BOSTON -- You can tell that the straight-laced enterprise content management space is on the upswing by the wackiness of the convention-floor booths at the AIIM Expo here.
Sure, the AIIM booths are light-years from the shenanigans at the Consumer Electronics Show or any (dis)respectable gaming show. But there are still some worthy entries here.
Hyland Software turned its huge booth into a faux, brick-walled bar, the OnBase Sports Bar and Grille, with PCs on the bar, real bartender/PR agents behind the bar, and bottles of booze -- which were actually empty. (We checked.)
A Todays Special board at the bars entrance featured:
Documents captured in high-volumes daily.
Content served with your preferred interface.
A la carte functionality suited to your
ECM appetite!
Datacap was offering a free bike, a nice racing bike, which was on display at the front of the booth. All the madcap Datacap employees were dressed in tight, yellow-and-black racing shirts. A male employee was also pedaling furiously at the back of the booth, on a mounted version of the prize bike. I wanted to ask about it but feared being sucked into another vendor tractor beam.
The mini theater on the corner of the booth - a staple of all self-respecting trade shows - was again popular at the AIIM Expo. And what mini theater would be complete without the accompanying booth babes trolling the insanely bright red carpet, looking for dazed conventioneers who really needed to know more about the latest in content management (but didn't realize it)?
Microsoft had one of the biggest booths (duh), and they went with a tasteful beachwood look for the high booth walls. The mini theatre (dubbed the Microsoft Solutions Theater) was adorned with little white backless love seats, while the hyper PR woman with the Britney Spears ear-to-cheek microphone prowled the little stage, talking way too vigorously about & Im not sure what. Something to do with software.
One of the more surreal aspects of the show are these really loud, major-league printing fortresses on display. There are many right by the press room, and several times today I could swear baseball-ball sized hail was hammering the roof of the cavernous Boston Convention Center. But it was really just the latest in high-end, souped-up digital printing.
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