers of marketing...
I warned the PC guys they were on the wrong path in 1993, in St. Louis, at an IBM program for field sales reps and techies...
Showing posts with label IBM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IBM. Show all posts
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Rocky and the seatbelt
Going to IBM's 100 Percent Club (the event for sales people who made quota) was a pretty big deal. Salesmen all measured each other by how many “Clubs” they had been to, as this indicated that you were successful over time. Being in San Diego, we had several folk who had 15, 20 or even 25 clubs under their belts!
After our second year on quota, both Jamie and I made the club. Being the rookie reps from the office, and with neither of us succeeding in making the club the first year, we were pretty pleased. So, we decided to take a red-eye to Miami from San Diego, since then we could have first class seats at the same price as coach.
We boarded the plane at about 11:30 PM San Diego time, and stopped in Phoenix. We didn’t have to change planes there, which was good, since we were already making a dent in the liquor in the first class compartment. By the time we landed in Atlanta we were so schnockered that we almost missed the connection to Miami. I don’t remember how we got to the Fountainbleu hotel, but when we arrived we actually were barking in the lobby, awaiting registration.
I think Rocky was either with us, or somehow met up with us soon after we deposited our bags in the room. We knew we’d be in for a treat since Rocky was an old hand at 100 Percent Clubs, and knew Miami like the bottom of his beer glass. We followed him, and a bunch of his cronies, to a bar not far from the hotel.
Rocky was greeted by the bartender, who immediately set up tall draft beers all around.
The bartender came from behind the bar, and wrestled a stool down from a bracket on the ceiling.
This was slightly weird as there were plenty of stools and chairs around.
This particular stool had a seatbelt attached to it. He plonked it down at the end of the bar, Rocky took his seat, and buckled himself in.
Another round of drinks, all around.
Jamie and I picked Rocky up three days later...he was still buckled in when we brought the cab around for him...
After our second year on quota, both Jamie and I made the club. Being the rookie reps from the office, and with neither of us succeeding in making the club the first year, we were pretty pleased. So, we decided to take a red-eye to Miami from San Diego, since then we could have first class seats at the same price as coach.
We boarded the plane at about 11:30 PM San Diego time, and stopped in Phoenix. We didn’t have to change planes there, which was good, since we were already making a dent in the liquor in the first class compartment. By the time we landed in Atlanta we were so schnockered that we almost missed the connection to Miami. I don’t remember how we got to the Fountainbleu hotel, but when we arrived we actually were barking in the lobby, awaiting registration.
I think Rocky was either with us, or somehow met up with us soon after we deposited our bags in the room. We knew we’d be in for a treat since Rocky was an old hand at 100 Percent Clubs, and knew Miami like the bottom of his beer glass. We followed him, and a bunch of his cronies, to a bar not far from the hotel.
Rocky was greeted by the bartender, who immediately set up tall draft beers all around.
The bartender came from behind the bar, and wrestled a stool down from a bracket on the ceiling.
This was slightly weird as there were plenty of stools and chairs around.
This particular stool had a seatbelt attached to it. He plonked it down at the end of the bar, Rocky took his seat, and buckled himself in.
Another round of drinks, all around.
Jamie and I picked Rocky up three days later...he was still buckled in when we brought the cab around for him...
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Miata - IBM Stream of Consciousness Jul/05/2007
I've been told that Miata, the car name that Mazda Motors chose, means "I peed in my pants" in Spanish.
At the "Olympics of Telecom", an international show in Geneva (Telecom '91), I played a role in IBM's booth. It was a 3 story booth, with an elevator. There were about 150 different demonstrations on and about the booth, and I had produced about 50 of them, including a signature recognition demonstration. I also was the voice over for many of the multimedia presentations, and, either ad libbed or wrote much of the copy.
I had a show badge at a pretty high level (some minor Executive) that got me into any part of the IBM booth. I also had pins from other booths, stuck onto my show badge, but only from companies that had strategic alliances with IBM. So, I had an AT&T pin, one from Sony, from Alcatel and TelMex and I knew what each of the alliances with these companies was...and several people had asked me and I told them why I had on the pins and they appreciated the information...however....
