Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics

6:15 PM -- SAN DIEGO -- Storage Networking World -- "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" could well be the motto for this spring's SNW (well, at least the statistics bit). Attendees at the show, myself included, have again been treated to an interactive survey before each keynote session, submitting our responses via a handheld device that looks a little like one of those guns Captain Kirk used to zap Klingons with.

Clearly keen to spice things up a bit, organizers kicked things off yesterday with a quick poll on the likely winners of this year's World Series. Displaying somewhat of a West Coast bias, half of the attendees expressed their desire for the championship to go to "anyone but the Red Sox." Evidently there was only a handful of EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) guys in the hall at the time.

Even the Padres, the hometown favorites here in San Diego, only won 23 percent of the vote, while those "Damn Yankees" polled 19 percent, and the sorry Dodgers came in with a pitiful 6 percent.

Hmmm, it will be interesting to see how much these IT managers really know about baseball when fall comes around. (Much as it pains me to admit it, I think that the clean-shaven Johnny Damon is going to be the ace in the Yankee's pack -- you heard it here first.)

Contrary to what you might think, I have not just being talking baseball here at SNW. (See PACS Poses Storage Challenge, MySpace.com, Pixar, and Users Describe DR Detriments.) But, what, do you get up to when you are at a show? Why not tell us about it in the latest Byte and Switch poll: Tradeshows on Trial.James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch