One client changes everything. My compliments to Vanessa Camones. She just rose to legendary status in Spatial Computing

Does one client make your career?

I haven’t been able to sleep in the 48 hours since Vanessa Camones brought one of her clients to my home. I can’t tell you who they are. But they showed me some technology that goes way beyond anything I’ve read about in Wired Magazine or seen covered in other press yet. This company builds satellites and planes and lots of other things. Is hugely important to American history and technology. Unfortunately the NDA she had me sign keeps me from saying more.

I’ve been thinking about what they showed me ever since.

You’ll read about it someday in Wired or New York Times but that’s not what I’m writing about today.

Instead, I’m writing about Vanessa Camones.

I’ve known her for years. Decades, even. She’s always been nice to me, always shown me companies that are competent and interesting. Always had a kind word for me and about anyone else in the industry we talked about.

I ran into her a few months back leaving Facebook. She was working on something there that I’m still interested in.

But before Thursday I’ll be honest. Thought she was doing a great job but nothing she was doing rose to the top of my mind as a legendary consultant or world changer. She hadn’t brought me something that I thought the leaders in Spatial Computing industry, or the tech industry overall, should see.

That all changed Thursday.

When companies asked me “who would you hire to do PR or do other go-to-market consulting if you had a world-changing technology?” I wouldn’t have thought of Vanessa.

Today she’s at the top of that list.

Why? One client.

Now, to go all Gary Vaynerchuk on you, she did the hard work for decades. That put her in position to win that client. She never took credit, was happy to stay in the background. I bet this post is making her uncomfortable.

But, as of today, she is now the top go to market strategist in the Spatial Computing industry in my mind.

I no longer look at her that way. One client changed all that.

She, and her client, shook my world Thursday, and reminded me of other times when I was first to see an important technology, like when Siri was launched in my son’s bedroom. Adam Cheyer and Dag Kittlaus are burned into my memory because of that. Or when Elon Musk gave me the first ride in the first Tesla, before he gave his best friend Jason McCabe Calacanis a ride (they still are great friends and Jason, unlike me, had both the ability and risk-taking capability to become one of Tesla’s first investors). Or when Uber was invented by Garrett Camp or Travis Kalanick right in front of me at Loic Le Meur‘s conference in Paris. Or when I was an early user of Instagram, amongst its first 100.

What I saw Thursday will change the world as deeply as any of those and, because Vanessa Camones brought it to me, she has rocketed to legendary status in my mind.

Thank you Vanessa. I’m headed to San Diego on vacation dreaming huge new dreams that I wouldn’t have dreamed before Thursday. Anyone who gives me a new dream (and, honestly, some new nightmares because this tech is so crazy futuristic, Black Mirror has nothing like it) rocks.

Fighting over VR and Facebook’s Oculus Quest

Ahh, a 20-something-year-old guy was over the house tonight. We almost got in a fight over VR. Tried to tell me something other than the Oculus Quest is better after seeing the Quests on the floor and declaring “I would never buy one of those.” I tried to tell him the press, like CNET, was saying it’s the product of the year.

I almost eviscerated him with the research I was doing for our book and research reports we’re working on for our company but remembered that I have been arrogant and wrong like he was many times in the past and that I just don’t need the drama so I put my metaphorical weapons away and went to my corner to sulk and think about where people like him get their opinions.

After he left I said heck with it and wrote this post, but will keep his name out of this.

After all, it’s obvious he had never played with all the headsets yet he was so certain of his opinions and if he had he hadn’t spent more than a few minutes with each, which isn’t enough time to get a real opinion about the ecosystem of each. He got under my skin, mostly because he reminded me of myself.

Another thought. He reminded me of the nerds across my career who have made me feel like I didn’t know anything, so two triggers were pulled. The Unix ones in college who made me feel like the Macintosh I was using wasn’t “a real tool.” They all ended up using one within a few years. Or the people who didn’t want to join me on Twitter. Some of them now are running social media for big corporations. Or the other people who tried to push me to buy a Windows Phone, or other things that ended up failing in the marketplace.

