BATTLE OF THE BLOGS – WTS Day 2

The first day of the WTS dawned and the A Team met for an early breakfast, then on the the stand to get all the tech set. With everything up and running we stood back and waited for the adoring hordes to arrive.

Which they did. Slowly.

As per show norms, we started gradually. But as the morning wore on the numbers picked up and it soon became obvious that, yet again, we were the ‘go to’ stand in the show. And, as you can see from the photo, Mr. T wasn’t taking any prisoners when it came to convincing them about vTime!

This was the smallest show we’ve done this year but that meant it was easier for the press to find us. We were visited by a host of International press, bloggers, Podcasters, radio and TV crews. Watch our Techradar feature below.

I had to deliver a keynote at 1.30pm, titled ‘Turning Social into Sociable networks’. So, in the spirit of ‘show not tell’ I chose to do the whole presentation in vTime! Without the aid of a safety net.

The large audience were either very impressed or totally baffled, I’m not sure which! But we had many visitors to the stand after the talk with follow up questions and opportunities they wanted to discuss.

You can read our Forbes write up here...

You may have seen we were nominated for a couple of awards. Sadly, we lost out to an AR solution for reading gas meters and an app that scans clothes then fires up an educational animation on your phone. Can’t win ‘em all, eh?

Show over, we sailed back to our yacht, freshened up and headed out on the town. Well, the docks, actually.

We found what looked like a great restaurant. It was very busy (good sign), but after a bearable wait at the bar we sat down, ordered and awaited our hard earned food.

Which is when the trouble began

Our starters arrived OK but then an hour later, still no main course. Which in itself made us (just me, really) more than a little grumpy. But not as grumpy as when we asked for some bread and butter to keep us going and along with the bread came a micron thin sliver of butter and an apology that the kitchen had “run out of butter”.

Now, the older, more mellow me hardly every gets really grumpy these days. But the one thing that pushes the Grump-o-meter into the red is bad customer service. And after an hour wait, Buttergate (as it was later dubbed) got me all churned up.

So, I decided again, in the sprit of ‘show not tell’, to demonstrate what good customer service should look like. I stomped out of the restaurant (or so it appeared to my bemused colleagues) only to return 2 minutes later. Following a brisk walk to the all night grocer next door, I deposited a packet of the finest butter on our table for us all to share. Which is what their Kitchen Porter should have done.

Having helped ourselves, I donated the rest to the kitchen. They were obviously in need.

As a result of Buttergate I was a little concerned for the health of Mr T., who appeared to be having trouble breathing through all the laughter. However, another beer allowed him to compose himself again. There followed numerous apologies, unsatisfactory explanations and a minor reduction in the bill.

When I’ve posted the Tripadvisor review, I’ll let you know. It will make interesting reading.

Exhausted and ready for our bunks, we took the short walk back to the yacht and headed for the land of nod.

Day 2 – tick.

But in this BATLLE OF THE BLOGS, where is the USA blog, I hear you ask?

A very good question…..