Hacking Computer Shows

by Walter S. Jaffee

The trading grounds of the ancient Mesopotamians, the desert auctions of Bedouin nomads and even the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 can be taken as demonstrations of one proof: If you want to work the buyers into a frenzy, pack them into a tight space surrounded by warez - I mean wares - or do I?

Those who have attended any computer industry trade show or exposition must have been struck by the desire to own many of the products being displayed.  Unfortunately, price is prohibitive and theft is both crude and illegal.  However, it is possible to convince those running the booths to give you what you want.  Usually they will be delighted to do so, and offer to send you other products not on display.  In a good show, I have collected as much as five thousand dollars worth of software, plus books and some peripherals.

This advice results from years of attendance at many shows, both as an observer and as a corporate representative.  Every tip which follows has been used successfully, either by me or against me.

A successful show requires preparation.  First, you must get yourself inside without paying.  This is simple: ask yourself the question "What group can improve the success of this show?"  Call the show organizers, present yourself as a representative of this group and, I promise, they'll send you a complimentary pass.  Typically, I present myself as a member of the media.  I have been affiliated with a mass media outlet for many years, which gives me a legitimate address and letterhead for this claim.  You may want to create a dummy corporation for the same effect.

This raises a difficult question: should you pretend to be affiliated with a real group?  On the one hand, it raises the possibility of their identifying you as a fake; on the other hand, it will greatly increase your yield of goods collected.  I have toyed with the idea of setting up a dummy consulting firm called "Walter S. Jaffee, Inc." (incorporation costs around $65 in most states).  I could then get the badge printer at a show to put WSJ as my corporate ID.  Most computer sale-creatures would sell their grandmothers for a good write-up in the Wall Street Journal.  The WSJ badge would be magic.

Dress the part - printing a company T-shirt would be perfectly in line for regional media outlets.  A suit would be better for a national firm.  Have business cards.

Once in the doors, you have two basic routes to getting free things: you request review copies, or complain about copies you already "possess."  I will take these in order.

If you presented yourself as a member of the media to get in the door, by all means keep up the disguise.  Many sales people will see your badge and hand you their product without your saying a word.  Others will have to be asked.  Many will copy the information from your badge and mail you the product at home.  Finally, many will tell you to contact them.  By all means, do so.  A typical conversation runs like this:

"Hello, Sally?  This is Walter Jaffee, with WQQQ television; we met at the Acorn Expo last week."

"Of course, Walter, what can I do for you?"

"We're running a comparative review next month on word processors.  We'll be looking at WordChopper 1.0, Microfluff Paragraph, and a few others.  I was very impressed with the new release of PhallusWriter and would love to include it in the review."

"Do we have your address, Walter?  I'll have that in the overnight mail."

Sometimes they send a crippled copy.  Call back to explain that you have experienced computer users testing these programs in head-to-head style, and that PhallusWriter will suffer grievously in such tests if it can't save, print, or copy.  They'll send you the real thing.

Never give away that you are an experienced computer user yourself.  Misuse terminology just slightly, to give the impression that you have been working in the field for a while, but don't feel comfortable with it.

For more specialized shows, present yourself as a representative of an organization with substantial buying power.  Of course, you need to be high enough in the organization to influence purchase decisions, without being so high as to decide on a purchase yourself.  Try being a "Systems Consultant' or the like.  I highly recommend the Dictionary of Organizations, which you can find in any good library and which will give you an almost endless list of appropriate, real organizations which you may want to represent.  The National Science Teachers Association is a perennial favorite.  Beware, real members may be at the show.  Your BS skills must be well-practiced to escape from such an encounter.

If the idea of collecting goods in this way bores you, try the second approach: complaining about the ones you "already have."  Imagine the effect on a small company, which has shelled out 30% of its annual advertising budget to attend a show, of having a screaming, dissatisfied customer at the mouth of its booth.  The sales representatives will do anything to get rid of you.

At the Macworld Expo in August, a young lady approached the booth in which I was working and gave a furious dressing-down to the company president, complaining of bugs in our software.  Several things she said made it perfectly clear that she had never owned the software, but had seen our demo.  However, rather than challenge her, one of the booth personnel ran over and gave her a copy of the new release.  This got her out of the way.

Later in the day, I tried the same technique on another booth and found that it worked quite well.  I think it works best when women use it against men.  The most serious weakness of the technique is that you can't use it on two booths anywhere near each other.

Finally, if you have anything to trade for goods, you can probably find the opportunity to do so.  Groups of firm representatives get together for parties in which they trade software.  You can get into these without much trouble if you have a friend in the booths.  You can trade T-shirts for $600 packages without guilt.  Parties of homosexual or minority programmers take place at most major shows.  These are excellent targets.  You can also go booth-to-booth trading, though this is a bad idea until the last few hours of a multi-day show.

Big companies are just as generous as small ones.  Many firms will want feedback from you; send some if you can.  At the same time, job turnover in press/industry relations is so quick that the person to whom you promised a copy of your review might be gone by the next show anyway.