BEA PANEL PRESENTATION A SUCCESS

Most people react to this trip to Las Vegas with envy. However, the pictures in your head may be like this....BUT WAIT....

This is not my reality. This is a picture of the pool at the Flamingo Resort and Casino I walk past every day to the monorail that takes me to the dull, colorless world of the convention center's conference rooms. Perhaps conference presentations and panels should move to a nice cabana next to the swimming pool?


The panel I presented with had a decent number of people in the audience. While there were some transient visitors who left, others joined us while our program was already in progress. Half our attendees were college students.

I consider that to be a positive. We had about two dozen people in the audience by the end of the 75 minute session. It really does help when people show up. Can you imagine the panel presentaton where there are more folks on the panel than in the audience?

My presentation on the REAL TV COVERAGE OF A MOCK CONVENTION was well received. Another plus-- I am only bringing home four of the 20 DVDs I brought of the 2007 Westminster Mock Convention. I offered the DVDs to the audience as a bonus in case they wanted to see what works and what doesn't when covering a live, one-time only event.

ANOTHER SIGN THE NAB/RTNDA CONVENTION IS IN TROUBLE...
The blogs about the NAB/RTNDA Convention are predicting it will die after this year. While the Las Vegas Convention Center puts out one set of numbers, blogs like FTVLive suggested that the once lavish and often hailed largest electronic show on the planet is powering down.

All the NAB exhibits were packed up and the hall closed today. That's a real smack in the face to BEA members who arrived Thursday. BEA's convention runs through Saturday and the exhibits didn't shut down last year until Saturday morning. I guess that could feed the myth that the BEA is just a forgotten pet project of the NAB.


The Final Cut Pro Discussion Continues...
All but two people I chatted with today indicated their institutions use Final Cut Pro (a Mac product). Bigger schools like the University of North Texas use Final Cut Pro and Avid for digital video editing. One high school teacher indicated her district uses Adobe Premiere, while another explained his school uses the software package that came with the consumer cameras they purchased. I've talked to nearly 40 people at the convention and I've only found one Adobe user. However, they all have acknowledged the absence of Adobe at the BEA once I pointed it out to them. INTERESTING.