Making Do Without Credit — A Strategy for Business Growth

As part of my participation in the law firm of Gallagher, Callahan & Gartrell, I often contribute to its monthly newsletter and other firm publications. This post provides the introduction to my most recent article. Given the current credit, I thought this article might be of general interest.

Making Do Without Credit — A Strategy for Business Growth

A guide to growing your business using credit alternatives including joint venture agreements, revenue sharing, and installment contracts

October 2008 will be remembered for years to come as the U.S. economic crisis redefines the commercial landscape. While many companies are facing pressure directly from their financial woes, many more are struggling to deal with the broader challenge presented to the credit markets. Potential home buyers with reasonably good credit are struggling to find mortgages, offsetting the opportunity created by falling real estate prices. Retail automobile sales have dropped to all-time lows as consumers await more fuel efficient vehicles and struggle to find credit.

For entrepreneurs and small business owners who provide non-luxury goods and services, the combination of tight credit and economic anxiety have made doing business as normal a thing of the past. In the absence of affordable credit, however, companies which provide counter-cyclical products should ride out the economic storm if they plan ahead.

The alternative to a fluid credit market harkens back to a commercial barter system. A good barter economy allows those who have excess products to trade those products with other producers that have excesses of other products. In the same way, for businesses struggling to grow, coordination of excess productivity may create new opportunities.

Alternatives to Credit: Joint Venture Agreements, Profit Participation Agreements, and Installment Contracts

Through joint venture agreements, profit participation agreements or installment contracts, companies can pull together to reduce part of their cash-flow burden and reduce the impact of poor credit markets.

Read the rest of the article

In Defense of Authors - A reply to Professor Lessig

In the October 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal, Professor Lessig wrote an essay continuing his attack on copyright. Professor Lessig criticizes copyright and yet copyright also supports open source software, jam-band music, fan fiction and a host of economic models in which artists encourage others to share in the collaborative process. His real complaint is that copyright does not compel such a result. His frustration is with media giants struggling to find appropriate policies to balance their economic interests with the good faith they owe to their audience. But as his article admits, the law already provides the necessary remedy in many cases.

A few years ago I taught about copyright at my son's elementary school class. After having all the students draw a picture or write a poem for one minute, the cards were sent around the room and other students were encouraged to "add" to the cards. While most had fun marking up their classmates cards, some were visibly upset that their work had been changed without permission. These children instantly understood the purpose of copyright.

The purpose of copyright is to encourage and support authors and artists -- providing them the economic return to make a livelihood. Academics like Professor Lessig (and myself) have the luxury to have university patrons to pay our salaries and allow us the ability to write without compensation. Most musicians, poets, playwrights, authors, painters, and filmmakers have no such support.

Without copyright we would return to an era of professional works funded only by patrons. How much more power would the media giants have under such a regime than they have now?

iTunes is the beneficiary of the litigation against Napster and Grokster. Legitimate business models will transform the business strategy but only if we continue to hold true to our constitutional tradition of promoting our artists and authors.

Needless to say, I could go on regarding this subject at greater length, which I have done in my legal writing, but the heart of my disagreement with Professor Lessig is not the need for a robust fair use or the importance of participatory copyright, but his instance that the law must demand all authors and artists submit their works to his sense of their property rights regime.

I allow unlimited copying of my academic work and substantial copying of my commercial books. But I should not demand all other authors do the same. I now how difficult it is for an independent filmmaker to raise the funds to make a movie; how arduous a task to find distribution; and how long the road to financial response. Let these people give away their works if they so choose, but do not suggest they have no rights to their labor.

The only thing worse than copyright -- is the unimaginative world we'd have without it.

China Journey - In Preparation (1)

Later this month, I am taking my family on an extended trip to China. I will be lecturing at universities, researching for my next articles on intellectual property development and trying to learn first hand about some of the most important influences coming to shape 21st Century economics and politics.

As I prepare for the trip, I recently came across a new study by the Boston Consulting Group based upon its analytical model, the Five Fazes of Intellectual Property., BCG has created an excellent summary publicly avaliable on China. (Because the report is so interesting, I'm printing the entire url: http://www.bcg.com/impact_expertise/publications/files/Beyond_Great_Wall_Jan2007.pdf)

I learned of the article from the monthly newsletter from the WIPO small enterprise division. WIPO provides a tremendous resource for entrepreneurs around the world, including the U.S.

