When in the name of all that is good and pure, is the United States going to completely allow this?  Now, as I’ve mentioned before, the allowance of mobile phone calls in-flight has a plethora of pro’s and more than its fair share of cons.  While it WOULD be rad to call whomever you want whenever you want while flying, it most certainly WOULD NOT be rad to hear everyone else yacking at the very same time.  Yikes.

That said, the U.K. has officially approved in-flight mobile phone calls, just not during take-off and landing, and only after the plane reaches at least 3,000 meters according to reports.  According to the Office of Communications in the U.K., “The safety of passengers is paramount and mobile systems on aircraft will only be installed when they have secured approval by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK.”  Well at least they’ve thought it out.

Apparently the calls will be routed to an on-board base station and then sent out accordingly.  So, knowing this, how much do you want a Bluetooth headset to at least not have to HOLD the phone during your long flights?  Lets just hope they pre-install soundproof curtains between every seat from now on because the thought of hearing 250 passengers talking to 250 OTHER people all at the same time in a closed-in cabin at 30,000 feet is just, well, terrifying.

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Here you go folks, Matt Westover’s final post from inside CES 2008!  It was a great week for MoGo and thanks for following it through the days!!

The Harsh Realities of…The Morning After CES

Where are all the camera’s?  Where are the producers? What happened to my limo?    Uh-O, CES is over and it is back to reality.

Reality started for me at about 1am Friday morning when I landed back in Boston.  My limo had morphed into a dirty cab taking me home.  Upon exiting the cab at the corner near my house, I accidentally hit the door handle getting out of the car and knocked my Blackberry out of my hand and onto the wet ground outside the car.  This would not have been the end of the world until I realized the cab was parked over a city drain and my Blackberry bounced off the grate and fell perfectly through one of the holes and splashed in the drain water below.  The screen light was on so I could clearly see my bberry sinking down and into the pipe with the rain water.  In one second, my phone and my database was gone. Yes it was gone forever.  How did I react?  It was an irreversible occurrence and had to get over it and figure it out in the morning.

The 6am wakeup call came very quickly and the day was going to be a busy one.  Once the kids were fed and off to school I was staring at a 9 foot Christmas tree in the middle of our living room that needed to be sent out with the trash.  Whoa, I just went from summer weather in the “anything goes” city of Las Vegas to rainy cold weather in Boston staring at a Christmas tree that needed to be cut in pieces and thrown out.  Clearly, I was back to reality.  Grabbing a power tool, I cut the branches off the tree and took it all out for trash.  One action item down; many to go.

Now, I was chomping at the bit to get to the cell phone store the moment it opened. Without my phone and email, I was out of contact with our MoGo team and had to get connected again.  The store was open and my replacement phone was in stock.  Now the challenge was restoring my database; if I could get it back at all.   After 20 years in the backup segment of the market, I had a backup of my bberry database and could quickly back off the proverbial “edge of the bridge” as the day was looking up at that point.

Now I could get back to work.  Or so I thought…..  It turns out I had to take our dog to the vet as it was one of my roles I agreed to when we bought the dog.  After a couple of hours and a little medication, our dog was back in action and I now I was back to work.  What happened to my life of luxury I had the day before?  It may not have been reality but it was much easier than this juggling act I was going through today!  And who needs reality anyway?

Ah, there is the twist.  Reality may have very wide or very narrow swings of its pendulum. It is for each one of us to manage the adversity reality can place in front of us at any moments notice.  This week of CES was all real and the pendulum swung broadly from the highs to the lows and it was up to our MoGo team and me to manage ourselves through it and drive the company ball down the field in 2008.

All the best athletes, doctor’s, teachers, business professionals (the list goes on) have setbacks and difficult times in their journey to success.  None have an easy ride and a straight road to success. What made them the best and what defined their character is how they responded to adversity and how they stood back up on their feet, dusted themselves off and kept competing.  A champion is made in the difficult times and recognized as such later.  A champion prepares tirelessly without the camera watching and executes with unwavering focus when the camera’s are rolling!

Though everyone wants to be a champion; few are preparing themselves to overcome their own or their company’s own challenges/setbacks to become a champion!

Now that the bright lights of the camera’s are gone and the limo’s aren’t here, it is our time to prepare/execute for the year and come back to CES in 2009 and beat our past performances!  Yes, as it turns out, we are our own competition and if we worry about ourselves and stay focused to our game plan, we can surpass our CES success of 2008.

Today’s reality was challenging; I will make tomorrow’s reality better!

Matt

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Can I just say how lucky we are to have a head honcho like Matt Westover? It is truly amazing to have the man in charge be so open, so vocal and so, well, cool. Here’s more from him inside CES 2008!

