Don't Do What This Guy Did: Lessons from a SEMA Show Misadventure

Trivia: In the beginning, the SEMA Show was held
in the basement of Dodger Stadium.

The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) hosts an annual trade event  show the first week of November. For years is has been the 3rd largest annual trade show in Vegas each year. The auto aftermarket is huge. This year 2400 companies are exhibiting. 71,000 companies have sent buyers from all over the world to do business in Vegas this week. There are also more than 3000 journalists and members of the media here as well.

In addition to the exhibition halls, there are seemingly countless seminars and opportunities to schmooze. This is a story about one of the seminars I attended. It is a true story. 

I do not recall the title of the workshop or the derelict -- I mean fellow -- who led it. What I remember most is that it was 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning and I just wasn't sure I had time to catch the seminar and then catch my flight. Nevertheless, I the topic appeared to have value and rather than stay out late on my last day in Vegas I packed and knocked off early Thursday evening.

The seminar was designed to bring companies together with racers and racing teams for potential sponsorship deals. The speaker hailed from L.A. and the write-up of seminar's content seemed promising. 

Waking early was not hard to do because of the internal time mechanism in my brain that is set to CST, two hours earlier than Vegas time. I flipped through emails, scarfed down some food and made my way to the convention center to find the room. When I arrived, anally punctual as usual, I was not surprised to find the room one-fourth to one-third full. Most looked a little ragged, which a week in Vegas can do to a person.  

Around five after eight, a young man stepped into the room and announced that the speaker had been delayed but was on his way. No one seemed too distressed because he would be here "any minute." 

By twenty after eight this fellow had twice more announced that he was on his way and "please don't leave." A couple of folks did leave at that point, but I dutifully waited, striking up conversations with a couple guys in nearby seats. 

Sure enough, our speaker did indeed arrive. Clean-shaven, with black wavy hair, solidly built, average height, he walked briskly to the front of the room where there was a TV with a VHS tape player. (This took place around twenty years ago.) Facing us now he opened his seminar with this statement. 

"I apologize for not having any handouts. My girlfriend and I were partying till four in the morning and the handouts were in the car, which she drove back to Los Angeles."

OK, so there are no handouts. And what? Did you just tell us that your partying was more important than this seminar?

Well, it gets worse. 

The speaker then asked us to watch a portion of a video on the topic he was going to address. When he slid the tape into the slot, however, it was not cued to the spot it was supposed to be. This set his teeth on edge as he tried fast-forwarding, then reversing, searching for the segment he wished to show. 

After an eternity of back and forth he ejected the tape and threw it across the front of the room against the wall while muttering expletives. 

Yes, this really happened. 

* * * *

Lesson: If you are going to make an important presentation, treat it like it is something important. Be prepared. Otherwise you are wasting people's time. People don't like it when you waste their time. It is disrespectful. 

* * * *

As I slipped out of the room I new that I'd have little trouble catching my plane. I was on my way.

SEE MORE about SEMA HERE

TechTuesday: Cars Go High-Tech at CES

I've been attending trade shows and conventions for more than three decades and the one constant in every industry has been change, much of it driven by technology. I attended my first trade shows while working for a manufacturer in the screen printing industry. The Screen Printing Association held an annual SPAI convention at various locations around the country from Houston to L.A. to Atlanta and elsewhere. As the digital world expanded, this association had to change as well and became the Screen Graphics Association with its annual convention called the SGAI.

While with AMSOIL I attended the Specialty Equipment Manufacturing Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas each year from 1986 till my semi-retirement in 2017. SEMA is an association of companies in the automotive aftermarket. The first shows were held in the basement of the Los Angeles Dodger baseball stadium. Eventually they outgrew this space and moved to Las Vegas where it continued to flourish, becoming the third largest event in this city that never sleeps.

When SEMA is in full bloom every hotel is occupied as more than 160,000 people come into town. 3300 members of the media show up from countries all over the world to see what's new from the 2400 exhibiting companies showcasing their wares on 1.2 million square feet of exhibit space.

