I find myself looking at swag I have collected from conferences recently - both swag my company has given away and swag collected from other conferences…. and I find myself asking - what is the coolest thing people have ever got as swag from a conference?
On my desk and in my computer bag I have the following:
- Wind-up network cable with adapters for telephone use, from Bindview, Blackhat 2004 I think
- 4 port USB hub (USB 1.1 not 2.0 unfortunately), my company, Blackhat 2004 I think
- USB light, from Sophos, InfoSec 2005 in the UK
- USB flash drives in various small sizes (32M, 64M), various (including my company), various conferences
- Glowing pen (lame but amusing), my company, various conferences
Out of all of these, the USB light is probably the coolest, and the wind-up cable is probably the most useful.
What’s in your bag that came from conferences?
From the comments so far you guys must go to better conferences than I do ;-)
A fold-up computer toolkit from Compuserve
Not to shabby in the quality department, either.
Duct Tape Wallet
Last year a booth at LinuxWorld was giving out duct tape wallets (http://www.ducti.com). That was probably the coolest swag I've landed yet.
Chevy Avalanche
Not the real vehicle, but a remote-controlled one that I won last year at ISPCON.
So technically not swag... but they gave away a whole bunch of them.
Roger
DESQview/X zeppelin
Quarterdeck gave away battery powered, cable controlled zeppelins (helium not included) promoting DESQview/X ('DOS to the power of X').
Swag
My best was probably the lava lamp I just came back from OSCON '05 with. :-)
Audio Swag
Project Bar-B-Q, the Texas computer music conference (www.projectbarbq.com), has given out some wild stuff over the years, including PVC marshmallow guns, a Dolby branding iron, and 24-bit sampling DVDs from Cycling ’74. (Disclaimer: I’m on the advisory board, but don’t make the swag decisions.) —David Battino
schwag
I still use the corkscrew Codeweavers (WINE, get it?) gave away at LWE in ~2003.
Nice tool
I got a Leatherman tool from Compaq at FOSE in DC a few years back. I almost rustled a half-lifesize inflatable Gateway cow, but my buddy wouldn't stand guard.