I wrote this at an airport in Taiwan and never got it on the Blog, so here it is.
Another day down, Four to go.
Well it was another busy day for us. Looking at the schedule I was a bit worried about today. I had to give several long talks and then focus on quite a few customers and all of their issues and problem. As it ended up it was a pretty easy and enjoyable day.
Stan and I met the AT&T team for breakfast. It was a very international buffet with both American like food and Asian food. Otis Laio, the GM of Taiwan, updated us on what was going on and what he wanted to accomplish. I worked with Doris to get the right presentation and Demos on her computer and then we went to check out. I got a scare at the checkout counter when I was asked for my Amex card and I couldn’t find it in my wallet. I checked through my computer bag and couldn’t find it there so I figured I must have left it in my pants pocket but I couldn’t find it there. Finally I remembered that I must have put it with all my hotel and airline travel club cards when I was trying to find one to use with the hotel when I checked in. Big relief to find that.
We went upstairs to the big show, where Stan and I were the guests of honor. Music playing, videos going and many people roaming around. We finally got started. The introduction was given in Chinese so I didn’t understand a work except for “Stan”, “Scott” and “Presentation”. For some reason the Chinese don’t have a word for presentation. Seems very strange.
So I got up and did my first 45 minutes. This time I tried to put a lot more energy into it and be a lot more excited about the subject matter. It seemed to work a lot better and I was actually able to draw some questions out of people. Up until now most of the presentations we had given were just presentations and we couldn’t really draw people into a discussion, so this was great.
Stan then gave his presentation, then I got up for the rest of mine. They were all pretty well received. It was now lunch time. I was sitting with Stan, Otis, and the Evergreen group who is a major customer of ours around the world. I took a look at the menu and saw that we were in for a 2 hour, seven course meal. Some of the courses looked a little iffy, but it was really a very good meal. I was stuffed by the end of it, and it took the full two hours to complete. I even gave the Evergreen crowd a hard time when I notice them pull out forks to eat one of the courses. In turn they complemented me on my Chop Stick usage.
After lunch, Otis wanted us to go visit Evergreen So we jumped in a couple cabs and took our entourage over to their headquarters. The entire building was green, and apparently, they are into a little bit of everything. Shipping, Airlines, freight, manufacturing, I can’t remember it all. We went up to one of the office floors and all the Taiwanese were sitting at long rows of green desks with little screens set up back to back so they are all staring at each other. We were then escorted to a green board room where they started picking our brains for ideas about their networks and how we would do their migrations. They even served us green
# posted by Scott Blandford @ 12:00 PM
