Democratic Debate goes well

The South Carolina Democratic Debate has come and gone. As I sit and assess, an old saying from my father comes to mind. I can hear him saying "Son, do it right the first time and you only have to do it once." At HTC that translates as; proper planning and preparation made for a very successful event.

HTC had nine of our employees at the two locations for the event. Security at The Palace was very high. In fact, for a period of time prior to the event, The Palace was emptied to allow security personnel to "sweep the building" to assure secure facilities for the candidates and those in attendance. The physical building and HTC's role as the Official Communications sponsor allowed us more movement than the Republican event. Like the Republican event, we were "confined" to office area external to the theater. Our "confinement area" was selected in case we needed to provide support during the event.

So, like millions of other viewers, we watched the debate on CNN from our little office area. We also brought up CNN via our wireless connection and watched the streaming video from the site. The connections were extremely quick. I had visions of talking with Wolf Blitzer, and trying to see if he would let me ask one of the candidates a question. So much for my dream, but I was proud to be part of the team that provided the technology infrastructure which not only met, but exceeded the standards CNN posed to HTC. HTC has raised the bar for future communications partners.

Meanwhile, the team assigned to Phillips Seafood (A.K.A. the Press Filing Center) was assuring that connectivity was being provided to Media representatives as they posted to their respective blogs and companies throughout the event.

Everything went Great! There were no glitches reported. HTC's systems and technologies were humming along throughout the event. Our 1 Gig internet backbone in place at The Palace was providing wireless connectivity to roughly 100-120 users (from speaking to CNN that would be the majority of the CNN bloggers covering the event). The CNN production vehicles were prepared to stream the video and audio live using the internet should the primary satellite fail. At the Press Filing Center there were roughly 350 wireless connections using the Gig internet backbone. I did make a casual observation that the Democratic event had more laptop users with Broadband Access cards. We had them covered with the COW (Cellsite on Wheels). Remember how I talked about that "preparation thing" earlier...

Oh, by the way, I did get a chance to say "Hi" to Keyshawn Johnson in the lobby after the event. And to top it all off, I finished the evening by meeting Wolf Blitzer. That made my propeller hat really spin. What a cool job!