The CAOG is the California Association of Germany. I managed to attend their biweekly Networking Evening and lecture last Thursday. The ensuing dinner at the Renaissance Hotel Bistro was pretty good. Connexion by Boeing sponsored the evening, which was a first for the CAOG -- this means that all members got a free dinner and three drinks. Membership is currently €25 a year and this dinner was certainly enough to amortize that cost. There were people there from consulting agencies, lawyers, US Dept. of Commerce office people (who rent space from the US Consulate), translators, event agency people -- I've never gotten so many business cards in such a short time! And of course that's the point, that's why it's called the "Networking Evening". The information in the presentations is useful for anyone planning to do business in the US or Germany. Probably applicable to other countries as well, really. This past Thursday, for instance ...
...we heard Ulrich Flamm from Connexion by Boeing tell us about how some airlines now offer wireless internet access for your own laptop. In the plane. In flight. No, it doesn't interfere with the flight instruments. They retrofit planes and put in five access points and a satellite antenna, which is constantly automatically readjusted during flight to keep it pointed at the closest satellite. Boeing works with Lufthansa, other airlines are coming on board, more routes -- but not every travel agent can tell you which planes will have this service. That has to be negotiated with the flight reservation computer agencies, which demand a fee for every extra field in the database! Right now the website (connexionbyboeing.com) can tell you which routes on which airlines have the service. Make sure your firewall etc. are all up to date before you take part, as security will be your own responsibility! Members of the CAOG receive a discount of %12.5 on the service.
11.Nov.2004 is the next Networking Evening, when Wolfgang Tittmar will introduce his marketing agency, MACS. (They created the CAOG website.) He will describe the differences between American and German marketing strategies.
"TripleD" Dave Dowdy is the CAOG president, and I keep running into him at places I go -- he was a past chair of Munich's chapter of Democrats Abroad, the boss and founder of the Munich Used Bookshop (English books!), etc., and of course his own consulting company TripleD!
The CAOG is also active in Frankfurt, taking the place of the California Trade and Agency, which left Germany in 2003. The presenters for future Networking Evenings are listed on the CAOG website.