Day 4 at CES started quickly as we were very fortunate to be on Donny Deutsch’s “The Big Idea” last night and the excitement and interest in MoGo from the CNBC show kept us out later than usual seizing the moment! Though CES was winding down our phones were ringing off the hook for last minute meetings before everyone flew out of town. Many of our current partners watched the segment and thankfully, are proudly associated with us. They all expressed their enthusiasm to make 2008 an even bigger year with us than our record sales year of 2007! We will take all the sales we can as we are focused on making 2008 our breakout year; our “Crossing the Chasm” moment, if you have read the book. 2008 will not be the year we follow the “4- Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferris. I have asked Tim for a little help as my weeks are now standing at 4+ 80 hours….. so I am failing his course.

The first year we attended CES with our new company and only a few handmade MoGo’s we were there test marketing our messaging and positioning of the MoGo. It would not be formally released into the market until later in 2006. We hit the jackpot and were lucky enough to find the right person at NBC and were 1 of 4 products they profiled live on the “NBC Today Show” live from the CES show floor! We did not even have a company booth there! Stating the obvious, that was a good first CES for us. Last year we introduced our next generation MoGo’s at CES and won the “Best of CES” award! We beat our billion dollar competitors. Again, we viewed our second year an overwhelming success. And now, this year we are fortunate enough to participate in “The Road to CES” series underwritten by American Express and produced by CNBC and Donny Deutsch’s “The Big Idea” ! One of Donny’s show experts for the series, Dr. Doug has blogged very favorably about MoGo (http://www.cnbc.com/id/22579768/site/14081545/page/2/ ) and we thank him for his support. We are fortunate to have the best blogging about us. See our blog at http://www.mogomobility.com/.

We are 3 for 3 at CES and we now have 1 year to outdo ourselves at CES 2009. Donny and team, help!! We will definitely be using the commercial Deutsch Inc. produced for us, as it is excellent! Have you seen it?

So now the MoGo team has mounds of business cards and actions items ahead of us from this week. Though we had a blast promoting MoGo’s until we dropped each day and are exhausted from the week, our work has only begun. We must follow up and capture the business momentum from this year’s show!

I leave the show wondering how I can show my appreciation for what all the wonderful people producing and working behind the scenes at “The Big Idea” did for MoGo and our team? The awareness and branding they generated for the MoGo is simply something we could have never accomplished on our own. We must find a way to return the favor to them! Remembering what my parents taught me— “it is better to give than receive” and we will be receiving the benefits of this CES experience for months! So I leave today with the difficult action item figuring out how we could possibly give back to them, anything near what we are receiving……………

Gratefully,

Matt

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Straight from the bosses mouth today for you fine folks!  Here is a post from the man behind the MoGo, Matt Westover!  How cool is it to get an inside look at CES 2008 from Matt himself?  Very cool my friends, very cool.

We are in day 3 of CES and feel we have exceeded the goals we have set for ourselves here. As a young and quickly emerging company, we look for very tangible results which move the sales needle coming out of CES. With 1000’s of companies here and the enormous amounts of money that are being spent, we simply cannot out-spend the larger companies to capture awareness and brand recognition so we must rely on more gorilla tactics to get our name and products above the noise level.

This year and in the spirit of Las Vegas, we introduced the MoGo GoGo Girls to our CES execution plans. These MoGo GoGo Girls, wearing MoGo branded tops, are carrying MoGo’s and striking up conversations to demonstrate our product. Additionally, after they speak to a CES attendee about our MoGo, they offer them a coupon for a $20 discount when they buy a MoGo. They successfully provided attendees with 10,000 discount coupons so far! The MoGo GoGo Girls are a show favorite! This year we have also been very fortunate enough to be invited by CNBC and “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” to be on their show at CES. This is a terrific opportunity for MoGo and the show will air Wednesday night at 10pm Eastern. Please watch it! I have been watching the show since its inception and feel honored to be included in their CES show series! Much to my surprise, Donny and his team hired his former advertising firm (Deutsch Inc.) to make a commercial for us to make MoGo a houshold name! Not only was this something we could not have made on our own (we are not advertising exec’s)they made a very exciting commercial with all the right messaging! Additionally, this commercial will definitely help us to be a household name quickly! If that was not enough, Donny announced to me on the show that CNBC was going to the run commercial on CNBC at their expense as as well! I was excited I was at risk of looking like contestant on “The Price is Right” and starting jumping around pumping my fists with over the top enthusiasm. Right then Donny tells me he will also run our ad during the SuperBowl….at that point I did jump out of seat with excitement only to hear him say he was only kidding…..he totally got me as I fell for it hook, line and sinker and could only laugh at myself at that point.

Relatively speaking we think MoGo’s are to computer laptops as Ipod’s are to music and Donny is really helping us get to the next level as a company. We simply could not have done this on our own without Deutsch Inc., CNBC and Donny’s expertise. They are really wonderful people to work with and see why they are so successful! Stay tuned for more MoGo news tomorrow!