Everyone has opinions, even me, and I’m often wrong too, I remind myself tonight, and even when I’m right no one really cares. Those who are wrong rarely admit they are wrong. Often they dig in their heels deeper before getting a clue that they are on the wrong side of history. Some of my friends kept using Windows Phones for years after the market had declared them dead and lame. One family member is STILL using a Windows Phone and called me a couple of weeks ago worried because Microsoft had announced it wasn’t going to be supported anymore. He was finally accepting that the world had moved on.

So, I quiet my soul, go back to the book I’m writing after interviewing captains of industry with the awesome Irena Cronin all week (these are all people who are doing amazing things in factories with VR and AR and associated tech) and I’ll have the last laugh. Or not. It doesn’t really matter.

But there isn’t a better product right now for the money and for the everyday consumer than the Oculus Quest. It’s a shame that my 20-something debate partner couldn’t shut up long enough to get me to turn mine on. He might have learned something. That’s the real lost opportunity for both of us tonight. I had the other product he was yakking about as well. It isn’t nearly as good for the price.

He would have learned why CNET is naming it the best so far of the standalone systems. He would have understood why I haven’t played our “bigger and more expensive and more ‘pro'” systems since getting the Quest even though they display more polygons and “technically” are better. In usage, though, they aren’t, at least in our house. The tether on the bigger systems just totally kills the experience and for many things the extra polygons don’t really bring much extra to the table. The Quest is so magical that if he had tried it on he would have seen that, but he had already decided it was lame before he got a chance.

We can use the Quest pretty much anywhere we want, while the bigger system is stuck in my office and, since I’m writing a book that system isn’t nearly as accessible to family and friends as the Quest is. Lately it’s been getting a lot more software too, because it’s selling somewhat decently and developers are taking note of reviews like the one in CNET I just posted here.

Ahh, anyone else get wound up about technology like I do?

Spatial Computing at SXSW 2020; Is This the Year of XR?

I attended SXSW 25 times. Crazy, huh? Those days are probably over for me, it’s time for someone else to have some fun eating BBQ and walking down Sixth in Austin while hanging out with the creative people in the industry. That said, I’ve been keeping track of all the panel pitches I’ve seen that have anything to do with Spatial Computing and here’s the list. If you have others to add, please add them on my LinkedIn post where I collected all these.

Why am I only caring about spatial computing, which is computing that humans, robots, or virtual beings can move through. Everything from autonomous vehicle systems to augmented reality?

Because I see this as a real paradigm shift in how computing works. After doing this list it’s clear a huge shift is underway. It’s very rare you see so many proposals on one topic.

As a researcher in the field I find that the proposals show you what motivates people and what the opportunities are in a new industry. Plus, this is a great way to build a database of “who is who” in the spatial computing field (each URL lists the panelists).

Please vote for your favorites. These are in alphabetical order.

5G AND ITS ROLE WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE ENTERPRISE. Organizer Hannah Young.

AUGMENTED REALITY AND FOOD: THE FUTURE OF DINING. Organizer Matt Maher.

AUGMENTED REALITY AND FOOD. Organizer Sayuri Okayama.

AUGMENTED REALITY GOES PRIMETIME. Organizer Liz David.

AUGMENTED REALITY MONUMENTS IN PUBLIC SPACES. Organizer: Glenn Cantave.

BBC EARTH – FACTUAL STORYTELLING WITH MAGIC LEAP. Organizer: Oscar Swedrup.

BRAND STORYTELLING IN A WORLD OF SPATIAL COMPUTING. Organizer Natascha French.

CAN XR SAVE JOURNALISM? Organizer Laura Hertzfeld.

CHANGING THE IMMERSIVE STORYTELLING WILD WEST. Organizer Sarah Ellis.

CONTENT CREATORS IN THE AGE OF EXPERIENCE. Organizer Kevin Ang.

CORPORATES LIVING IN THE NEW REALITIES. Organizer Adaora Udoji.