The Five Phases identified by BCG include
1. Driving Growth through Exports
2. Climbing the Value Ladder
3. Paying the Price (Corporate producers become targets because their weak IP protection allows for take over of their business)
4. Getting Serious About Intellectual Property
5. Profitting from Intellectual Property

These five phases identified by BCG explain both the pressures that remain on China's growth and the optimal strategies to overcome those challenges. Not surprisingly, the overarching recommendation is to have the intellectual property protections begin to catch up to the trade. The model fits well for the experience of Japan and South Korea, so there is much to be said for it.

The model may not entirely take the role of a protectionist government into account. Patent protection provides a company strong protection for exclusive control of its products. Within China -- a tremendous market -- government regulation and tradition may play a significant role in providing this exclusivity as well. Outside the country, of course, only internationally recognized intellectual property can provide such tools.

Much has been written about China. I will be sharing the best of what I find and add a little from what I learn. If you have suggestions, please share them with me at jgaron@hamline.edu.

Shining a light on Chrome

Last week Google launched a beta version of Chrome, a new software platform initially geared to operate as an Internet browser. Since Google is an advertising company which sells ads through its search engine, the question to be answered is why Google is providing the software to the public.

The easy answer is that Google enhances its brand through efforts to tweak Microsoft. Like Apple, the overwhelming presence of Windows makes it an easy target. The “other guy” approach to marketing has worked well for both companies in framing their brands, though not necessarily in expanding market share. Google has marketed the software through a comic book that focuses on the technology.

The more strategic answer focuses on Google’s business as the friendly advertising company. Anticipating increased push-back from users and the need to deliver ever-more highly targeted advertising, Chrome provides Google direct access to the consumer’s interests and behaviors. For example, the highly touted anonymous browsing protects the user’s computer from cookies, but it still allows the anonymous activity to be tracked for purposes of aggregated consumer behavior, just not tied back to particular individuals. This provides some benefit to users while allowing Google to retain its advantage.

The most strategic answer, however, comes from the platform-neutral Webkit software design, which will allow Google to provide a synched platform on computers, cell phones, portable media devices, and digital television set-top boxes.

The ability to control advertising across these four platforms will create the next media giant. Google may be very friendly – remember it launched the browser with a comic book – but it has precisely the same ambitions as Microsoft (or The Brain).

The goal of taking over the world, or at least the platform of every media device may also explain the poor timing of the Chrome launch. Admittedly a beta product, the software has been reviewed as much less ready for the market than most of its other products. But the moves by Microsoft and Netflix to use Xbox and by Sony to use the Playstation as video platforms as well as Apple’s updating of iTunes has pushed the timing of Google’s entry.

While the premature delivery has taken a bit of the shine off of Chrome, the anti-Microsoft has plenty of supporters and this should give it time to deliver a high quality product that will give it at least a toehold in the climb to the top of the platform wars.

The beachhead has been held. Now the battles begin.

Fortune Gets the Facts but Not the Strategy

Amazon’s move to number 2 in online music distribution is another example of their reintermediation strategy proving successful.

As reported by Fortune Magazine, Amazon’s download music business has overtaken most of the competition. “Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500) has overtaken competitors like Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) and RealNetworks' (RNWK) Rhapsody to become the second biggest online store after iTunes, according to market research firm NPD.” Fortune highlights the tremendous gap between iTunes, which controls over 75% of the download market and Amazon, which has yet to achieve a 10% share.

But the article misses the core of the Amazon strategy. Amazon has taken second in the download business and is at least in the top four for the sale of physical CDs. Add to this its ability to sell print-on-demand products and a rumored deal with MySpace for integrated sales, and you begin to see a strategy that may trail Apple but will leave every other music retailer behind.

The reintermediation strategy of both Apple and Amazon pushes content and affinity. The companies assume that consumers will frequent the same stores for commodity purchases – and for Amazon, those commodities include CDs, DVDs, consumer electronics, software, toys, and occasionally even books. The strategy is easy to understand when one looks at the low-ball pricing strategy for much of its music catalog, daily e-mails to its customers that create the digital equivalent of candy at the check-out counters, and proprietary software that improves the customer interaction and brands that interaction for Amazon. Apple has the same strategy, but limits its products to its own brands of consumer electronics and software, along with a more selective list of digital-only content.