Best Regards,

Matt

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Day 3 folks.  You know the drill, a brief update on what’s going down for MoGo in the lovely bowels of CES 2008.  Ok, I just said lovely, followed by bowels.  That should be illegal.

Here we go!

“CES 2008 Day 3:

 
The morning came too fast for some of the MoGo team as the night festivities were a big hit. The complete MoGo team assembled over at the Sand’s Convention center prepping for the big drawing. At the “Into Tomorrow booth the GoGo Girls took the front line as the management group answered questions and conducted interveiws with Dave at Into tomorrow. Into Tomorrow staff recorded the days events and we will be providing the footage on our website next week. Also want to stay tuned as CNBC might be showing this on the Road to CES blog/show.

As the we got closer to noon the crowds to grew and Go Go Kat annouced the winners for MoGo Mouse and Grand Prize Gold Diamond encrusted MoGo X54, pictures included.

Grand Prize winner Ryan Hensley took home the Ultimate Bling out MoGo Mouse.

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Wow.  I can’t say I am necessarily Surprised, but nevertheless, the post I did about our beloved MoGo Go Go Girls received quite a bit of attention, and that said, I’m sure this one will do the same.

That’s right folks, I have a Round 2 Update of not only our favorite girls in white, but also the goings-on  inside CES this year!  Seems to me I’m missing one heck of a party and I’m sad to be stuck here!  Nevertheless, keep rockin’ MoGo, and the MoGo Go Go Girls!  Scroll for the photo love:

“CES 2008 Day 2 Updates with Photos.

Another good and exciting day at CES 2008 for MoGo and the MoGo Girls. Meetings are continuing to go great and the Mogo girls keep drawing in the people.

Matt Westover finished filming at CNBC for commercial that will air in the next couple weeks. We drew a great crowd presence throughout the hall today, maybe too good as we were asked to quietly leave because the traffic we drew. We kept going strong at the Sands Into tomorrow booth really pressing hard for tomorrow drawing of the limited edition Gold Mogo X54.

Off to the Bluetooth SIG awards.”

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Just got this awesome little update from the front lines of the CES 2008! Not only is MoGo looking sharp as a product this year, we have some sharp looking spokesmodels as well! Here’s a quick little blurb from our man on the scene Frank DeSanti:

“DAY1

First day of CES was a very exciting day. The MoGo Management team were busy all over CES in numerous strategy sessions resulting from our success from 2007. In the afternoon time CNBC, Road to CES filmed the MoGo Team with a guest appearance from the Mogo Go-Go girls. We are expecting coverage on CNBC later this week as a result. We also launched the Go-Go girls initiative today at CES. Our Go-Go girls mission was to educate the masses on what MoGo Mouse is, provide CES promo cards, and overall awareness of what MoGo was right for each attendee. As you can see in some of the pictures there were times where the Go-Go girls stopped all traffic. We are all getting ready for the night time activities, and will carry on the Mogo mission until dawn.”

Now, don’t think that I’d talk about something as rad as the MoGo Go Go Girls and NOT show you the aforementioned photos! Of course I will. Scroll down for more!

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Just a quick note to let everyone know that there’s a sweet little video featuring MoGo and Netwon Peripherals own Matt Westover talking about the exciting new line of MoGo Products that will be all the buzz at this years CES 2008!

At any rate, head over here and watch the video, hear about the original MoGo Mouse, the product that put us on the map, and just remember, the MoGo Mouse was just the start.  Our line of products has already expanded and will continue to do so.

Enjoy the video then head back here to get your daily dose of all things cool.

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Don’t tell my son, but Santa is bringing us a Wii for Christmas.

And by ‘Santa’, I mean my enterprising husband - who hunted one down over Black Friday and stuffed it in the back of our closet. This is the display of some of the greatest restraint ever shown by a techno-crazy man.

One of my concerns about getting a Wii was the barrage of ‘Ping! Splat! Wowza!’ that would echo through our house at all hours as we engaged in Mario-Sonic Olympics.

Not to worry.

As it turns out, Wii is Bluetooth-enabled. An excuse, if ever one was needed, to buy several MoGo Headsets when they roll into production. This will create a truly personal and wireless playing experience.

On the flip side, having those cool Wii-remotes (’Wiimotes’) be Bluetooth-based means that several enterprising hackers have found ways to turn them into mice for your computer.

Because the remotes aren’t designed for that use (unlike the MoGo x54 series) , the results of these experiments have been very interesting.

Perhaps my favorite is the guys who turned their Wii motes into Lightsabers on their Macs.

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Short and sweet today, because today belongs to family, to friends, and to all those you care for.  No matter where you are, what you’re doing, or what you believe in, just eat more than you should today, hug more than you usually do, relax a little longer.  In short:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM ALL OF US HERE AT MOGO!

Check back in Friday and again Monday as we resume regular broadcasting.  Remember, that last piece of pumpkin pie has my name on it.  Yes it does.  I called it.

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