If you have ever had the opportunity to attend the Interop conference you know that it is the premier place to be for the hottest new IT gadgets. Interop 2011 in Las Vegas, NV was no exception. Now you might be thinking I am referring to servers, firewalls and switches but you would be wrong. I’m talking about the great swag the vendors give away by the truckload. In addition to the bags, flashing pens and USB lights, it seemed like every other vendor was entering you into a contest to win an iPod, iPad or iPhone. The biggest crowd of hopefuls I saw was at the Dell booth when they were giving away a 55 inch flat screen LCD TV from Visio.
Most vendors just asked to scan your RFID enabled attendee badge and that would enter you to win, oh I don’t know, maybe an iPod, iPhone or iPad. One vendor got creative and brought a couple of claw crane games where attendees try to grab small white boxes that could contain anything from a bouncing ball to an, you guessed it, iPhone, iPad or iPod.
McAfee went so far as to have a cash grab booth. You listen to the sales spiel and if you can quickly answer questions asked about the presentation you get to climb into a booth, strap on goggles and look like a dork trying to grab a couple of dollar bills swirling around you. Of course you are a dork with a few extra dollars, so maybe it can be worth playing the fool.