In a way, tech conferences are like movies: You have loads of expensive gadgets, tons of carefully coiffed people, and crews of producers scrambling to keep everything on schedule. It's only fitting that amid that mix, you end up with one hell of a gag reel.
Think about it: From presenters to attendees -- not to mention all that temperamental technology -- there's no shortage of ways in which things can go wrong. When it comes down to it, it's a wonder anything ever goes right.
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Today, we celebrate some of the gaffes, goofs, and glitches that have affected folks at tech conferences around the world. Some of the bloopers were technical in nature, while others were, shall we say, a bit more on the personal side.
All of them, however, were unforgettable -- for better or for worse.
(Note: Some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty.)
Tech conference blooper No. 1: The color of embarrassmentIt wouldn't be a tech conference without the vendor booths and their seemingly endless supplies of swag. It's kind of like Halloween for adults, only the costumes are uncomfortable business suits and the candy is a collection of cheap pens and keychains. But who doesn't love free stuff?
Samantha McGarry doesn't -- not anymore, at least. McGarry traveled to a trade show in the United Kingdom some years back. She was the image of professionalism, there to network and to make contacts that could further her career. There was just one little problem.
McGarry, like many people at the convention, had gotten her hands full of freebies from various vendors set up around the event. She jammed all of them into a blue plastic bag she'd been given early in the day. Unfortunately, the bag made more of an impression on her than she realized.
"Unbeknownst to me, the blue ink from the bag was transferring to my sweaty palm and from there to my cheeks," McGarry remembers.
Naturally, hours went by without a mirror in sight, and no one had the decency to tell McGarry -- who, coincidentally, now works at a company called Inkhouse -- about her face-based faux pas. "I spent hours walking around the event, being all serious and professional, talking to clients and prospects -- with blue all over my face," McGarry says. "Imagine my horror when I went to the ladies room!"
And you thought embarrassment only left your cheeks red.
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"I was talking away, leaning back in my chair -- you know, as my mother always told me not to," Marks recalls.
Marks probably should have listened to his mother's advice. While balancing on his chair's rear legs, Marks toppled over backward -- midsentence. You'd better believe every set of eyes in the room was trained right on him.
"As I was falling, I really didn't know what to do," he laughs. "It was kind of a world-class embarrassing moment."
Marks, unscathed from his fall, did the only thing he could think of: He kept right on talking, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "Of course, everybody started laughing," Marks says. "I finally stopped and said, 'What's so funny?'"
Marks clearly recovered from his potentially humiliating mistake. Thankfully for him, no one in the room had a video camera rolling -- so the moment lives on only in memory, not on YouTube.
"A day later, I was scheduled to do a discussion panel about virtualization. I get to the room, and guess who else is standing at the front?" she asks. Yep, you guessed it: the romantic stranger himself. Only this time, he was wearing a wedding ring -- and a name tag.
"Not only was he married, but he was a pretty well-known exec from another company," Sarah says. "I'd only gotten his first name before and hadn't made the connection."
Save for a few irritated glares, Sarah stayed composed and survived the session. Then she made an awkwardly fast exit from the room. "The whole thing sounds like something from a soap opera," she admits. "I definitely wouldn't let something like that happen again."
Tech conference blooper No. 4: The data-dropping disasterRobin Raskin knows a thing or two about tech conference slipups. Raskin, founder of Living in Digital Times, created the Last Gadget Standing contest at the Consumer Electronics Show. The event showcases the latest and greatest products from the convention and lets audience members vote on their favorites.
Several years ago, the session almost didn't happen. Raskin was preparing for the event when one of the contestants asked her to make a last-minute change to her PowerPoint presentation. The guy had decided to tweak the name of his company and wanted the slide to be correct.
Raskin, happy to oblige, pulled out her notebook and set it on her lap. What she didn't realize was that her shiny pants created a slick surface -- and were not particularly secure.
"The computer just slid off my lap," Raskin says. "The screen didn't break, but the laptop was dead as a doorknob."
This was before the advent of the USB flash drive -- and certainly before the ubiquity of cloud-based storage services -- so Raskin didn't have a simple backup on hand. The only accessible copy of her Last Gadget Standing data was on the hard drive, inside that now-bricked PC.
"I call a tech guy and he says he can't imagine what to do. The audience is getting raucous out there -- I can hear them," she remembers.
A friend came to the rescue. He suggested finding someone with the same Compaq computer and swapping out the hard drives, thereby putting her data into a functioning machine. He set off to roam the halls of the convention center on a wild goose chase and, against all odds, found someone with the same model system. Even more amazing, the guy happened to work for Compaq -- the maker of the PC -- and was happy to help out.
"At this point, I'm laying on the floor begging God that if he just makes this work, I'll be good forever," Raskin laughs.
The switch went off without a hitch, and Raskin was able to load her presentation and get on with the show. The event, after all, is called Last Gadget Standing -- and she wasn't about to let a broken computer keep her down.
"The same thing happened to Steve Jobs," Schreiber laughs, referring to Apple's WWDC 2010 event in which a network meltdown prevented the Apple CEO from conducting an iPhone 4 demo. "I feel a little better, at least, knowing that."
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John knew industry events were teeming with managers from competing companies, so he scheduled vacation time to coincide with an event a few hours away. He packed his bags and headed out, résumés in hand and career change in mind.
As prepared as he was for the adventure, though, there was one element John didn't anticipate. "I get to the convention hotel, check in, and start mingling -- and then I run into my current boss," he says.
The boss clearly knew what was up, though he spared John the embarrassment of a direct encounter. Still, his presence didn't exactly help John's mission of meeting prospective new employers.
"It was weird -- really weird," John says. "I felt like I had to look over my shoulder the entire time."
John hasn't found a new job yet, but he isn't giving up hope. He is, however, rethinking his plan of attack. "I'm already planning to go to a conference later this spring," he chuckles. "But this time, I'm going to bring a wig and fake moustache to be safe."
This story, "Tech conference bloopers: 7 stories of snafus and slipups," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in IT careers at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
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This story, "Tech conference bloopers: 7 stories of snafus and slipups" was originally published by InfoWorld.