The big daddy of Las Vegas conventions, however, is CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. I remember once being on a bus in Vegas during SEMA and having someone ask me, "Is CES in town?" The man asked because the city was bursting with people and he knew CES was always a massive disruption. I replied that CES is at the beginning of January, that "this week is SEMA."

Mustang Mach E. I'm thinking of Corinthian towers when I look at this.

THE BIG EVOLUTION in the auto industry is how much technology is embedded in cars these days. As result, we have automakers attending the CES show in order to show off the inroads they've made incorporating consumer electronics into their new and future designs.

We've been hearing about the Internet of Things (IoT) for a while now. If you were at CES this week, you'd have a chance to see just how far this brave new world has come.

According to a story on Seeking Alpha, here are the four main themes related to auto-tech development:
Automated driving today and Autonomous mobility of the future
Data monetization and the transformation of the Connected Car
Evolution of in-vehicle user experience, from software to virtual assistants
Architecture transformation from ECUs to servers on wheels

These cars ain't what they used to be. They know what you want even before you know.

One paragraph in the story concerned me, though. Advertisers will be zeroing in on your car as another way to send you marketing messages. It's one thing to get ad-blocking for your TV and you iPhone. Do we now have to buy and download ad-blocking services on our cars now, too?

I'm curious about a few other issues, such as how often we'll be stuck somewhere because our car is updating its software or running checks on its operating system (OS).

At least 10 automakers are here in Vegas this week. Here are the first four listed in an Autonews story.

BMW will tease an interior concept for its i3 EV. The "BMW i3 Urban Suite," said to have the "relaxed feel of a boutique hotel," features a large seat with footrest, a screen that flips down from the headliner and a "personal Sound Zone."

Fisker will debut the Ocean all-electric crossover, powered by an 80-kWh lithium ion battery pack and with an expected range of up to 300 miles. Production should begin at the end of 2021.

Ford will show its 2021 Mustang Mach-E crossover. The highly anticipated mass-market EV, with a 300-mile range, is Ford's answer to Tesla, General Motors and others that beat it to the electric market with long-range EVs.

GM will demo integration of Amazon's Alexa Auto voice-controlled virtual assistant in a new Cadillac CT5. "Alexa. Find me the nearest public bathroom."

Other manufacturers with cool goodies at this show include Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes, Nissan, Renault and Toyota.

Read the rest of this story here.

"Alexa. Fetch my car and take me to the river." 

Why GM is in a World of Hurt

I think the '64 Pontiac Catalina was our first GM car. We moved to New Jersey that year and it was one of those pretty aquamarine blue cars that were popular in that era. I remember the color because my mom and I used to argue about it. She said it was green and I said it was blue. Aquamarine is one of those colors you have a hard time pinning down.

The '54 Ford dad had that year was a little easier to peg as far as color was concerned. Robin's egg blue. I remember that car because when our house was being built, we lived in a rental property about a mile away. On one occasion mom was supposed to drive us over the hill to the house in that car. Dad was going to meet us there, so he left. I was packing the trunk full of stuff, and one item I dropped in the trunk wasn't supposed to be there... the car keys.

After a while, when we didn't show up, Dad eventually returned. He was not very pleased.

Out next family car was a Pontiac, also. Our neighbor next door had an Oldsmobile. Eventually mom and dad graduated to Buick's. My dad's youngest sister and her husband eventually graduated to Cadillacs. These were they kinds of decisions that made General Motors king of the hill in the auto industry. The gave the moniker Heartbeat of America to their Chev line, but the reality is, General Motors was the heartbeat of the auto industry, and the auto industry was the heartbeat of America.

But the world has been changing. American cars just ain't what they used to be. For a wide range of reasons. The quality of the merchandise is one of them. The old joke about hoping that when you purchased a car, it was "a Wednesday car" may have had a small basis in reality. While shooting a couple photos for an ad years ago, the perfection of the Toyota's windshield made the Corvette's window seam look amateurish.

