89 North News

ASCB 2009

Cool Light Sources — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:10:46 +0000

The ASCB 2009 meeting starts tomorrow. One interesting tidbit is that Twittering is banned at the meeting. I am really unsure why that is though I plan on finding out.

We will be having our party on Monday. This is a big opportunity to put our little company on the map. I will try and keep everyone updated on what is happening during the show.

Until next time…

Everyone works at SfN

Cool Light Sources — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:03:31 +0000

We take all hands on deck seriously here.

2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded

Cool Light Sources — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:28:09 +0000

Congratulations to Drs. Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak for being awarded the Nobel Prize for their ground breaking work on telomeres. For a description of what telomeres do and why they are so critical click here.

Updates to the 89 North Website

Cool Light Sources — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:00:10 +0000

Well, we’re back. Sorry for taking so long between posts since I know that many of you hang on our every word

When we last talked, we were just finishing up the EMBO meeting. Now, we are getting prepared for the Society for Neuroscience meeting to be held in Chicago, Il. The booth is in and looks great. Just waiting on a few other items and we will be ready to go.

We are incredibly excited for this show. We will have an early prototype of our new light source as well as some new products that we will begin to sell that will nicely complement our existing product line. Stay tuned for some announcements about these exciting additions.

As the title of this post suggests, we have made some changes to our website that are now live. Some are obvious but the vast majority of them are “behind the scenes” changes designed to both allow us to better serve our customers and to add more update content as we continue to grow the site. For example, we have updated our contact and support pages. Now when you contact us through these pages, it will be automatically entered into our new shiny CRM system, allowing better and faster service on our end.

Well, that’s it for now. Stay tuned for more changes over the next few weeks as we get ready for the show.

EMBO on Tuesday

Cool Light Sources — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:07:40 +0000

Well today is the last day. Things have picked up nicely over the last day and a half, at least during the time there is anyone in the exhibit hall. We have made some good contacts and have received a positive response from some of the local dealers. That was the purpose of this trip so, mission accomplished.

We have also seen some fairly strange and interesting things here. One example is that in the Men’s Room at the conference center, there is a condom dispenser. Not sure a scientific meeting is where a condom machine would be the best placed.

In a restaurant we ate at on Sunday, there was an amazing staircase to go upstairs. It was almost like a spiral ladder. Not to be taken after a few drinks.

Finally, here are some images of Amsterdam from our trip. We head home tomorrow. It will ge good to get home.

How to stand out in a crowd…

Cool Light Sources — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:27:46 +0000

Check out http://www.bioopticsworld.com/index.html. It’s a new ad campaign and the first of what we hope to be a series of these short snippets. Let us know what you think.

Monday at EMBO

Cool Light Sources — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:55:35 +0000

Well, yesterday was slower than we had hoped. The layout of the exhibit hall is not conducive to drawing people into the exhibits. Not much can be done now but live and learn for next year.

Last night we had a nice dinner at a small place not far from the hotel. Good food and cold beer. Always a winning combination. The restaurant has a cat that when it want to leave the restaraunt, it goes to the second floor window above the outside seating area and jumps down into the road. If you could see the way people drive here, you would realize that this cat must have far more than 9 lives. Don’t get me wrong, the cat could easily get out of the front or side door of the restaurant, it simply chooses the window.

We did have a few interesting visitors to the booth, including a possible advertising opportunity in a series of very good journals. We shall see how that progresses.

Hopefully, today will be better but at the very least, we were able to hand out some fliers and have people see our name which is what it is all about now.

Hold on, there was a customer siting in the next aisle. Got to go see…

Sunday AM at EMBO

Cool Light Sources — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:54:04 +0000

Getting ready for the first full day of EMBO 2009. Sunday mornings are quite the contrast here in Amsterdam. The chaotic symphony of bikes, motorcycles, cars and people fades to a quiet calm. Rather peaceful. I hope the show today contrasts that with swarms of folks looking for product.

The show has been a bit slow this morning. A few people with reasonable interest but not as many as we would have liked. The Poster Sessions are this afternoon as well as lunch, both of which happen in the exhibit halls. Hopefully that will help. We’ll see.

On another note, it is clear that either the furniture here is not that well made or I put on too much weight this trip as I have now broken 2 of the 3 chairs in the booth by simply sitting on them. I tried to blame it on poor quality construction. Jeff doesn’t buy it. In fact, he doesn’t think that the lunch staff should server me for my own good and the good of the rest of the furniture at the exhibition hall. He’s probably right.

EMBO 2009

Cool Light Sources — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:45:10 +0000

We are setup and ready to go. I’ll be providing regular updates during the show so stay tuned.

Anne Frank Museum

Cool Light Sources — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:30:41 +0000

We visited the Anne Frank House today. For those of you who don’t know, this is the actual house where Anne Frank hid with her family during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam in WWII. I was not prepared for the power of the exhibit. In school, I learned all about Anne Frank and the atrocities that the Nazi’s committed during WWII but that always was learned and taught with a sense of detachment. Here, we got to walk though the movable bookcase that hid the secret annex and see the actual diary that this courageous little girl wrote in with such amazing clarity and purpose. Walking through the exhibit, walking though here room, seeing the images on her bedroom wall brought a sense of realism to it that I nor many of those in my generation had ever felt before.

I cannot help to think that if all of us could show the courage, determination and spirit that she showed in the face of the terror around her, we would all be much better for it.