Show time for CeBIT is over

IT'S CEBIT TIME again and for many unfortunates it's hello to Hanover, a bed in the back room of some nice old Frau's flat and a week of schlepping between large sheds admiring the work of the IT industry.

At least climate change might warm up Hanover, a place frequently tossed by howling tempests, sleet and rain come the month of March. Finding a route to the fair could be made into a board game. The art of getting a taxi is reduced to foul tactics. Half-decent restaurants are scarce. Even the beer has to have a huge head of foam removed before it can be safely consumed. Hanover seems to be twinned with Anomie.

Something about CeBit seems to suck the life out of the brightest of people. There is little in the way of parties and a great deal in the way of mooching around grim-faced between meeting and interminable meeting.

OK, you're not being paid to enjoy yourself, so is it useful? Not really. It's an international show, which is something in terms of vendors showing off wares but a great deal of time is spent attempting to establish when some hot product is likely to land on your local shore and at what price. Many never arrive or turn up when outmoded, thanks to the vagaries of manufacturing, internationalisation and standards.

There are stands dedicated to printers the size of tractors and many small booths showing dull software, manned by some whey-faced guy who stands alone like a stone-cut figure, a tragic Everyman for the world of business technology.

Sartre was wrong to suggest - at least via another cipher character in a deathly pretentious play - that hell is other people. It's not, it's CeBit in Hanover. And, like a guest that has long outstayed his welcome, it really is time for CeBit to go.

With several big vendors declining to attend this time around, this isn't just wishful thinking. CeBit still packs them in but it doesn't take long for small cracks to become rubble in the fickle world of exhibitions.

Comdex was a juggernaut for many years but its demise into insignificance and postponement was sudden. Which Computer? Was a dreadnought in the UK but died in the blink of a wonky monitor. Old shows don't fade away, they just die.

CeBit's problem is partly that it tries to be all things to all geeks. It's too broad and unfocused. It's in the middle of nowhere and all over the place at the same time.

Today's strong shows know what they're about. 3GSM has a good formula: find a market that is exploding, put on a show that's only about that market and stick it somewhere good. Cannes is nice and Barcelona is even better when Cannes gets too small. Have a big old party as well. You only live once and these companies are stuffed with cash so whip out the folding and head for the barrio.

Look! Everybody's smiling and looking good. That thing there is called the sun and it's cheering us up. That and the fact that there are lots of small innovative gadgets and nobody selling mainframe emulation software that ties into your SAP supply-chain planning system. Those blokes went to CeBit and then died from lack of atmosphere.

Veitch's Law states that all shows that lose their joie de vivre are screwed. Once the buzz has gone, it's just a pile of product documents, boxes of badges and novelty pens that don't work. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

CeBit never had much any swing, just an oompah-band rhythm that once got drummed into people's heads so that they became zombies marching to a beat that didn't change. It's a sound as flat as last night's Pilsner.

People come to Hanover to meet up with a bunch of people at once but it could just as easily be Birmingham, Dusseldorf, Marseilles or Milan. Many never make it to the show-floor where some poor sods have laboured to crate an annual miracle of short-term construction.

And of course the new argument goes that it needn't even be one of these places. Intel recently invited journalists from all over Europe and even South Africa to an event in London. Pat Gelsinger showed up even though he calls California home. The subject of the event? Why, energy efficiency and Intel's green works of course.

You don't have to be Swampy to consider this a tad hypocritical and the new pressure will be to make shows virtual. We'll meet on the server at 3pm. Where's the server? Nobody knows and it doesn't matter.

The problem with this is that we lose the ability to chat properly, fix eye with fellow human eye and privately decide: do I believe this person is for real?

We can get a lot of work done but we can't have a beer afterwards and I can't tell you my excellent new joke or make lame attempts at finding shared cultural minutiae in sport or politics.

At this point, where we're all looking at each other's printers over an IP connection, life begins to lose its savour. If we decide that shows are useful then they also have to be fun. It's time to make your voice heard and tell the organisers that you'll show up if it's somewhere nice with hotels and good people. A place where you can get some work done in the day and relax at night. If not, we'll just stay at home, thanks all the same.

So CeBit has to go, events like 3GSM have to be cloned and the forces of light must rule over dark. See you at the show. µ