What a First Day

I can't begin to tell you what a great day yesterday was. It was a busy day filled with excellent presentations, a lot of networking with familiar faces and new friends. It was a busy day filled with preparations and a day filled with constant activity. I spent most of the time watching everything come together until our big kick-off last night with Kelly Styring, Author, In Your Car: Road Trip Through the American Automobile who spoke on Hitting the Road to Uncover Innovation.

Kelley is an excellent speaker, warm, humorous, and very grounded in the goal of seeking valuable insights into consumer perspective that can help companies innovate their product offerings. In considering just how much consumer product goods have not met consumer needs, just some highlights from her research:

• 250 million vehicles in the United States - an almost 1:1 ration to American adults
• in reviewing all of the material people have in their vehicles, at least 25 consumer product groups represented

The problem she points out is how companies have not innovated their products to meet these consumers expectations when they use or store it in their cars. I had a chance to take an audio recording of a few minutes of her presentation. You can listen to it here.Afterwards I spent a few minutes with Kelly to have discuss with April Bell and I some more background and detail into her recent ethnographic study. I thought I'd share it with you all here:

From there of course it was time to network. If you haven't seen the photos I've been uploading to our Flickr group on the event site as the exhibit hall came together, I thought I'd share with you some before and after

coming together

time for cocktails!

As Krista had mentioned leading up to this year's great event, we have over 800 attendees, over 90 exhibitors. It's great to see it all come together and everyone interacting, learning, and enjoying themselves. Stay tuned, we'll continue to keep you updated throughout the event.