Computer Tradeshows

I recently attended the Strata + Hadoop World conference in New York and it reminded me of the first computer tradeshow I ever attended: COMDEX. I was going to school at the time and was working as a consultant to pay my way. Las Vegas was only a few hours away by car and so a couple of us loaded into one and headed down. We spent 2 days at the conference and came home with a ton of crap. None of us realized that they gave away free stuff at conferences and so we gathered something from every booth we visited. Our bags got so full, we had to find more. In the end, the conference was more about gathering and not at all about computers. Unfortunately most of the stuff I picked up was useless and got thrown away.

I'm not sure why COMDEX died but eventually it did and for that I am sad. I will always remember it as a fun place even though I didn't learn much about computers.

Fast forward through all of the conferences and tradeshows I have attended and now I realize it isn't about the free stuff I bring home, it is about learning and improving my own skills. Strata + Hadoop World is an interesting conference because it mostly revolves around processing and analyzing large amounts of data. As video games produce large amounts of data, it is very relevant to what I do. I learned a lot at the conference but also picked up a couple of T-shirts in the process. After all, I had to live up to my original COMDEX roots.

Company Benefits

Today was a good day to be at the office. The company I work for was giving away all sorts of free swag. OK, technically it wasn't free. I had to make a $5 donation to a charity and then they gave me a grab bag full of cool stuff. I got some sweet T-shirts as well as a bunch of video games. If I had bought the games in a store, I would have spent around $250. Of course I didn't get to pick the games and neither did any of the other employees around me. That led to a lot of trades taking place as we all got different titles.

This is one of the benefits that is often overlooked when deciding where you want to work. Back at Oracle, we might have gotten T-shirts, but nobody really had a consumer use for their product. It would be like bringing home a drive-shaft to a 1987 Ford F-150. While someone definitely has a use for such a gift, it isn't going to get the kiddies excited to see under the tree on Christmas morning. Yep, I definitely work for a company with lots of cool products.

This got me thinking about other cool companies. I wonder if Apple has such a practice and they give out iPads to all of their employees for a nominal donation to a local charity. Ok, maybe not an iPad, but how about an iPod? REI would be another great place to work if they gave out free stuff. With all the camping I do, I would definitely be happy with most anything they carry.

You don't suppose GM gives away cars at Christmas do you? They did have to get bailed out by the government recently. . .