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Last week I was in San Antonio, Texas for HP TechCon. TechCon is a unique conference. There are conferences in academia and industry in every field that are prestigious and therefore difficult to get a paper into. These other conferences are competitive because they have the attention of the world and are venues for publicizing and receiving credit for your ideas among your peers in the field, worldwide.
 TechCon is different because it is very competitive even though it's only for HP employees. Every year many of HP's 30,000 technologists (of it's 150,000+ employees) from around the company and the world submit their three page description of an invention. So many submissions are sent that only a fraction (around 11%) of the submissions are accepted and the authors are invited to a nice resort location.
TechCon is a place for HP's most innovative technologists to share ideas and eat lots of good food. Accepted papers typically 1) are novel and technically challenging 2) have actually been built and 3) can make HP money. I've submitted ideas for three of the last five years and this is my first accepted paper. I think what really made the difference this time around was that our paper was written in partnership with HP's telecom business unit which gave the project some commercial credibility versus just being a wacky research idea. It's interesting that HP can continue to motivate so many people to take time from their busy schedules to write up and submit their ideas every year. There is an element of prestige associated with attending and the pampering doesn't hurt either.
Some highlights from the week:
- Poster session. A very large room was filled with several rows of poster stands with HP engineers standing nearby. Security access to the room is considerable. It's a great opportunity to walk around and informally talk with people, especially when you can find something to collaborate on. It's amazing how much world-class knowledge and experience is in that room.
- Rodeo night. An old fashioned Texas BBQ out in the countryside. Bull riding, barrel racing, pork ribs, ping-pong, and peach cobbler.
- Filming an HP commercial.
 A handful of the projects were selected for a professional video that will be used for interactions with customers and analysts. First they sent us to the makeup artist who made us look tanner, smoother, and less shiny than real life. They sat us down on stools in front of a big green screen with indirect florescent lighting shining on us. The interviewer sat out of sight but we could see her face on the lens of the video camera, sort of like a teleprompter but with video. She asked us to explain our project in really simple terms and we could tell she was probing for good sound bites. At one point I used the term "fragile" to describe something and she had me restart because the word didn't sound good. Man, public-facing communication isn't easy. It was hard to maintain a sense of passion and excitement when I talked and still think about each word I used.
- Filet Mignon, lobster, and dessert buffets
Looking forward to (the food and conversation at) TechCon 2008...
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| Posted by Alex Vorbau on Monday, April 30, 2007 7:42 PM |
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