Day 2 at the CES: After finally getting a decent night sleep after my prior night of fun in Sin City, I woke up feeling ready to explore all that the CES had to offer. I wandered around the North and Central Hall for quite some time, basically in awe of what I was seeing. SO MANY new and interesting products are ready to hit the market. And that includes what MMRF has coming as well. I touched on it briefly yesterday, but I think the prepaid card service that MMRF will offer could be something that revolutionizes the industry. Plus, it’s right up CEO Bob Lorsch’s alley. As many of you know he was the former CEO of SmarTalk and prepaid calling cards were something that he played large part in getting to the marketplace. Yesterday while walking around and talking to various people at the show, after some small talk I would showed a few of the more savvy tech guys I ran into the cards that MMRF has and what they did. I can tell you that the overall response was VERY positive. Many people, and I got this from a few yesterday, tend to avoid thinking about their health and what they can do to improve it. For no better reason that it scares them. People are afraid of dying of course, and afraid of news that can cause someone to get sick. I think the prepaid cards that MMRF will offer will increase the average consumer’s comfort level as far as getting a PHR service and and implementing it into their daily lives. Everyone uses these cards nowadays. People will see one and say “oh, that is kinda neat, I get to use the convenience of a card while at the same time doing something good for me and my family”. I think it will help to break the ice as far as getting a family to realize how valuable this service is, and how big a part it will play in everyone’s lives in the near future. Call it a gimmick, call it a ploy, call it an icebreaker, call it what it is-a great idea, but imo this product will play a huge part going forward in MMRF’s future.
Anyway, I wandered over to the Alcatel-Lucent exhibit area once again, and not seeing Bob or any of the other MMRF people around, I talked to Mike (the rep giving the demos) again about how everything was being received. The guy could not have been more positive about the responses he has been getting and he seemed really keyed up about the whole thing. Right then in fact, a group of Verizon people were starting to gather for a demo, so I stuck around and watched that with them, and again, while I wasn’t privy to their conversations, I could tell by the excited tone of their voices that they liked what they saw.
About that time Bob called and I was able to walk over to the hotel near the Convention Center again and meet with him and AJ. I really respect the amount of effort that Bob (and the whole team really) puts in on a daily basis. I know he had walked back and forth between exhibits a million times (no small feat as they are many football fields apart), had 3 or 4 different meetings, hob knobbed and talked to various customers and potential customers on the floor, went around with some patent lawyers and looked at all the various companies that could be violating the patents now in their possession, and then had time to meet with me for a while…..ALL before getting ready to have a private dinner with the Verizon people, which he seemed very excited about. Guys, this is all really good stuff. Read between the lines on a couple of things I just wrote. Patent lawyers + Verizon = Payoff. Patents because not only do they give tremendous underlying value to the company, not only because they give the company tremendous leverage in any kind of a buyout or merger, but finally also because they essentially give the company free money. A steady revenue stream that is just like having a bucket on the street that people keep dropping money into, without you having to lift a finger. It’s big guys. And Verizon because well, they are Verzion. The biggest mobile/wireless carrier on the planet. Getting hooked up with them is a giant step and the payoffs down the road could be breath taking.
Looking forward to see how it all shapes out. It should be exciting. I am off again to the show. Will check back in later.
AI
