Connected to Panasonic

It has now been almost a month since the Crazy Calandros went to CES and were wowed by Panasonic, their incredible products, and personable family of employees. The experience will go down in our Calandro Family History as the stories are told and retold. However, this little anecdote takes the entire journey to a new level of service and dedication. This is a story of when a little bit goes a long way:

A few weeks ago we received a very discrete letter from Panasonic. The return address was pre-printed on the envelope with the words "Panasonic Ideas for Life". It looked like it could have contained anything, but what was inside was anything but ordinary. It was a thank you letter from Yoshi Yamada, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Panasonic of North America. He thanked us for appearing on the CES 2009 Main Stage as a Spotlight on Ideas speaker. He told us we contributed "a new level of extremely relevant information" with our appearances. At the end he simply said, "I know this kind of commitment of your valuable time was a challenge, and I truly appreciate your making it happen."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? Panasonic flew us there, gave us money for food, put us up in a hotel room for five nights, and celebrated my son's birthday as if he were a member of their own family and HE is thanking US! Sure, organizing the five of us to appear onstage every day and getting to and from Vegas was no small task, but we never dreamed of getting this kind of acknowledgement for our efforts.

Plain and simple: Panasonic gets it.

Mr. Yamada, in front of everyone who is reading and listening: we thank you. From the bottom of our Crazy Calandro hearts, thank you. Being with your company and your employees at CES gave us the opportunity to connect with a brand in a way we never thought possible. Everyone we met and talked with cared about us and what we had to say. Panasonic was interested in our opinions; we mattered. As humans, we instinctively want to feel like we are important, like we belong. Everyone at Panasonic listened to us when we talked about their products or even when we were just talking about our lives back in San Luis Obispo. For that, we thank you. We thank you for working tirelessly to link your philosophy to your consumer and the Panasonic products. Your company's vision was presented to us every day: you care about the people using your products and you want Panasonic to improve people's lives. Your personally signed letter following our trip demonstrated the importance of us to you.

That's the part you got completely correct, Mr. Yamada: you and Panasonic have improved our lives more than you can ever know. Tonight John is relaxing in front of our awesome TV and I am blogging via our laptop while sitting at my kitchen table. Tomorrow I will be taking our youngest son, Miles, to his first day of preschool. At night we will all gather in front of the TV, insert a little SD card in the slot on our television and our whole family will share in this momentous event in HD. Four months ago these occurrences would have been drastically different in our home and far less enjoyable. Thank you Mr. Yamada and Panasonic. Your "Ideas for Life" have made ours absolutely wonderful.

Momming with a Brand

The connections that were created at CES between the Calandro Family, Panasonic, Mom Central, and Crayon were fantastic and beyond what we could have hoped. I'm excited for one of our blog readers to be the proud owner of a Panasonic videocamera and to start Living in HD. Simply click on this link to MomCentral.com and follow their directions for a chance to win. It will certainly change your life as all of the products have changed ours. Good luck and good videos!

Take a look at our other posts to see what Living in HD has done for us. And remember, Panasonic is looking for other families to Live in HD. It could be you! The experience is incredible! You can enter at http://www.livinginhd.com/.

What you didn't see at CES

The Consumer Electronics Show was nothing short of phenomenal. I know that it is an industry show, and primarily to promote what is new and what is next, but one thing struck me as odd- the consumer was missing.


Oh, sure there were plenty of people there and probably some people who were just there because they want to be in the know, but it was mostly the press, people from the industry, or people who were trying to sell/demonstrate their products.

Every display space was jammed with amazing technology and someone there to demonstrate all of it. There were plenty of movers and shakers in the industry presenting their slice of the electronics world. The Panasonic space had all of this, too, but they had something that no other booth or vendor had: The Calandro Family. What makes us special? Nothing, really, except for one small thing- we are the consumers and our opinions matter. At least they do to Panasonic. Our opinions were important enough to them that they put us on their main stage every day during the CES so that anyone could hear us. (You can too here: http://www.panasonic.com/promos/CES/2009/video/index.asp?id=7 )

The Living in HD program is amazing because we were given phenomenal equipment. The Lumix cameras, the Viera 1080p plasma with Viera Cast, the surround system, the HD camcorder, and the Toughbook laptop. We have used the heck out of all of this equipment (I recently had to clear off the hard drive on the laptop because I filled it up with video from the camera, pictures, etc...). One of our responsibilities to Panasonic is that every week we fill out a questionaire asking about how we used the equipment, what we liked and disliked about the equipment, what changes we would make, and what else we would like the equipment to be able to do.

While our family was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, every Panasonic executive we met was interested in how we were enjoying the program. They really wanted to know what we thought of their products. Many of them were aware of my responses to the weekly surveys. They had seen this blog, they had looked at the content we had added to the http://www.livinginhd.com/ website.


All of the people we met whether it was Jeramie Maxwell- Sales/Training Support Tennessee Region, Carol DiStaulo-Media Director, Tom Murano-Director of Brand Management, Bob Greenberg- Vice President Brand Marketing, Robert Perry-Executive Vice President, Peter Fannon- Vice President Technology Policy, or even the Chairman of Panasonic North America Yoshi Yamada were not only kind to us, they all were truly interested in what we had to say. They cared enough about who we were to wear buttons that celebrated our son's 6th birthday, and they were excited that he was living it in HD!

Whenever we were talking with these people and all of the other fantastic Panasonic employees too numerous to list here, we were listened to. Our opinions were valued. To each of these people, we represented the consumer, but even more importantly, we represented the human beings who use their product.

Panasonic cares about us as human beings. The whole idea behind the Living in HD concept is that they want to know how people will really be using the products that they are putting out there. Our opinions matter, and they should. It is refreshing that a corporation as large and as global as Panasonic recognizes that the voice of the people is important and by listening to the people, they can create products that will enhance and improve the life of their consumer.

With the world being noisier than it ever has been with blogs, cell phones, the internet, and media of all types, it is a pleasure to be heard.

What you didn't see at CES 2009 was the consumer- except for in one booth: Panasonic.

It was an honor to be there representing you, the readers, consumers, and families, and an honor to meet the fine people at Panasonic who care about what we have to say.

Matthew lives his birthday in HD

After our press conference with Panasonic, we went out to dinner with The Pollak Family (you can see them at http://livinginhd.com/ ), Tom Murano, Greg Harper, and Carol DiStaulo. We were honored to be there and again amazed by how warm and accessible everyone is. The people at Panasonic are wonderful (as I've said on my blog before).

After dinner, we were whisked into another room filled with some of the titans of social media: Joe Jaffe, Greg Verdino, Chris Brogan, Steve Garfield, Jim Reilly, Melissa Pierce, Stacy DeBroff, Vicki Rellas, and Ponzi Pirillo, (you can read more about it at their blogs!), and Bob Greenberg (above), the VP of Brand Marketing. Matthew handed out his "Happy Living in HD Birthday Matthew" buttons to the room.
It was an honor to be in the same room with all of these people. We all went around the room and introduced ourselves. I do have to say that Max brought the house down when he stood up and explained why he was there. "I'm Max Calandro, I'm 9 years old and I'm here because my dad won the living in HD contest and Panasonic asked us to come and represent them at the CES." It was clear, accurate, and eloquent. We couldn't have been more proud!

Thank you Panasonic! We are looking forward to day 1 of CES!

CES Day one in the Panasonic Booth

Wow! We are still coming down off of our first day at CES. The Panasonic booth is ginormous! Booth is definitely a misnomer, acreage may be more accurate! On the main stage is a 150" Plasma screen- one of only 4 in the world created by Panasonic... It is amazing- Matthew was calling the 60" screen next to it "the small screen"! We saw so much there!:

Completely Wireless HD tv? They got it.

A selection of 1" deep screens? Yep

LCDs with incredibly deep blacks? They nailed this one!

A remote control with a touchpad to navigate any type of screen with ease? You bet! (I want one sooooo much! Unfortunately, there is no market date for this yet!)



They had great speakers throughout the day- Here's Joe Jaffe talking about how companies need to realize their consumers talk to each other and that the community voice can be much more powerful than advertising.

And here's a picture of Eileen and Max on the 150" Plasma as partof the Living in HD video! Awesome!!! We went on stage later that afternoon to talk about our lives in HD! We are having so much fun.

Also, we got a chance to see 3DHD. It was absolutely amazing. The mvie clips they showed in 3d were impressive, but even more amazing to me was the footage of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics...The clarity and depth truly made it a brand new totally immersive viewing experience. The sporting events that were filmed in 3D were incredible. Watching a basketball being passed to another player and being able to see the depth of the pass completely changes the dynamics of the viewing experience. If this is the way tv is going, SIGN ME UP!

I think Miles (age 3) summed it up best when we were looking at scenes of the drumming from the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I was holding him and it got quiet for a second and I heard a quietly whispered "Awesome!"

That about sums up our day. There is more amazing stuff to be seen and more fun to come. I'll try to post some video of our interview yesterday when I get a chance!

Happy reading!