Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
This series of postcards for ADC Kentrox was designed to coax telecom engineers into a trade show booth. Each direct mail piece contained another chapter of a hard boiled detective story designed to amuse and communicate some key networking messages.
The Case of the Stranded Bandwidth
He appeared without warning in my office doorway, his face a mask of pure terror.
"Are you Nicky Fixx, the Technology Investigator? I need your help. I've got a...a private line problem."
I motioned him into a green leather chair and pushed the door shut with my foot.
"What's eatin' you, kid?"
"My name is Donald Bisden, and my bandwidth is stranded. How do I get it back?" This guy was in big trouble. I had to get him on the right virtual path.
Bisden sputtered out a familiar story. "They hit me over the head with a big chunk of SONET pipe, and now all that bandwidth is gone. You won't call the traffic police, will you? Those QoS guys are murder when they enforce a contract."
"Nah, I won't squeal. You can fix this yourself, all you need is a little more muscle. Let's get you outfitted with an ADC Cellworx STN so you'll have a simplified, integrated network manager for all service types."
"Wow." His face lit up with a new confidence. "You mean I could provision bandwidth on a per-need basis and statistically multiplex user traffic over a virtual path?"
I was feeling pretty good, knowing that stranded bandwidth was as good as rescued. But there was no time to gloat -- suddenly a scream shattered the afternoon calm.
(to be continued)
Results?
By the time the second postcard arrived, customers were calling to ask when the next one would be mailed. The marketing department framed the original artwork and hung it in the coffee room.
And so many people showed up in booth 1424 of NetWorld +Interop 2000 that ADC sales staff ran out of registration cards. They wrote the extra contact names on note pads.
