Many know of my relationship with Merge- a love/hate one if there ever was one. We should get married but one walk down that aisle is enough for anyone or at least for me. But I’m still friends with many who still work there, including Paul Merrild, Merge’s Senior Vice President of Marketing & Corporate Strategy. Paul introduced me to Justin Dearborn and Jeff Sturges, their President and CEO respectively (even though Dearborn was their CEO before he became President. Talk about Abbott and Costello’s "Who’s on First") but alas Mr Ferro remained as elusive as ever talking only with my good friend the Dalai. Maybe if I had accepted their offer of a glass of Kool Aid I would have gotten to see him, but I limited myself to just a lil candy from their voluminous candy rack (another Merrild trademark) and a cocktail or two at their party. Everyone was cordial to me as well and there was no animosity as well. Paul even allowed me to play on the video games and personally handed me the gun as seen below. You can feel the love can’t you?
Everywhere I went on the floor I knew I was safe from bitchy attitudes because there was chocolate in nearly every booth. ThinAir Data took this a step further and put a packet of Ken’s Salad Dressing in with their Hershey’s kisses as a joke.
But the joke was on them as several overseas members got all excited over the dressing to take back with them and brought many of their friends of their friends others back home which left the vendor scrambling to find more…Hey, whatever it takes to get customers into the booth. It provided a good belly laugh for sure.
I wish every vendor could be as clear and concise in their messaging as this vendor was.
Most marketing managers would be scratching their heads wondering what Revana Health was thinking by having absolutely nothing in their booth besides their corporate logo, but in the 5 minutes I was there at least 5 people came up and asked the same question- “What do you do?” (answer: provides medical imaging centers with a suite of software and services to increase business performance).
Would a booth with all sorts of signs and diagrams and hardware have had the same impact? No- not even close. Brilliant marketing on their part. The fact the two gals who manned it were very cordial and easy on the eyes also helped as well (laugh).
Being a Floridian for the past 30+ years I smiled when I saw the gator sitting on the DR vet table in Canon’s booth. I smiled even more broader still when I saw the kitty cat sitting there as well looking sound asleep. Now I am not exactly a fan of cats- they are much too aloof like many a woman I have dated in life- so the juxtaposition of the gator and kitty was just too good to pass up. I would make a few other comments but I am trying to be politically correct in my old age so those of you who know me can read between the lines.
Having fun is the name of the game and IDS (Integrated Document Solutions) found a great way to get people into their booth with Shan the Candyman (yes, that is the name he goes by). He is only 1 of 3 people in the country who do candy art and he brings it to a level I have never seen before. For this one gal he did a dinosaur eating a dinosaur but could do just about anything for anyone and did. As I left he was doing a football team logo and did a killer Luigi from Ninetendo’s Mario Brothers and a cute pink pony for the owners daughter. This guy has talent with a capital T…
I have talked about the El Grande diner many times but here is the only shot you will ever see from it. The rest is top secret. As the night drew on and margaritas flowed the PACSMan Awards you’ll never ever hear about came out (affectionately known by our group as FC’s). I know you are thinking why are they called the FC’s. We’ll save that explanation for another time and place (laugh). Just know though that it is incredibly hard to find a divey Mexican joint that makes decent margaritas once Salvadors closed finally but we found one.
The guys you see here (a few gals were invited but were no shows BTW) are mostly from AuntMinnie.com and have known each other for years and in many cases decades. We all share a passion for imaging and a respect for each other. I can think of no better group of individuals to be with than these guys. From left to right are Eric, Dr Dalai, Brian, Wayne, Me, Jim, and Erik.
And last but not least, this Cher lookalike is the daughter-in-law of the guy who was behind the Timeo booth.
We chatted a bit about my Italian heritage and he was so much fun to talk to and proud- God was he ever proud “Atsa my daughter-in-law. You takea her picture and put it in the paper, yes?” So from one proud Italian to another here ya go my friend… Hei!! Pay attention. Do Not Hesitate!! Look at her will you…Now I don’t do Musculoskeletal Ultrasound- hell, I don’t even know what it is- but I’d but the book just because she’s in the photo.
You want to get your heart racing even more? Do a Google image search under Cannavo- yes, atsa my name. I used to be on page one, now I’m on like page 6 but do I care with someone as gorgeous as mio cugino Rosaria? Nope. Momma mia, check it out.
She hails from the same area in Sicily as my grandparents and while I’m not 100% sure if she is my cousin or not Ima gonna say atsa my cousin because all us it makes for good press (laugh). I always tell my sons to make sure you know who you are dating because she could be related to you but if she looks like that…who cares? I’ll just sit back and smile and say “Atsa my boy!!”
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