Fortune’s article describes the steps Amazon is taking, but tries to place them in a retail paradigm. Until companies understand the software and contracting tools needed to create consumer affinity, they will see their marketshare decline to Amazon, Apple and other retailers who treat customer relations like social networks.

The New Hollywood Studios

We knew it was only a matter of time before the Hollywood Studios hegemony would give way to the new media titans, but I think few saw that the path of their demise would come from the successor to Pong.

At the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles, Sony and Microsoft each announced strategies to expand motion picture distribution directly to the consumer using their videogame stations. In the case of Microsoft, the Xbox 360 will stream Netflix’ on demand movies and television shows directly from the console. Xbox owners will be required to have a Netflix account beginning at $9.90 per month and subscribe to Microsoft’s owners "gold" membership, at $50 annually.

Sony, which has maintained a Hollywood studio strategy since it acquired Columbia Pictures in 1989, has entered the market with a non-subscription model. Rental content will range from $2.99 to $5.99 while purchased content will cost $9.99 to $14.99. In addition, Sony’s films and televisions can be transferred to a PSP (PlayStation Portable), allowing the PlayStation to compete with Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch.

Apple’s iTunes store and line up of video and audio players make it another viable Hollywood contender. Netflix, Nintendo, and Amazon remain potential rivals to Sony, Apple, and Microsoft. In each case, these companies maximize strategies emphasizing reintermediation – creating necessary interaction between the company and the consumer.

Hollywood has been losing market share and relevance in this battle because it has no relationship with its consumers. Fox has developed a strong editorial brand under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership, but the brand bears no relationship to its movie studios. Warner Bros., Paramount, and Universal all suffer from the same lack of brand or distribution relationship. Disney remains the exception. The tiniest of the old Hollywood Studios, Disney has struggled, but returned time and again to its focused, family entertainment shepparded by Mickey Mouse and Company. Warner Bros. never understood the importance of Bugs Bunny. The franchises of Harry Potter, Batman, and Superman will continue to drive ticket sales, but they don’t define the company or tell the audience anything about a Warner Bros. film.

Since focusing on content is a difficult strategy for developing a brand, the core relationship between Hollywood and the consumer will be the distribution strategy. Netflix use of social networking builds a strong audience base, and to the extent that consumers can rely on the recommendations, it will have an important place in the living room. The arrangement with Microsoft nicely benefits both companies, increasing Netflix reach and allowing Microsoft up from the kid’s basement or out of the office and into the living room as well.

Apple’s strategy begins with children when they are in school, introducing them to their proprietary brand of computers. It has added a brilliantly integrated technology platform and proprietary content store. Together, these steps represent the most effectively integrated approach to reintermediation, contrasting its business plan with the commodity-based PC computer manufacturers.

The new Hollywood will be reluctant to become studios, but as the need for high quality and expensive content continues, they will have the funds available to assure that expensive content and tent pole entertainment brands are developed. They may have learned from Sony that companies should not embrace Hollywood, but they will also have learned from Sony that Hollywood is essential to their strategy.

The curtain on the latest saga is about to rise. Who knew what Pong would bring?

Reintermediation – Rethinking Disintermediation

In Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster bestselling book, Blown to Bits (Harvard Business Press 1999), the authors documented how the Internet’s informational flow fundamentally reshaped the relationships between consumers and retailers. (I’ve previously written how this phenomenon affects professional service companies and business market niches.) Described as “disintermediation,” they postulated that the inverse relationship between the richness and reach of content was eliminated by the extremely low transaction costs associated with providing consumers highly rich content through digital media. The Internet eliminated the need for middlemen to provide expertise. The book anticipated and highlighted the erosion of intermediary service providers, and its projections have largely proven correct.

Over the past two years, companies such as Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Second Life have looked beyond the physical distribution of their products to identify opportunities to expand both richness and reach, significantly increasing the relevance of these companies to their customers. In each case, these companies have adopted reintermediation strategies, focused on creating an essential role for the business beyond serving as a source of the product of service. Reintermediation strategy utilizes contracting strategies, consumer data information, and structural business approaches to encourage additional steps in the consumer transaction which build an ongoing relationship between the enterprise and the consumer.

