Automatica 2008

Sven took Doug & me to our first trade show yesterday. Automatica is intended for robotics companies & all the major firms are represented. I had several initial impressions, which I will least in bullet form.

  • I like eating on West Virginia’s tab. We had coffee in the morning and a nice lunch.
  • I did not expect the trade show to be that large. It took up five large halls & included over 800 companies.
  • Approaching companies about doing business in WV is harder than I thought. Not only do I have to speak in German, but I have to find a way to subtly broach my intent.
  • There were many freebies. I like freebies.
  • There were many booth babes. I like booth babes. (As a side note, Sven says that companies rent the women for the trade show.)
  • Robots are cool.
  • Trade shows are tiring.

I’ll be glad to be on the other side of the booth for the ChemSpec show next week. Most companies I approached had no plans to do business in the US, or already had US subsidiaries or distributors. I was able to schedule a meeting with one large company, but the CEO clearly had no interest in us. It was generally a frustrating experience, with the sense of making very little progress. Most of the companies which seemed most interesting were far too large to have a business interest in West Virginia. Kuka, for instance, took up half of an entire hall & had two separate bars with dedicated waitresses (As another side note, I would love to work for a company that can afford two open bars at its trade show). I was glad to leave around 3:00 to go home.
Today, though, I’m working on summarizing the progress we made during the trade show, which I feel was minimal. I’m drafting several letters in German, which we’ll e-mail out to the company representatives. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some responses back.

Thursday Update

The past days have been fairly busy. I’ve been watching the EURO 2008 games with Doug at my apartment, although my team (Switzerland of course) was officially eliminated last night. In the 93rd minute, nonetheless. When I have spare time otherwise, I’ve been reading and watching Heroes. John lent me the first season & I’ve become hooked.
This weekend John, Doug, Sarah & I are planning a trip to Nuremburg if the weather holds. Lisha will be in Bonn for a DAAD event & will be unable to accompany us. I’m looking forward to it, if only because of the historical implications. I hear it’s quite beautiful, too. We also bought tickets to Wien for mid-July & have begun to plan our trip. If everything works out, we’ll be visiting Bratislava while we’re there, as well. All this travel means I have very little time in Munich. It’s somewhat unfortunate, as Ryan wants to visit, but I don’t know when I’ll be here. This weekend also will offer several major events surrounding Munich’s 850th birthday celebration.

Munich Street-life Festival

Munich has several festivals throughout the year, the best known of which is Oktoberfest. However, as John & Sarah are quick to point out, Oktoberfest never truly ends — it just is given different names. This past Sunday was the second day of Munich’s Street-life festival. We started the day by going to Munich’s Egyptian musuem, which is worth noting only for its small, but interesting, collection of artifacts.
The street-life festival itself was quite enjoyable. There are thousands of vendors & hundreds of thousands of people congregating in the Schwabing neighborhood of Munich. Musicians play on stages, vendors sell specialty foods, bars set up outside seating areas, and different companies show off their goods. It’s like a fair & trade show rolled into one event. They even had a beach volleyball pit & a skating park. We ended up wandering around for several hours before going to the Hauptbahnhof to buy a couple beers. Beer at the actual street-life festival was extraoridnarly expensive — 3.50 for a bottle with a 2 Euro deposit. By the time we got our beer, we were just in time to grab a seat for the first game of the evening. We ended up hanging out at the bar for the entire night watching both football games. Watching Germany beat Poland with the German fans at our side was especially fun.
The night itself was fairly uneventful. We played Asshole & some other drinking games and Sarah got pretty drunk. We also had to be fairly sneaky, since we were trying to drink our own beer, rather than pay ridiculous prices. This resulted in embarassing moments, such as when the waitress picked up the beer bottles we’d tried to kick underneat the table. The funniest moment of the night, though, came when John tapped the top of Doug’s beer bottle, causing beer to pour everywhere over the table. Both Doug & I ended up getting soaked.

Salzburg

It’s been quite some time since I posted, and a lot has been going on. Saturday, Doug, Lisha & I went to Salzburg, Austria. In order to give ourselves plenty of time, we left around 8:00 in the morning & arrived in Salzburg at 10:30. The entire way there, our train car was buffetted by rain & I thought we’d end up having to stay inside at various museums. Fortunately, it turned out to be a beautiful day. We were able to walk around Salzburg’s Getreidegasse (the famous shopping street), go up to the Festung (fortress), and see Mozart’s birth house. We also saw the Residenz & Salzburg’s beautiful churches.
It was a particularly great day to be in Salzburg, because Saturday marked the start of Euro 2008. The city had set up a stage with several large screens where football fans could watch the games. We were able to catch the first 15 minutes of the Switzerland-Czech game before having to catch the train home & it was a lot of fun to hear all of the cheering fans. Unfortunately, Switzerland lost 1-0.
Besides the site-seeing, the only other point to note is that coffee in Austria is “Melange.” Doug tried to order a coffee at a cafe & the waiter quite rudely told him: “In Austria, it is not coffee. It’s melange.” He was an ass.

Under 30-Somethings

Doug, Lisha, and I went to one of the many ToyTown meetups that take place in Munich. Before I start, though, I’d be remiss if I didn’t describe just what ToyTown is. Simply, ToyTown is an online community for English speaking expats living in Germany. There are thousands of members, and the community is quite active, with meetups planned every night in almost every part of the country.
Last night’s meetup was specifically tailored to younger expats and was held at the Ysenegger bar in the Neuhausen neighborhood of Munich. Doug, Lisha, and I arrived around 8:45 and were surprised to find the bar to be quite crowded. In fact, we couldn’t find the ToyTown group until one of the regulars rescued us. The event was actually quite fun — there was a multitude of nationalites — English, Turkish, Indian, Romanian, South African, Australian, and of course American. There was even a girl from University of Illinois, which made me happy, having been born in Urbana. We all had a great time & ended up staying for several hours. The only part I didn’t care for was that the one Englishman was rather rude. He kept calling the waitress “Gorgeous” and was generally just a cad.
The highlight came as we were leaving, though. Caitlain, the Illinois representative, introduced Doug & me to a WVU Alum (2006). In the brief time we spoke with each other, I found out that Danielle is a theater grad, is a magician currently working as an Au-pair, and is one of two WVU grads in Munich. We’ll certainly meet up later to go out drinking.
Tomorrow is Salzburg, for which I’m grateful. It’s been a long work week.