Panasonic's Fearless Party

When we throw a party here at the Calandro Casa we always bring our A-game. We go all out with the invitations, food, decorations, favors and we even wear sweatshirts that are decorated with the theme for the party. Our friends and family travel from all over and re-arrange their schedules to be here for the festivities. We enjoy entertaining our friends and celebrating with them. It's just what we do.

We don't get paid for these parties, it's not how we bring money into the house. So, if a party flops it doesn't mean we don't pay our mortgage or we have to lay off members of our family from their jobs. It's just for fun, but we put so much effort into these events you would think that the lifeblood of our family depended on it. Well, our reputation for throwing great parties could get shattered, but we could recover from that ego-bruising pretty easily.

Now consider this twist: We plan for months for a party and the financial stability of our family is crucial to its success. Then we ask our guests to tell us anything and everything we did wrong or anything we did right. We've invited everyone to our house, fed them, entertained them and shared all our best efforts to show them a good time. Then we welcome their criticism as well as their accolades. This means that if people didn't have a good time, we'd have to hear about it and we would have a hard time paying our bills!

This doesn't sound like something I would want to subject myself to, but Panasonic has done this and we were invited to this party.

Panasonic created their Living in HD program as an invitation to a Panasonic Products Party and they want to know what we think of this celebration. This is a fearless approach that can only be created by a company that believes strongly in their product and seriously cares about what their consumers think. If you read back to our earlier posts you can see how this process began and the experiences we have had as a result of Living in HD. In a nutshell, it has changed our lives and we have Panasonic to thank for it. They gave us a suite of products and have asked for our opinions about them. And they really want to know what we think.

You may be thinking we have to say these things because we are a part of this program and we owe it to Panasonic. Well, we don't. Panasonic has never told us we had to say or do anything. In January we were honored to appear at CES in Las Vegas as representatives for the Living in HD program. Our entire family was up on the Panasonic stage to talk about what it was like to live in High Definition. We were not scripted in any way. We were just asked to talk about it-the good or the bad. We have three young boys; if there was something they didn't like or thought was junk it would have come out on stage and there wouldn't have been anything anyone could have done to stop it. What a potential loose-cannon!

We were also asked to do a podcast with Joe Jaffe of Crayon and other members of the Panasonic team. Again, we were invited, but never once were we told what to say. Even this blog you are reading can be whatever we want it to be. We can choose to turn it into a blog about dust-bunnies and their plight in North America and Panasonic wouldn't tell us we couldn't. (That's a joke, but the Panasonic part is true.)

Panasonic took a huge risk putting us out there in front of their audience without any control of what we were going to say. When you are confident in your product and message, you can afford to take risks and let people be who they are.

We are not a family that is in business or marketing, we make our living in education, so we are not experts in the corporate or advertising world. However, we think giving a group of consumers thousands of dollars worth of products and then asking them to tell you what you REALLY think about all of it is pretty outstanding and innovative. And brave. What if the TV stunk? What if the blu-ray player was a lemon and skipped around when playing a regular DVD as opposed to a movie in blu-ray format? What if this laptop I'm using right now malfunctioned when it got milk and cereal spilled all over the keyboard and it wasn't as "tough" as it was said to be? Panasonic would want to hear about it and they would want us to tell others as well. That's how great they know their products are. Panasonic knows the only way they want to compete for consumer dollars is through integrity and transparency. They have nothing to hide.

Who does this? Who invites people into their home, gives them the best of what they have to offer and then genuinely asks, "So, what do you think?" Panasonic does. They do it because they believe in their products, the minds that create them, and the people of their company. They all work together tirelessly to create the best products they can for their consumers. Panasonic wants their products and technology to improve our lives. They feel the best way to do this is by asking their consumer what works and what doesn't, not just relying on sales figures to dictate what the market demands.

Maybe our parties are driven by the same motivation as Panasonic's for their Living in HD program, just on a much smaller scale. We work tirelessly for our parties to be the best they can because we care about our family and friends' well-being. We look at our "product" -our parties - as a way of showing them we are willing to do our best on their behalf, for their entertainment. When our parties are over we assess how the event went; we look at what food was consumed and what is still left on the table. We think about which games were a hit and which ones caused injuries (yes, unfortunately, that has happened!). We don't give our guests formal questionnaires, but we learn from our experience. This is how Panasonic is creating a dialog between creator and consumer and they are listening to what we have to say.

Here's the best part about the Panasonic Party: this invitation doesn't have an end time; it just keeps going. So consider yourself invited to one of the best parties the Calandro Family has ever been a part of. Go to the Panasonic Living in HD community. Join the conversation. Tell them what you think. Be honest. Panasonic is listening and wants to know what you have to say. With Panasonic you are a consumer with a powerful voice. We always love a great party - and we don't have to clean up after this one! Enjoy! And tell them the Calandros sent you!

Mighty PIZZA NIGHT-y

We know times are tough - if you don't know that, you have been living under a rock and you need to come on out and get some air. Times have been tough in the Calandro house before: the toughest was when Max was born: we went down to one income and John had gone back to school to get his Masters. It wasn't pretty around here, just like it's pretty ugly in a lot of places right now.

Out of this difficult time, we created a wonderful family tradition: Friday Night Pizza Night. It all began when John got a bread maker for Christmas. (That year I got a jigsaw - we're not real big on gender specific roles here at the Calandros.) Anyway, we started making our own pizza dough with the bread maker and it was better than any dough we could purchase. We started making pizza on Fridays because it gave us something to look forward to as a family every week. Everything came to a screeching halt for Pizza Night. We got a movie from the library (because it was free), got a bottle of two-buck-chuck (do the math), and made our own pizza for a fraction of what it would have cost us to get it delivered to our door. We all watched the movie together, breathed a big sigh of relief, and celebrated making it through another week, and it only cost a few dollars. All our other meals are consumed at our kitchen table, but Pizza Night happens in front of the TV. This distinction makes it very special and something for our boys to look forward to.

Through the years, pizza night became "Pizza Night" with initial caps because it deserved that status. Our three boys know it as the benchmark of the week. Miles, our three-yer-old, doesn't know the days of the week yet and will ask all week long, "Is it Pizza Night?" He lets out a big,"Hooray!" when we finally answer yes to his question. All our family knows about Pizza Night and will schedule visits to either be a part of the tradition or avoid disrupting it. Friends honor it and love being a part of it. Some friends get "Pizza Night Cravings" and call us up when they need a fix. Family and friends are always welcome and as we say as the Calandros: once you've been here for Pizza Night, you're family.

Now Pizza Night has been taken to a new level thanks to Panasonic and their Living in HD program. Now Pizza Night is PIZZA NIGHT. It deserves to be in all capital letters because our set-up has made it unbelievably AWESOME! The movies we watch on our 1080p plasma screen television are better quality that we see in our local movie theaters. The sound is incredible and you can't beat the convenience. The combination of the clarity capacity of our TV and our blu-ray player quality is unbeatable. Even our DVDs look better when played through the blu-ray player and displayed on our TV.

We feel so lucky and spoiled. We probably shouldn't admit we're a little sad at the end of the evening when we turn off our TV and head downstairs to watch Letterman on our dinky little television in our bedroom, but we are sad. Our set-up is that good. I guess the good news is our TV gives us a reason for getting out of bed in the morning so we can go upstairs to watch it! Okay, that's extreme, but it is beautiful. John says he wants to hug our television. Until you see it, you would just think he's wacked.

With our fabulous Panasonic set-up or just our old TV, PIZZA NIGHT has become the stuff of legend for the Calandros. It gives us the opportunity to come together as a family and mark the passing of another week. We celebrate with family and friends depending on what is happening for all of us. It is grounding to have a tradition every week our children can rely on, no matter what. We hope our boys will grow up and remember PIZZA NIGHT on Fridays. We hope they know how much we love this tradition and how much we enjoy creating it each week with them.

If you're ever in San Luis Obispo on a Friday night, you probably won't see us downtown at the local movie theater. You'll see us at our own home theater, munching on home-made pizza watching a movie, thinking about how good it is to be here on a Friday. Heck, let us know you're in town, and you may even be invited to attend. And then, as I mentioned before, you won't just be a stranger passing through town, you'll be family.

Four big boxes

Our contact from Panasonic called us about a week and a half after we had found out that we had won. He explained the program to us:

We are family 39 and they are adding more families throughout the year. We would be asked to participate in weekly surveys and would be encouraged to use and share our equipment. Panasonic really is interested in knowing what we think about all of the equipment we would be receiving and would use the information we provided to improve and enhance future products. The entire family is encouraged to use all of it and we are expected to report the good and the bad.

A few weeks later, we finally had a date set to receive all of our equipment. Before the equipment was shipped, we participated in a family pre-interview that asked about our family, our viewing habits, our use of technology, and how we thought things would be different when we got the equipment.

To be honest, at that point, it was really hard to imagine...What would it be like to have all of this new equipment in the house. When my wife and I sat down to think about it, we realized it was very rare for us to buy the best of anything (mostly because we can't afford it). Here we were, about to receive not only all of the technology that I had ever wanted, but it was the best equipment there was- and we were getting all of it...at once...and it was all going to be installed!

A few weeks later, Here is what we saw:

Four big boxes- The TV (WOW!!), a big mystery box simply labeled "39 Calandro ", some speaker stands, and another long box...The box was delivered while I was at work. I had to sit through a rather long meeting knowing that it was all there...waiting... My wife was kind enough to wait for me!

Needless to say, the boys were excited.

And were dying to see what was inside the big box, which contained a ton of stuff!

Like the video camera (note the stunned look on my face- not my best look!), the receiver, the speakers, two digital cameras, power strips, cables,

the Wii (the boys' favorite thing!),

and a big bag of other stuff- cables, SD cards, blu-rays, Wii games!!! Wahoo!

The youngest, of course, just wanted to play with the box from the computer.

The excitement was beginning to peak...We opened everything up and charged all of the batteries so we would be ready for the installation....