While reintermediation is predominantly a business strategy designed to overcome the pressures of Internet commoditization and digital piracy, the practice will have significant influence on privacy policy, intellectual property law, and contracting practice.

The most recent example of Google’s reintermediation strategy called Lively, a beta 3D virtual environment platform. Although behind Second Life, Google has a history of catching up. Moreover, the platform’s browser-based approach will allow it to insinuate itself into small and large application – putting Google between the consumer and the advertiser in a host of new environments.

Given the ubiquity of Google, consumers tend to think of it as a utility rather an advertising platform. Just like “free” broadcast television, however, Google’s strategy is simple: Be the first choice for consumer interaction and sell that interaction to advertisers. Google’s tools are not free; they are advertiser supported. Under this business model, the extension into virtual worlds represents a natural extension of its reintermediation strategy. And given the strategy, the extension into virtual worlds will grow, expand, and move from a curiosity to an essential tool because Google cannot afford to allow any other advertising company to gain a foothold.

Is Making Available Enough

Late last month, I joined a group of law professors led by University of Minnesota professor Tom Cotter in submitting an amicus brief in the copyright case of Capitol v. Thomas. The brief describes us as “scholars at American law schools who teach and write about intellectual property law in general and copyright law in particular,” support Thomas’ position. Because the case was heard in Minnesota, representatives from Hamline University School of Law and William Mitchell College of Law joined Professor Cotter in the brief.

The Duluth case was nationally known because of the jury verdict of $220,000 to the RIAA The defendant, Jammie Thomas, was found guilty of willful copyright infringement and charged $9,250 each for 24 songs she downloaded and made available online.

The case was reheard because a number of jurisdictions are asking whether the existence of MP3 files on a computer drive made available for others as a source of uploading is copyright infringement. The Wired Blog covers it well. The brief explains that copyright law does not recognize the making available for copying a separate act of copyright infringment. To be liable for copying, a party must copy.

But the anti-RIAA public should not see this as a route against the music industry. In a civil lawsuit, where the standard for proof requires that it is more probable than not that the defendant is guilty, the evidence provided by a computer drive filled with MP3 files which has been made available to bittorrent or other peer-to-peer software networks may well be sufficient evidence for a jury to reasonably conclude that the owner of the computer copied files to the drive and other copied files from the drive - all without the purchase of lawful copies.

Two years ago, this controversy did not exist because the presence of the MP3 files was itself evidence of copying. Now that MP3 files can be readily purchased, having a computer filled with the files simply reflects that you are a music fan.

The recommendation provides a modest correction in the evidentiary issues surrounding copyright infringment.

Own It - The IP & Entrepreneurship Blog

Own It - The IP Entrepreneurship Blog focuses primarily on the themes developed in Jon M. Garon, Own It - the Law & Business Guide to Launching a New Business through Innovation, Exclusivity and Relevance. The blog also includes more general topics of innovation, intellectual property, and entrepreneurship policy.

The Coming of Virtual Worlds

The start of the 2008 Virtual Worlds Conference provides an excellent moment to consider the importance of Second Life and other environments beyond the hype of digital utopia or socially disconnected dystopia that often accompanies the topic.

Virtual Worlds are not just toys and games.

Perhaps the most important lesson about the future of virtual worlds — or immersive interactive multimedia channels — is that they are not merely computer games. Admittedly, Worlds of Warcraft, Webkinz, and Pirates of the Caribbean are examples of virtual worlds that earn their attendance because they are computer games or extend game brands. But despite the genre’s origins as a gaming platform, the attributes of the platform to inform, educate and change behavior are not limited to games.

Production centers, international maps, design processes and every other conceivable industrial process can be modeled and rendered in a virtual world space.

• Commercial developers can easily use virtual renderings of their properties to market space; allow customers to explore customization; and encourage investment.
• Multi-campus organizations can use virtual campuses for cross-team trainings.
• Security (and police) can use the visual tools to model risks and strategies for risk assessment.
• Math, physics, and engineering education and industrial modeling can incorporate three dimensional renderings of efforts and collaboration.

Virtual Worlds are Also toys and games.

