GITEX Day 3

Note: I overlooked actually publishing this so this refers to day three even though it’s posted after day four.

Day three of GITEX started very quietly for me. I had two appointments lined up, they were fairly substantial interviews that would possibly lead to longer articles in some future issue, but there were just two of them. Arriving to the GITEX halls a bit early, before they doors open for the public, I walked around, taking pictures of things and there, suddenly appears a PR guy. “Do you want to talk to such and such?” he asks. I say, of course, “sure”, and there you have it, two more appointments. And that’s how the day went, adding a few more as I went along until it was full of appointments, pretty much back to back.

See, at events like GITEX it’s very hard to schedule correctly. You may agree to an appointment for let’s say 10am with a particular person at a particular stand or other place. Even if you try to appear on time very often they are delayed but of course you never know for sure. If it’s arranged by or through PR people they often call you several times to check if you’re really going to be there. So if there’s a delay there’s a knock-on effect of all the other appointments so you have to build in time for catching up on work and take care of delays so it doesn’t mess up the whole schedule. That’s an art in itself and I don’t think I’ve really mastered it yet.

One really interesting part of the afternoon was a chat with some of the folks at Panasonic who deal with their cameras, both still and video. In a surprisingly candid discussion we talked about all kinds of aspects of their cameras, good and bad, and some things about where they are headed with future products. Unfortunately that’s about as much as I can tell you at this stage but I think it’s safe to say they’re working on some cool stuff.

Then finally it was off to the radio station and the show with James. It was good fun as always and we talked about du’s iPhone 3GS offering, trying to explain the plans a bit. Hopefully next time, which is after October 27 when du’s releasing their iPhones, he’ll actually have an iPhone.

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