The Stars of PubCon
At PubCon this year there were stars everywhere. Big Stars, and little stars. So far, no one has been able to tell me what they indicated.
Most of the attendees got name badges with small star stickers attached to the outside lower corner. The same sort of sticker stars your 2nd grade teacher used to stick on your label when you were a good student. Some people’s name badges had small green stars attached to them. Some had small red stars. Some, like mine, had larger purple stars with metallic flakes - sort of “glitter stars”. What did they indicate, and who amongst us had the cipher, and why?
December 29th, 2007 at 5:44 am
I cannot believe I forgot about that! I actually thought that we would be put into groups on the last day to “network” but that didn’t seem to happen.
Have you contacted Brett Tabke?
December 30th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Well, those stars gave the Sneetches a way to tell each other apart from the crowd of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sneetches_and_Other_Stories
December 31st, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I asked the guy handing out the stuffed canvas bags and he said the stars were placed in a completely random fashion and had no function whatsoever…riiiiiight…lemme know if you ever find out their intended use, as I’m of the very curious sort…
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am
The real answer is pretty mundane.
The stars were just there for the full attendees so exhibitors, door gaurds, and staff could tell at a distance who got access to what parts of the conference without having to read their tag or scan them. In the past, we had used different color bars on the bottom of the tags. We had so many clear ones on hand, that we just used them and the star system.
bt
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Aw Gee, Brett. No conspiracy? But thanks for the comment. I suppose we’ll see RFID one of these days when it gets cheap enough.
January 4th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
CES is using RFID badges this year. It is a bit controversial, and they give you the option to opt out:——– import
RFID - Radio Frequency Identification
Please note that an RFID tag will be imbedded in your registration badge and will not contain any personal data but only an identification number. The ID number and their related data collected during CES will be used for internal purposes only by Show Management and will not be sold, bartered or traded.
——– end import