So I had planned on blogging from the press room at the International Builder’s Show. Reality got in the way. I’ve got many pounds of notes and press releases, and will be posting lots of items in the coming days. In the meantime, some valuable lessons learned this week in Orlando:

1. The Orange County Convention Center is huge, and the IBS stretches it to the limits.  It’s not so much the floor space (I’m sure there were exhibit halls that weren’t used), but the combination of exhibit space and attendee level. In coming years, this show is going to bounce between Las Vegas and Orlando–I dont think that there’s really more than one other convention center that could compete (Chicago’s McCormick Place has sufficient squre feet), but when you add up in the need for floor space, hotel rooms, and parking lot space to build model homes, you’ve eliminated all but a couple of cities in North America.

2. Tens of thousands of business owners in one place = lousy cell phone performance.

3. When Orbitz says that a property has wireless Internet, it means that somewhere on the property you might be able, at some price, to grab a signal. We stayed in a nice place (that was, unfortunately, about halfway between Orlando and Tampa) that claimed wireless Internet access. Turns out you could pay for access in the lobby. Thank heavens for vacation condo owners who haven’t figured out how to lock down an access point (and a laptop wireless adapter that is quite good at grabbing and using a weak signal).

4. There’s something just odd about trade show booths featuring fireplaces. One side of the hall had to keep the A/C working overtime. Between the number of people walking around and the gas fires burning, it could get rather warm in parts of the hall.

5. There is a vast gulf between products available for new construction and those intended for replace and remodel work. In some areas (structural members) that’s not surprising, but I think that the building automation and home theatre vendors are missing a lot of business by focusing all their attention on new construction. If the new housing market really does slow down this year (and I mean slow down in a big way) it will be interesting to see whether some of these companies change their marketing messages.

6. Kudos to show management for one detail in the press room: lockers. Great idea that should catch on at los of other shows.

7. There were a lot of companies talking about energy efficiency but I frankly expected more. The homebuilding industry is ruled by small contractors who learned the trade by example, so it’s going to take a while for the green technology message to percolate down and sink in. With that said, there were a handful of truly exciting products there that could make a huge difference in the energy use and pollution emissions from homes.

As I said, lots more soon. Thanks for sticking around–let me know if there’s something special you’d like to see.

Categories: General computing, Consumer