Back From Orlando ... Final HP TX1000 Impressions

I came home from Orlando Wednesday night, but with Thursday loaded up with a work back-log and classes, I'm just now starting to get back into the swing of things. I think I'll need the weekend to get off of East Coast time, though.

First thing's first, my partner and I managed to take Second Place in our International Marketing Case Study for Delta Epsilon Chi. We were a bit disappointed that we didn't get first, but from what I've heard in the rumor mill, the field was incredibly competitive. We'll have scores probably end of next month, so I'll just have to live in suspense for a while. Either way, second is better than third, so we'll take it. Another of our Huskies came home with both a second place plaque and a job offer from ESPN, and a fourth placed in the top ten in her subject, so it was a good trip. Sadly, that's pretty much the end of my DEC run, and I think I'm really going to miss it.

Walt Disney World was pretty much as I remember it, albeit with a few additions. Honestly, I didn't have as much fun as I would have liked; it was really difficult to try to enjoy myself without my wife to share it with. By the end of the trip, I was getting really lonely and just wanted to come home.

The HP TX1000 continued to both delight and disappoint in equal measure during the trip, however. On one hand, the small size and swiveling screen made it perfect for enjoying on the long plane ride, and the machine was great for our presentations. One small issue came up in that while the remote control could run our PowerPoint presentation, the angle of the machine made it impossible to get line-of-sight to the infrared receiver. HP should really consider a radio for future iterations of the remote, or just make it Bluetooth.

Sadly, while I loved watching movies on the machine while flying, the batteries, even the extended battery, just weren't up to the task. I was lucky if I could squeeze just about two hours out of either of them, and then only by lowering the brightness to the point where I could hardly watch the screen. (Having to switch the batteries out was a pain as well.) It's worth noting that running the movies as files off the hard drive might have been a factor, but I'd think it would be better than having a second spindle (the DVD drive) running. The touchscreen did make controlling the movies a breeze, and the machine definitely attracted attention from people who saw it on the plane.

Overall, I like the machine a fair amount. Would I buy it? If HP added an active digitizer, I'd probably buy it in a heartbeat. Other nice-to-haves would be a DVD drive bay battery option for those longer flights, a bluetooth remote, and a better amplifier for the headphone jacks (it was hard to hear the movies, even with noise-cancelling headphones). But I think that for many people, especially those not looking for a perfect ink experience, this is a great alternative to something like a UMPC, and a very attractive and capable machine.

How Do You Market to Enthusiasts?

In my conversations with Chris over at AMD, he's displayed a keen understanding of how you handle marketing to the enthusiast set. Traditional marketing techniques don't work when you're talking about a group that Malcolm Gladwell would call "Mavens". They're the people that HATE walking into retail stores, because they frequently know more about a product than the people selling them.

How do you market to groups that know more than you do? Simple ... you don't. You have to find different ways to get them involved, get them engaged. Most importantly, it's going to go against everything marketing students (like myself) learn in school. You can't plaster your brand all over it, or it'll be seen as cheesy and fake. The experience needs to be ultra-high-involvement in order to keep their attention. And it needs to get them talking to everyone about it, as Mavens are wont to do.

This was something he mentioned to me on the phone today, as he casually reminded me that I forgot to mention AMD's involvement in the game in my last post (which has since been rectified). One of the best ways a company can "manage" something like Vanishing Point is to simply get out of the way. If you're doing your job right and creating an immersive and engaging experience ... don't worry about it. They'll figure out you're behind it. They always do.

Speaking of Vanishing Point and AMD, my interview with Chris, and the rest of the video from GearLive is posted at The Bleeding Edge. Check it out!

By the way, you'll see some pretty cool ice sculptures in the video. Regardless of anything you might hear on the Internets ... I absolutely did NOT lick the ice Vista logo.

Vanishing Point Goes Out With a Bang

Well, the live-blogging didn't go as I expected. It never works when I want it to. Oh well.

Microsoft threw what they told outsiders was a "Thank You, Seattle" event, and what the rest of us knew was the finale for Vanishing Point. They were easily some of the most spectacular fireworks I've ever seen, enhanced by the speculation of how the clues were imbedded in the display. After the show, Microsoft shuttled us off all Secret Squirrel-like (the busses had the windows covered in butcher paper) to Fremont Studios, where they had a relatively lavish party for the community. Plenty of laptops running Vista were on display, including one that not many people noticed ... a limited edition ASUS Tablet with a light-up Vista logo in the lid. Oh, it was a pretty, pretty machine, and I'd kill to get one.

While most of the party goers wandered the location convinced that there were more clues to be had, I took the opportunity to talk with some of the people involved with putting on the game. One of whom was Chris Aarons, the head of AMD's Community Relations department. We had a great conversation, and he's definitely someone what understands that technology buzz can be managed at a grass roots level. Eventually the conversation diverged into creating personalized experiences for consumers who are spending large sums of money on products. Why doesn't Porsche put a nameplate on the dash of their high-end cars that says that the car was designed specifically for the buyer? Why doesn't Dell do is on the high-end XPS products? It's low-cost and goes a long way towards building customer relationships as well as satisfaction and advocacy. Speaking of advocacy ... hey Chris, do you know where I can get one of those ASUS Tablets?! :)

Of course, before the in-depth marketing conversation with Chris, I was goaded by my buddy Andru into interviewing Chris on camera for The Bleeding Edge, where I asked Chris about Vanishing Point and the inscribed AMD chip prize. If I win, watch out for the special edition AMD Athlon 64 FX "SuperRob Edition" processor ... coming to a box near you!

When I got home, there were still puzzles to be solved, and the Neowin and Unfiction communities banded together again to break them down. Less than 24 hours later, we're headed down the road to immortality, but to get there, we have to figure out what Loki's name is. Didn't I already do that? Not exactly ... see, Loki isn't one person. She's FOUR distinct people, and you have to find the names of all of them. First person with the right answer wins.

What was my guess? Based on the clues given, I'm certain that the first three names are Lorelei, Odessa, and Kara. The last is somewhat murky, but I submitted Irene as my official answer sometime around 1PM Pacific. We'll see what happens. Regardless, I have over 1300 entries for the contest, so there's still the possibility that I'll be headed into space sometime in 2009. Either way, I'll have the distinction of being the first person to have figured out the prize, and that Loki was more than one person (though I thought she was twins).

My hat's off to the amazing and talented people at 4orty2wo that put together this fabulous contest for Microsoft. I can't wait to see what they do next.

Edit: Turns out that the final name was "Ivy", but I figured it out too late. Despite the website saying different, the winner was notified immediately. Also, they added clues after the fact, which I didn't know until it was too late. Somewhat unfair, really, but I'll live. :)