Some short musings early the morning of the third (and final!) day of the conference:

* The best networking opportunity at the conference is on the exhibit floor an hour before it opens to all attendees. A lot of the exhibitors are on the floor at that time, but still relaxed and willing to chat for a few minutes. The private receptions are also good networking events, since they tend to be very focused. The worst places to network are the big evening parties which are open to everyone: those events are too crowded, and have too much distracting (and often sexist) entertainment.

* I was part of a panel discussion yesterday afternoon with Sue and two other people. Sue and I are on the same panel at just about every industry event, and we hold strong and contrary opinions about certain technical issues. Sue is very bright and one of the top experts in her field, even if she is occasionally misguided about certain things. During the Q&A, my VP of Business Development asks Sue a pointed question about one of the points we disagree on, which led to one of the most spirited debates of the entire conference. Next year, they promise, they'll just have Sue and me go mano-a-mano.

* During the same panel, we were plagued by technical problems, so Sue started showing off her kids' pictures. We wound up using my laptop for the presentations, which has a very cute picture of my twins on the desktop. I told Sue that next year, we'll just spend the hour showing off baby pictures.

* Also on my desktop, and clearly visible to the audience when I started my laptop, was a file called "XYZ Contract.doc" XYZ is a major player in the industry, and I was told by several members of the audience that my little gaffe was the best piece of marketing we've done in a year.

* My feet hurt. Really hurt. I had to find a way of sleeping last night where my right foot would hang midair so that the raw skin wouldn't rub against the sheets. Next year, I'm wearing fuzzy slippers.

* Even though this isn't much of a show for end-users, a lot of our channel partners are here, as well as a lot of prospective channels. Nearly everyone I've talked to has said they may have some business for us soon, and we've identified a couple of high-probability near-term projects. This is a huge shift from a year ago, when the usual response we got was, "Who?" After my panel discussion yesterday, I got a very strong lead from a company which we've been trying to crack since a week and a half after we were founded (a company which has shot us down numerous times).

* The Wireless LAN at the conference is driving me batty. They keep changing the configuration. Sometimes E-mail works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it wants a password, sometimes it doesn't. At least it's free.

* Someone was taking pictures of women on the show floor yesterday "for a website about boothbabes." The engineers and marketing executives I spoke to--who happened to be attractive women--were (not surprisingly) extremely offended. Note To Clueless Geeks: This is not a good way to meet women.

* This show doesn't really have any true boothbabes (attractive young women hired for no purpose other than to stand in the booth and attract attention). It is too small for the companies to go to that length. Pretty much all the women on the show floor are bona-fide engineers, salespeople, and marketing people. If you want boothbabes, you have to go to the really big shows like Comdex and Interop and CTIA.