Supercomputing booth/2012

Details

• Web site
• Dates: November 12-15, 2012
• Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
• Booth nr: 2512
• Booth personnel: Dmytro Karpenko, Oxana Smirnova

Report

Judging from the number of disappeared giveaways, 100+ people stopped by the booth. Of those, very few were willing to engage in a conversation, and those who left business cards were mostly looking for a job.

Visitors who were interested in the subject noted a nice booth solution. Most did not believe in Grid, or knew very little about it, and were surprised to learn that it is used for real. Probably next exhibitions should have more accent onto real applications of the Grid middleware.

Close vicinity of top-guns like Intel, Cisco, NVIDIA etc distracted the visitors: clearly, our modest installation was all but invisible against such a backdrop. Even our own colleagues passed by not seeing us. Perhaps in future such neighborhood should be avoided, it is a mixed blessing.

Leaflets did not enjoy much success even with people who wanted to learn more; booklets or fold-outs should be considered in future.

GIN demo did not attract any attention at all, despite being announced as a cross-exhibitor event. On the other hand, it was not a real demo but a video, since the wireless network was basically non-functioning, and wired options were a clear overkill for the purpose.

There were not too many opportunities to visit the exhibition, but in several boothes people knew or heard about ARC. There should be some way of capitalizing on this, maybe a prize draw for those who find most centres that use ARC, or such.

Participants

• Dmytro Karpenko
• Oxana Smirnova
• Gabor Roczei (borrowed from PRACE)

Material

• Roll-up

• Leaflet

• Slide show: AVI | WMV | PPSX | PPTX

Giveaways

• ARC pens
• ARC post-it blocks
• EMI clock
• EMI charger adapters
• EMI bookmarks
• EMI quiz cards

Preparations

Before coming to US

Furniture ordering

Furniture for a 10'x10' booth was included in the price for an research exhibition booth, however it must be ordered in advance.

Pictures

• 

  Just arrived, the day before

• 

  The wall slowly getting up (thanks neighbours for the instructions)

• 

  This didn't work (power for the beamer was on the other side)

• 

  Finally everything is set; took 5 hours 45 minutes

• 

  The show can start

Actions

Read through the exhibitor info

DEADLINES

Action	Status/Deadline	Comment	AssignedTo
Find People	Done	Dima, Oxana	Farid
Passports, Visa etc	Done	Passports OK	Dima, Oxana
Submit Company Profile	Done	Electronic profile	Oxana
Pay for the booth	Done	USD 100 paid in April 2012	Farid
Order Furniture	Done	Fax sent, no confirmation yet	Oxana
Order electricity	Done	1 110V outlet is included in the booth package	Oxana
Order Network	Done	Use wireless only	-
Tickets	Done	Will be there for Sunday 11th to setup the booth	all
Hotel	Done	Some days may be on the waiting list?	all
Design Poster	Done	-
Design Leaflets	Done	previous ones are OK
Print Posters	Done	A-REX roll-up	Oxana
Print Leaflets	Done	-	Oxana
Bring Posters and leaflets	in progress	-	Oxana
Prepare slide show	Done		?
Prepare gadgets	in progress	Dima: pens and post-it notes, Oxana: EMI clock	Oxana, Dima
Allocate notebooks	Done	-	all
Borrow a beamer	Done	from Oslo	Dima
Borrow tripod for posters	not needed?	there is one in Lund	Oxana
Poster fixation on curtains	not done	hopefully not needed	?
Prepare scotch- and brown tape	not done	Buy locally if needed	?
Prepare for evt GIN demos	not mandatory	testbed may be needed (Marek)	?
Register booth personnel	Done	costs 100 greenbucks	Dima, Oxana
Take socket adapter, power cord distributor	Done	Adapter may have to be bought locally	Dima
Hire a car	not done	may not be necessary	?
cutter, straight threshold profile, scissors	not done	see know-how from last year	?
Drawing pins, tapes	not done	Eventually buy there	?
Cell phone + charger	in progress	check GSM compatibility	all
Find an inflatable T-REX	not done	didn't work last year	Dima
Approximate budget	not so much	shoestring, as usual	?