On our last family trip to New York a few years ago I was astonished to see, as we entered the Lincoln Tunnel from Manhattan, that not a single car around us in any direction carried a U.S. nameplate. And so, Ford's strength has diminished, and GM is on the ropes. It's hard to imagine losing 74 billion dollars since 2004, and easy to see why they went to Washington for a handout. Now, this week's double whammy.

First, they announced they will be missing a debt re-payment. Evidently they don't have the money and don't have any more credit rating to get a short term package from the banks.

On top of these they are being forced to recall 1.5 million vehicles to fix a potential oil leak problem. This can't be a cheap fix and has to be a huge headache to execute. According to the announcement, "The recall affects various Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac models equipped with normally aspirated versions of GM's much-utilized 3800 3.8-liter V6."

Specific vehicle make, model and years include the following:
Buick Regal 1997-2003
Chevrolet Impala 2000-2003
Chevrolet Lumina 1998-1999
Chevrolet Monte Carlo 1998-2003
Oldsmobile Intrigue 1998-1999
Pontiac Grand Prix 1997-2003

These things no longer affect U.S. workers alone. While at a SEMA Show in Vegas a few years back I had breakfast with a fellow from China whose Beijing company employed 65,000 workers making parts for GM cars. Years ago I recall purchasing a tail light cover to replace a broken one on our '79 Pontiac and was told I would have to wait six weeks for the part to be shipped here from Korea.

For very visual summation of the forces, internal and external, which have crushed General Motors, check this out. My gut tells me this story isn't over yet.

Source for recall story: imakenews.com

Preface to The Red Scorpion

I met Dustin Greene at a trade show in Las Vegas. He works for one of the tech firms that has become so intertwined with the auto industry these days. We'd gone to one of those parties where the invitations are twenty to thirty times more interesting than the party itself, which usually boils down to too many drinks, not enough food and a lot of foolish talk.

I'd been sitting alone at a small round table with four empty chairs, trying to decide how to spend the rest of the evening. This young guy comes over, tilts a nod my way and lifts a glass with some kind of mixed drink in it. "I see your from Wisconsin," he says, getting it wrong because my badge reads "Superior, Wisconsin" and I live outside Duluth in rural Minnesota. The company I work for is across the bridge.

I proceed to set the record straight and he says, "Cool. I'm originally from Minnesota, too," his eyes brightening. Just as swiftly a cloud hid that inner sun and he looked down at the table.

He joined me anyways and we engaged in small talk about our careers, getting to know one another in the banter that gives you a chance to decide how much energy you want to invest in this new relationship. When I mentioned that I was a writer, he tilted his head to the side and studied me a minute. "I have some friends who say I should write a book.... well, supposedly everyone has a book inside them. Mine's pretty --"

I've been writing for almost thirty years and at least once a year someone says, "Your're a writer? People tell me my story should be made into a book." A couple of times they may have been right, but usually, well, even if it were made into a book, I'm not sure anyone would read it, care about it. (I'm just trying to say I've become pretty jaded about these things, though in my case, about 15 years ago I did meet a man from Estonia whose story was indeed remarkable and ought to become a book.)

All this to say that when someone introduces himself in this manner you have to at least pay out a little line and see what bites. Dustin (not his real name) was about twenty years my junior, a tech manager for one of the Silicon Valley firms. He said that it's really hard to talk about it, not because he's afraid of being laughed at, but rather because he has career aspirations and he knows top management would see him as a kook if he wrote a book about what happened and said he believed it. These are the kinds of statements I've heard from people who claim to have seen UFOs. I understand where they are coming from.

This is how we met. The more I listened, the more I wanted to hear. And when he said that some of the facts could be verified, I knew I couldn’t just dismiss him. What’s more, he still had the journal he’d found, the one that details how Professor Comstock came into possession of the red scorpion, along with the trouble it spawned.