So perhaps business executives unfamiliar with graphical renderings of models see these exploits merely as games and toys. Well, they are. As games and toys, they engage users far more than static reports and printed content. Just as Wikipedia has transformed the experience of encyclopedia users, making most print versions obsolete, toys that don’t do anything will fill an increasingly small portion of the toy shelves.

Toys build tremendous brand loyalty. Companies like Webkinz have tied the purchase of stuffed animals to the interactive social environment. Participants in Club Penguin will always expect social, online experiences. Bicycle companies, motorcycle companies, sporting equipment manufacturers and many others have the potential to build social communities around their products.

These social networks are not limited to consumer goods. Churches, nonprofits and NGOs, political organizations and many other environments will also benefit from the social networking aspects of the virtual worlds.

And these brave new worlds are already here.

And as the Internet decade gives way to the Wii generation, new consumers and employees raised in this immersive interactive content will respond best to this medium. It was not that long ago that the toll-free number was the primary method of customer service. Notions that the Internet or e-mail would supplant this service were ridiculed. But a customer sitting in front of a computer is slow to pick up a telephone. Soon, a consumer already in a virtual environment will not want to be forced to switch to e-mail or log into a new website.

How to participate.

My personal confession is that I find Second Life boring and uninspired. I like my son’s Wii a bit more, but I am an old-media lover of radio theatre and stage plays. In Own It, I describe a number of ways to identify opportunities for innovation.

So despite my personal preferences, this new media is critically important to business —

• Companies that can utilize social networks and graphical displays will benefit the most.

• Companies that can utilize either social networks or graphical displays should build a virtual world strategy or risk being left behind.
• Training and education (an industry utilizing social networks and graphical displays) applies to every company, so all companies should look to virtual worlds for their internal processes.
• Business that can support, simplify, or enhance virtual worlds will create dramatic new opportunities in the future (think Google and Yahoo, but also remember CompuServe).

And remember that everything I’ve said about virtual worlds is probably already out of date.

Be Cautious but not Fearful in using Free Contact Resources on the Web

The Internet is quickly becoming the ubiquitous repository of nearly everything. Google Book Search and Microsoft Live Search Books provide dramatic tools for books in the public domain and limited portions of books under copyright. I prefer Microsoft’s opt-in approach to copyrighted materials, but Google’s service is easier to access and allows PDF downloads. Since I think these services serve to rescue the potentially irrevocable loss of public domain materials decaying in underfunded libraries across the nation, I’m thrilled there is competition by the two corporate titans.

In addition to books, many other documents are now being culled and collected across the Internet. In his weekly I/P Updates, attorney Bill Heinz collected a number of useful sites for finding such documents in “document sharing communities:

http://www.docstoc.com/
http://www.scribd.com/
http://www.edocr.com/
http://www.thinkfreedocs.com/
http://www.insightory.com/

There is also a document search engine at http://searchdocs.net. I am not endorsing any of these sites, but they provide an excellent tool.

The key to using free documents from the Internet (or books for that matter) is to understand that they were written for other people in different situations. Even when completing similar transactions, I typically need to rewrite every document to take the concerns of the parties to a particular transaction into account.

So does this mean that you should avoid using the form agreement? Of course not. But use them cautiously. First, they serve as excellent checklists to be sure the important topics are covered. Second, by reviewing at least three sample agreements on any particular topic, you can begin see different approaches to address particular problems. Unfortunately, you cannot know the economic or other pressures that gave rise to this particular solution.

Don’t send the forms to your lawyer. I generally find that handing an Internet form to an experienced lawyer will increase rather than decrease the expense. The lawyer will take time comparing your document to the document with which your lawyer is much more conversant. Instead, use the document heading and write down the goal you hope to achieve under each heading. This will inform your lawyer and result in a much faster — and cheaper — process.

Finally, if you don’t understand why particular provisions are in the form agreements, be sure to ask. While this takes a bit of time and costs a bit of money, those questions can help you avoid trouble down the road.

Used in moderation, these forms provide an excellent business planning tool.

Lessons from Second Life’s Bank Run

There are a few lessons to be learned from the Second Life banking debacle, which occurred last week when an allegedly fraudulent bank, Ginko closed down rather than pay its customers the promised 40% interest rates.