The President of IBM Europe (EMEA) wandered by my station on the show floor and saw my pins and told his staffie to tell my management that I was to remove all the pins from my badge, and even though I explained my situation to my management they had me remove the pins, and so, I removed all except the Radio Bejing pin, with which IBM had no alliance, except in tactics!
I worked with a fellow named Bayou Citizen. Bayou was a good old boy from Texas, but he'd been urbanized and urbaneized too. Spoke with nary a drawl. He was the field sales manager and I was the "Friend from the Factory" marketing guy, and together we'd get announcement activities accomplished.
We would measure the project by how many lives it would cost. We could look at a timeframe, and a list of activities, and decide, in 6-12 weeks time, how many people will have to be put into action for how many hours, and that's how we decided what the number of lives it would take to do the project.
For example, part of IBM's response to the 1987 stock market crash was to host 350 NYSE analysts, brokers, et al at a all day event on an IBM "college campus" (Thornwood). I was asked 6 weeks prior what we ought to demonstrate, and what we showed on the day was exactly what I had envisioned. Total Carte Blanche, I had a charge code, and that was that...(not a clue what the total event cost, but our demonstration included a private courier to transport one of only TWO 4MB cards in the world for the then PC (running OS/2!), so that we could do windows during the demo!)
Well, when we did the budget for this event, we figured it was a 3 life lost project. That's how many weeks of how many people's lives would be spent getting the event accomplished...3 lifetimes!
How many lifetimes?
How deadly Is the project?
We had to access!
Once Upon A Time
In a galaxy far far
Justice Prevailed
At the "Olympics of Telecom", an international show in Geneva (Telecom '91), I played a role in IBM's booth. It was a 3 story booth, with an elevator. There were about 150 different demonstrations on and about the booth, and I had produced about 50 of them, including a signature recognition demonstration. I also was the voice over for many of the multimedia presentations, and, either ad libbed or wrote much of the copy.
I had a show badge at a pretty high level (some minor Executive) that got me into any part of the IBM booth. I also had pins from other booths, stuck onto my show badge, but only from companies that had strategic alliances with IBM. So, I had an AT&T pin, one from Sony, from Alcatel and TelMex and I knew what each of the alliances with these companies was...and several people had asked me and I told them why I had on the pins and they appreciated the information...however....
The President of IBM Europe (EMEA) wandered by my station on the show floor and saw my pins and told his staffie to tell my management that I was to remove all the pins from my badge, and even though I explained my situation to my management they had me remove the pins, and so, I removed all except the Radio Bejing pin, with which IBM had no alliance, except in tactics!
I worked with a fellow named Bayou Citizen. Bayou was a good old boy from Texas, but he'd been urbanized and urbaneized too. Spoke with nary a drawl. He was the field sales manager and I was the "Friend from the Factory" marketing guy, and together we'd get announcement activities accomplished.
We would measure the project by how many lives it would cost. We could look at a timeframe, and a list of activities, and decide, in 6-12 weeks time, how many people will have to be put into action for how many hours, and that's how we decided what the number of lives it would take to do the project.
For example, part of IBM's response to the 1987 stock market crash was to host 350 NYSE analysts, brokers, et al at a all day event on an IBM "college campus" (Thornwood). I was asked 6 weeks prior what we ought to demonstrate, and what we showed on the day was exactly what I had envisioned. Total Carte Blanche, I had a charge code, and that was that...(not a clue what the total event cost, but our demonstration included a private courier to transport one of only TWO 4MB cards in the world for the then PC (running OS/2!), so that we could do windows during the demo!)
Well, when we did the budget for this event, we figured it was a 3 life lost project. That's how many weeks of how many people's lives would be spent getting the event accomplished...3 lifetimes!
How many lifetimes?
How deadly Is the project?
We had to access!
Once Upon A Time
In a galaxy far far
Justice Prevailed
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