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Phil's Blogservations
Friday, November 22, 2002
Posted by philgomes 1:16 AM
VCs Want Me Dead!
Last night I was at the Churchill Club, which is Silicon Valley's venerable public affairs forum. During the cocktail reception beforehand, I happened to run into a former client. From the next room, KPCB's marquee venture capitalist and rumored Democratic VP hopeful John Doerr was on his Segway Human Transporter, trying to find a narrow corridor through the crowd. For those who don't know, the SHT (obviously not checked for its acronym) is that two-wheeled personal transporter that everyone from Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos said was going to revolutionize transportation the year before its 2001 introduction. "Entire cities will be built around this," they breathlessly said. (Whatever. Americans are out-of-shape as it is—without the introduction of something marketed to replace the act of walking.) Anyway... As Doerr was making his way, I gently moved my former client aside. "Danger," I joked. "Inbound Segway!" Doerr overheard this. "No!" he was quick to interject. "No danger at all! Look!" He then proceeded to purposely run right into me with that thing! To the SHT's credit, I was unharmed by the experience. An amazing piece of engineering, the Segway stopped immediately once its sophisticated circuitry detected that it had already invaded my personal space—an incredibly elegant means of ensuring that no physical harm is done. But...I mean, what if the thing shorted and put on a uncontrollable burst of speed? Would I be here writing this? What if I spilled my scotch on that four-figure buggy? Yeah...Yeah... I know. That's a specious argument. "Both of those instances apply to the automobile," Segway proponents might say. (Read the above paragraph again.) *sigh* "Your life is an adventure!" someone told me upon hearing this tale. This ranks up there on my list of Bizarre Encounters With Famous People, along with the time Quiet Riot singer Kevin DuBrow crashed Adaptec's 1999 COMDEX booth during my agency tenure with the company. ("Dude...I grew up on the Metal Health album, man!")
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This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL.
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