Lip Sync'ing
for CAD Demo Jocks
Over on All Points Blog, Adena Schutzberg points out that Bentley Systems is using pre-recorded demos:
From the main stage to the industry sessions, I saw lots of non-live demos. Instead, I saw recorded demos. Some were so well rehearsed by the speaker that he didn't even have to look at the movie while it was playing! While live demos are scary (and fail!) I find they more engaging. Moreover, those watching can interrupt and ask a question during the demo.
Last year, when I was invited to Bentley's BE user conference in Prague, I had noticed the lack of liveness. And puzzled over it, but not enough to comment at the time. In every encounter with the media at that event, Bentley employees never ran the actual MicroStation software.
And then the same happened today with UGS. They showed me their new Solid Edge V20, and as the demo jock went through the feature sets, I noticed VCR controls near the top of the screen -- canned demos! He had some sort of control that allowed him to pause when I asked questions.
UGS didn't hide the fact; at the end of the session, one of their pr people told me I can re-view the videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CBAFB6415BCC450E
Ralph,
Just to be clear, Bentley didn't seem to be hiding the fact. Several presenters said, "I'm going to show you an AVI..."
Adena
Posted by: Adena Schutzberg | May 04, 2007 at 10:43
Say it ain't so...
The art of the live demo is something that I've always cherished. Walking (i.e. making the menu picks) whilst chewing gum (i.e. telling the benefits story) is not as easy as you think.
"Disaster management" for situations like software crashes, projector failures, screen resolution anomolies, missing files, making a wrong pick, getting side-tracked, and hostile audiences is all part of the fun. There was even the old trick of wrapping the power cord of the workstation around your ankle so it could be discretely pulled if things went really badly...
Maybe this is inevitable though, just like the move to UAVs from the glorious days of dog-fighting aces?!
Posted by: cae | May 04, 2007 at 04:58