By now, most of you have either spent significant time attending and/or seen or heard a variety of stories about all the goings on at this year’s first-ever virtual CES last week. I am sure you’ve heard about some of the new product announcements, like robotic cleaners, high-tech face masks, not to mention the plethora of new TVs, PCs, monitors, and traditional gizmos that CES showcases. One of my last follow-up actions is to share my thoughts on the show overall with you. I will not bother to repeat what you have already heard about, and there are plenty of websites you can visit to catch up on the tech gadgetry you can look for in the coming year.
I would like to focus on the show itself.
The challenge of kicking off 2021 with an online-only substitute for one of the world’s largest and most influential technology trade conferences is no easy task. Last year’s CES, the last major in-person trade show that took place before the Coronavirus pandemic forced event shutdowns and cancellations worldwide, hosted almost 200,000 attendees and 4000 exhibitors. As other industry events had to scramble last year to decide how to adapt to COVID, the folks at CEA (the event organizers) had the opportunity to observe and learn in order to offer a suitable virtual alternative. While the change from a physical to online venue was not their choice, they did decide on the platform and structure. They also had choices in keynote speakers as well as the scope of attendees that determine the overall show theme. After spending the better part of three full days participating in the event, my assessment is that CES2021 will go down as neither success or failure, but like so much of 2020, merely and holding pattern for future show direction. Let’s look at each area in more detail.
One advantage of not having to travel is that I was able to attend more of the keynotes, many in real-time. Historically, the keynote presentations set the tone for a CES. In years of high innovation, industry giants are quick to show off their flagship products in hopes of getting the most press coverage and consumer mind share. In transition years, where existing technologies are mature and new ones not quite ready for prime time, keynotes tend to look back on recent market successes while teasing their vision of the future so they can position their companies as leading the way. This year’s keynotes took a different tone. The social challenges of 2020 took center stage, with companies like Best Buy sharing its focus on their four inclusive leadership behaviors: vulnerability empathy, courage, and grace – and Walmart focusing most its keynote to reinforce their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
That is not to say there were not some of the traditional style keynotes. As COVID changed our personal lives, so did it impact corporate growth and product release plans as consumers needs shifted. It was clear that there was much less focus on aspirational products and more focus on how companies responded to changing needs adeptly. The PC regained prominence in the home, it seemed many of the product announcements were targeted to consumers at all income levels. There were also some traditional visionary keynotes, mostly focused on the promise of 5G from companies like Verizon and Intel, but they took a more sensitive and compassionate tone than in years past.
One of the keynotes this year was from Caterpillar, who used their time to show multiple videos of their big yellow machines working autonomously on large construction projects. While it was mildly interesting to see those megaton machines move about their tasks while avoiding each other, the connection to the consumer was completely lacking. This continues the trend of CES (which used to stand for Consumer Electronics Show but now has no official acronym assignment) to go far beyond the boundaries of what technology is relevant to the consumer. CES 2020 had major demos like autonomous farm equipment from John Deere and autonomous taxi drones. I find this blurring of market focus a bit frustrating. It seems the Consumer Electronic Association wants to rebrand as simply the Electronics Association, but I hope they can find a way to re-establish a dedicated consumer focused event in the future.
Fortunately, there were multiple partner events that took place in conjunction with CES that have retained their consumer feel. In fact, the four-day CES event only consumed two long days, with the day one Verizon keynote taking place the night before the actual event and day four being reserved for the partner conferences. Parks Associates had the annual day-long ‘CONNECTIONS at CES’ sessions, and Digital Hollywood rescheduled their 2020 event to align with CES. Both daylong events did justice to covering consumer-centric topics for connected homes and streaming media, respectively. The Parks event was one of their best, with a strong speaker line-up and a solid set of topics.
Now let’s look at the platform and structure of the event. Accessing the many video conference sessions were split between CES’s own video platform and Microsoft teams. Both worked very well and were stable but having to switch between the two environments was a bit distracting when I tried to switch from one live session to another. It was apparent that the sessions were all previously recorded for playback, which insured that the event stayed on schedule. The lack of true interactive Q&A with the audience further amplified the detached feel of attending a conference remotely.
(ASIDE – One critical feature I appreciated was the availability of closed captioning; there were many times I had multiple sessions playing at the same time and watched one while I listened to another. The fact that each audio stream could be muted independent of PC system audio is another feature I appreciated and would like to see on other webinar platforms. I realize that subtitles are only a convenience to me but, a necessity for many hearing-impaired people and something all content makers should include in their offerings. Fortunately, CEA did a great job of making most of the sessions available for replay.)
The exhibitor and networking areas were where I feel CES2020 fell the short of the mark. While I appreciated not having to put in 20,000 steps per day in dress shoes on the show floor, trying to navigate an alphabetical list of exhibitors to decide where to go was an impossible task I gave up on pretty quickly. Those handful of companies I targeted in advance got priority, and a few of the others that sent me email invites got a quick look as well. The exhibitor spaces were simply microsites that directed you back to the exhibitor’s main website, so much like a real trade show each exhibitor had creative freedom to use the space as they wished. Unlike typical tradeshows, there was an egalitarian feel to the exhibition – since they were not buying physical space you could have as intricate or immersive environment as your creative team and IT budgets would allow without being drowned out by loud audio from the next booth or overwhelmed by the neighbor with times as large a booth and hourly giveaways that blocked access to your space.
Networking – both during and after the show – has proven largely futile. There were reported to be over 70,000 people signed up to participate in the show, and every one of them was listed in the attendee directory in random order. There was some crude filtering to allow you to filter attendees by product category, technology interest, and company, but sorting through 23,000 attendees interested in smart home technology is impossibly inefficient. Even if you did find someone you wanted to connect with, you had to send a request, which stayed within the CES platform, and hope they saw it and responded. As I have said in prior posts, no platform to date can compare with an in-person experience of running into an old colleague or discovering an interesting product that leads to an informal conversation and a business relationship.
Overall, I give CEA credit for providing a robust, stable platform with a great amount of content and opportunities for more people to participate than ever before. My feet and wallet appreciate the ability to see everything from my office, even if I did long for taxi lines, dry Vegas air, and smoke-filled casinos just a little. As I said in my wrap-up from last year, no one organization or show can cover everything in technology, because technology – as defined and understood today – is everywhere. It appears the CEA is committed to this path of industry and technology inclusiveness – it will be an even bigger challenge to make the show useful in the future as it has irreversibly expanded from LVCC to multiple sites throughout Vegas, to cyberspace.