First, participants in Second Life should stop being stupid, greedy, or both. (I’ll avoid calling them players because the platform is being used for activities that bear little relationships to games.) The interest rates in virtual worlds cannot significantly exceed those in other markets or else the funds from those markets will flow to the higher rates. Interest rates can vary slightly from country to country – particularly if the government of that country subsidizes the rates. But they do not vary significantly because the investment pool is sufficiently liquid to move to the higher rates. To believe in ridiculously high rates requires the investor to be willfully ignorant of the risks. Only a combination of stupidity and greed can generate blinders that big.

Second, the Second Life market is worth protecting, and the protection should come from outside the contract with Linden Labs. The credibility of the leading virtual world’s ability to attract transactions between parties depends on the reliability of the platform. As soon as the platform includes the ability to exchange any nation’s currency with fictional money, the potential for fraud begins. If deposits are guaranteed or interest is paid, then the activity is either a banking function or sale of securities. If these were merely pre-paid gift dollars, purchasing Linden Dollars but not being able to be sold for currency, the “game” analogy might apply. If instead, an anonymous avatar can trade in various currencies using Linden Dollars; offer unregulated interest rates; and sell financial products without ever disclosing the identity, then most state and federal regulators can find a statute or two which applies. Linden Labs is far better off having regulation than finding itself the subject of lawsuits from various jurisdictions within and outside the U.S.

As anyone who has worked with financial products knew, the collapse of the Second Life banking sector was inevitable. The more important question is the collateral damage it will cause to Second Life and the many activities using Second Life as their platform.

So the third and most important lesson learned is that Second Life is a prototype for a virtual world platform, not a solution itself. Universities should be building an entirely noncommercial, academic platform which includes a terms of service agreement comparable to the student handbooks found on every public university. Open to any accredited university, but without banking or gambling. Mall operators should be providing retail spaces for their customers; hotel and convention companies should be providing the same type of services for their customers; and adult entertainment providers should be creating areas that are explicitly adult oriented so there is little confusion. J-Date should have the Virtual Jewish Community Center, with theatre, lectures, social events like the brick-and-mortar JCCs. If I so chose, I could do my banking with a federally regulated bank at Financial World, knowing that regulations generally prohibit those banks from letting me be anonymous.

The lessons from the bank run are that the days of the Virtual Wild West are coming to an end. While we will be giving up the open plain, we should be gaining the universities, culture, and economic stability that makes society run. With that, the virtual world is moving ever closer to the real world.

After the CES/MacWorld - A Year of Consolidation

I had the opportunity to attend CES this year. Walking CES and reading the announcements from Macworld, some clear trends have emerged. First, this was not a year of great innovation. It is a year of consolidation. The holiday "buy" of the year was the Nintendo Wii – a product which came out last year; CES showed hundreds of manufacturers playing catch-up to Apple's iPhone with new integration of GPS to the suite of phone, browser, MP3 and Video players; Apple itself had the biggest innovation the re-enabling of iPhone software on the iPod Touch.

For business built on innovation, this is a year of catching breath and consolidating distribution.

The second trend emphasizes the interface not the activity. For every technological innovation, there are a multitude of manufacturers. The differences are the user experience – the box in which the product exists, the screens on which it is viewed, and the buttons for interacting. Apple's second announcement was a significantly thinner laptop. It adds a "wow" factor to an otherwise boring field. At CES five companies have ultramobile laptops – under two pounds with full functionality and a price under $500.00. For any of these to be successful, the machine must be comfortable to use at an acceptable price.

The most significant part of this trend is the screens. Samsung won CES as the most innovative of the major brands this year, showing a host of products that push the consumer experience forward. Samsung demonstrated some use of OLED-based products with eye-popping visuals. Sony will also benefit as the developer of this technology. OLED screens are significantly better than plasma or LCD - but expensive and difficult to manufacture.

Similarly, both Sony and Amazon are pushing the book readers. Sony's Reader is benefiting from Amazon's Kindle to encourage attention to the platform. Both are limited by a single source for the screens, however, so until more manufacturing capacity grows, the price and innovation will move slowly. If the ultramobiles can catch up, then the book readers will be eclipsed, but only time will tell.

In the alternative, an even lighter ultramobile with the long battery life of the book readers will win the market. The Kindle and iPod Touch are both nearly ultramobiles – so next year’s innovation could be the combination of these products, so long as the screen and interface make it exciting rather than awkward.

Get busy – next year’s shows are nearly upon us.