I’m less than excited after my first peak inside the VoiceCon San Francisco 2007 goody bag. Doesn’t appear to be much more than a ton of marketing material.
You open the bag’s main compartment via the zipper on top. However, a large flap on the bag’s front hides a few small compartments suitable for business cards or pens.
The VoiceCon San Francisco 2007 goody bag and all it’s contents spread out on a table in the TechRepublic office.
CMP Media LLC, a United Business Media company, owns and operates the VoiceCon shows. As you would expect, the VoiceCon San Francisco 2007 goody bag contained a few CMP Media publications.
Most of the marketing material in the VoiceCon San Francisco 2007 goody bag held my attention for about 2 seconds.
Although most of the marketing material was immediately forgettable, a few pieces did pique my interest.
Nuance Communications was promoting their speech-enabling solutions with prize giveaway. VoiceCon attendees would take this key to the Nuance Communications booth and use it to unlock a “treasure chest”. If the key worked, you would be able to pick from a Video iPod, Garmin GPS unit, or Flip Video Camcorder. It’s a shame I didn’t notice this key until after the conference. I’m just sure my key was a winner.
Sipera Systems, a provider of VoIP security products, stuffed used this decision support wheel. According to the wheel’s instructions, we should “line up the opening to your specific application and security concern to see which protection and enablement techniques are required for your deployment”.
Digium, the developers of the open-source Asterisk, capitalized on Wiley Publishing’s popular For Dummies book franchise. Stephen Olejniczak, author of Telecom For Dummies, wrote the 44-page AsteriskNOW For Dummies, Digium Edition. Although it’s clearly a marketing tool, the book does a decent job of explaining AsteriskNOW.
Microsoft provide the only really “goodies” in the VoiceCon San Fransisco 2007 goody bag. This water bottle and chocolate bar promote the VoIP features of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
If you’d like one of these handy, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) water bottles (sans Microsoft logo of course), just contact a reseller of Perfect Line promotional products. According to the Perfect Line 2007 catalog, 150 of these white beauties can be yours for just $1.15 a piece. If you suddenly get the urge to give one to 2.5 million of your closest friends, Perfect Line will but you a deal and sell you each bottle for $0.74.
Not that I need more sugar, but I probably should have looked through my VoiceCon San Francisco 2007 goody bag BEFORE I packed it in my luggage for the cross-country return trip. Needless to say, I did not eat my melted Microsoft chocolate bar.
I’m sure chocolate purists will cringe, but if it’s not really good chocolate–which this isn’t–I prefer my candy bars with crispy bits in them, such a the Nestle Crunch.
Bill Detwiler is the Editor for Technical Content and Ecosystem at Celonis. He is the former Editor in Chief of TechRepublic and previous host of TechRepublic's Dynamic Developer podcast and Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Previously, Bill was an IT manager in the social research and energy industries. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Louisville, where he has also lectured on computer crime and crime prevention.
