Reporting from HP’s Technology Forum and Software Universe is presenting some challenges for this somewhat trade show savvy reporter. Covering show news in near-real time this week reminded me why despite the location, work travel is trying at the very least. I do hold out hope that the vendor hosting the show will think of the press, naive as it may seem, but once again I have come face-to-face with the reality of my station in the high-tech realm. While I remain committed and some may say oddly happy to cover HP news, this year I do have a few requests for the mega-vendor.
1. Remember the little people — or smaller publications that focus squarely on HP’s business. While Network World may not have the cachet of a Fortune magazine, we write directly to HP’s target audience: IT professionals buying servers, switches, storage, software and services. Give a veteran reporter on the HP beat some face time with HP’s rock-star Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd. (One Software Universe attendee was overheard saying he wanted to get close enough to reach out and touch Hurd during the keynote address. And I have to admit his brief presentation included a charisma not often on display during high-tech trade shows.) I have talked to many HP executives over the years, but Hurd continues to elude me and he slipped away once again. Next time!
2. Ensure press can access the Internet or do their jobs, which is remotely cover the news by using the Internet to connect back to corporate offices. Maybe it’s because I am press that I have had a hard time trying to access the HP Software Universe wireless network here at the Venetian in Las Vegas, but it’s quite frustrating to be tasked with covering the news — without being able to connect. I ultimately paid the convention center $40 just to e-mail stories and compose this blog entry. There is wireless access, but the people assigned to give me the information that would enable me to connect aren’t aware of how to fix whatever the issue is. Technology such as wireless connectivity should not be so hard to find at a show hosted by a multi-billion dollar technolog company.
3. Provide useful information. Not all members of the press have been covering HP and/or enterprise management software for as long as I have, but when dealing with the press HP could provide more useful information and save the marketing jargon for the generalist publications that don’t know nor want to learn about speeds and feeds, server and agent software, and extensive integrations among all of HP’s acquired software products. From what I have come to learn over the years, HP has solid technology so it would be better for the company to stop mucking up the message with misleading marketing efforts. (HP is not alone; IBM is also guilty of this crime. The bigger the software maker, it seems, the more convoluted the message can get.)
4. Respect my privacy or First Amendment rights or Freedom of the Press or something to that effect. I was told in advance by HP PR that they would need to know which sessions I would want to attend at the show. I understand to some degree that customers aren’t always aware of the press being present and agree to speak on the condition they aren’t quoted. I don’t work to alienate the IT professionals out there that could face penalties from corporate communications for sharing their software experience so I often speak to end users off the record, for background only. Here I am banned from certain sessions, which I can manage, but once I realize which sessions are off-limits, let me be. If the customers in the sessions aren’t press shy, why the need to have a HP PR escort to the session? That’s the current rule. I won’t be able to get into a session with end-user presenter unless HP escorts me. As mighty as my pen may be, HP’s policy on this hurts the company more than if I overheard a customer case study without a chaperone present. There seems to be one of two HP PR representatives shadowing me not so subtlely even now as I innocently tap away on my laptop in the Cyber Cafe, because the press room has no wireless (see above item).
5. Feed a girl. When I travel to trade shows, I fully commit to 16 hour days of little food or drink, but depend upon the vendor to offer just a bit of sustenance to carry me through a day of meetings with marketing representatives, lengthy sessions that depend on PowerPoint presentations and me spontaneously and charmingly convincing end users to share their HP thoughts with me. I can get by on a Diet Coke (all right I will settle for Diet Pepsi in a pinch) and a conference cookie for many hours so please fill the trough so I can stay alive here. Food and caffeinated beverages are at a dangerous low here. There is water, but that could be the Vegas law when temperatures rise above 100 degrees. (Update: While I was not allowed to partake in what can only be assumed was a bland box lunch offered to specific attendees whom I envied in the moment, HP later put out mini fried and cheesy things — and Diet Coke which I had thought was banned from Las Vegas in favor of the lesser Pepsi — which I promptly inhaled.)
Just a little food for thought for HP when planning next year’s shows (which really would be better if located in one hotel and not split across two locations. It’s too hot to run between hotels in Vegas!)
