February 29, 2008
my increasingly twitter'd world
[In case you haven't figured this out already:] Besides my blog and my e-mail account, the other main tool I use to communicate with the online world is Twitter [I don't really use Facebook anymore, but that's a story for another day].
The general M.O. these days is, I use gapingvoid for publishing my cartoons and my more permanent, "archival" written stuff. Twitter I use for the ephemeral, day-to-day stuff. Like the restaurants I'm eating in, the people I'm hanging out with, the bars I'm drinking in, or the blog articles I'm reading at the moment. And I'd much rather get a Twitter message from you than an e-mail, and I'd much rather send you a message on Twitter than send you an e-mail.
Yesterday, I joked on Twitter, "Note to World: If you're not on Twitter, I don't want to make friends with you." Like all humor, there is some truth to it. I find people who use Twitter much easier to communicate with, than with people who don't. As a result, Twitter has become the main engine I use these days for cultivating my social network. I'm not saying it's the best thing out there, I'm not saying it's the only thing out there, I'm just saying that it's currently working rather well for me.
[In Conclusion:] Twitter is now the best way of [a] keeping up with what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis and [b] getting my attention. So I hope you'll follow me on Twitter, and start using it yourself as well, if you're not doing so already. Thanks.
[PS. If you wish to borrow that wee "birdie" icon for your own Twitter needs or whatever, go right ahead. Rock on.]
February 25, 2008
"doodling for profits"
There's a great little article on the Businessweek website about the power of doodling in the corporate world. Steve Clayton, The Blue Monster and myself all get a wee mention.
In the fall of 2006, a group of senior European executives at Microsoft entered a meeting expecting to see a PowerPoint presentation. Instead, Steve Clayton—then the chief technology officer for Microsoft's U.K. Partner Group—showed them a hand-drawn image of an impish blue creature bearing gnarled fangs and sporting the provocative caption "Microsoft: Change the world or go home." After a few initial gasps, recalls Clayton, the attendees engaged in a lively discussion around the current direction of the company and the brand. "People liked the way it changed the angle of conversation," Clayton says.Rock on.
February 24, 2008
more notes from west texas
[The Chisos Mountains, down in Big Bend National Park. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
["Shot Tower", just over the Mexican Border, part of the Sierra Del Carmen. Photo taken from the Texas side of the Rio Grande, in Big Bend. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
It's been a lovely couple of days. I'm still in Alpine, Texas, here till Tuesday, then it's off to New York City for four nights. Here are some more travel notes, in no particular order.
1. Friday my dad and I drove down to Big Bend National Park, a 300-mile round trip. Dad is a geologist, so I got the whole skinny on the place. A stunning place. 800,000 acres. Lots of volcanic activity, it seems. Indeed. Dad tell me that, from a geology standpoint, Big Bend is one of the most interesting places in the country- far more so than say, the Grand Canyon or Monument Valley, which he describes as "geologically straightforward". The other thing is, Big Bend only gets 300,000 visitors a year, compared to 10million-plus for some of the other big parks. So you do feel totally away from it all.
2. On the way back we stopped at Terlingua Ghost Town, which was a very trippy place, just in the shadow of Big Bend. It's an old abandoned mining town that has been taken over by lots of people living in trailer homes, old school buses and tents. Some people have taken the abandoned buildings and turned them into bars, art galleries and yes, even a small hotel. But it has this very alternative, tripped-out, end of world feel to it. Any further South and the terrain starts getting pretty hostile pretty darn quickly. Hundreds of square miles with, I kid you not, prickly pear cacti every three feet. They are really nasty and painful cacti, if you ever fall off your horse, though I'm told the fruit is delicious.
3. You want to know how nasty the cacti is down here? Yesterday I bought a hat from Sprigg's Boot & Saddle, the pace where all the local cowboys buy their gear. Not only do they sell real, working, leather chaps, the owner told me he also makes custom leather breastplates, in case the cowboy falls of his horse. Heck, they even make chaps for horses.
4. I am pleased to report that Alpine, Texas has its own microbrewery. I paid a recent visit there and yep, it's good stuff. As good as anything I've ever had on the West Coast.
5. At the brewery, I started a random conversation with the guy sitting over on the next barstool. Turns out the man was none other than John Armstrong, a prominent local citizen [He's currently running for District Attorney], and the owner of the winery I mentioned in my last post. So we had a good ol' talk about the wine business. I think his stuff rocks. Texas wine. Indeed.
6. Last night Dad and I drove 40 miles North to look at the stars at the McDonald Observatory, one of the largest in the country. The highlights for me were seeing the Rings of Saturn and the Orion Nebula through a telescope, plus with the naked eye, an astronomer pointing out to us the Hubble Telescope, moving through Orion- imagine a bright dot of light, 450 miles up, moving across the sky at 25,000 miles an hour. That was actually a very fun night out. Very interesting, groovy and laid back, though at 6,500 feet up, best bring an extra layer of clothing or two.
7. Alpine really isn't an oil town. Sure, if you go to the Town & Country convenience store at six in the morning, you'll see a group of about 100 people waiting to be picked up by the oil field work gangs in their pickup trucks, but the fields are more North of here, say, another twenty miles or so. Oil is more a Northern West Texas thing, than a Southern one.
8. I was talking to an old friend of my dad's, Kay. She's from around these parts- her dad is a rancher. Kay summed it up pretty well: "Everybody loves living around here. The trouble is, it's hard to make a living." Yep. I recently read online that the average income in Alpine is $26,000 per year. I guess with my internet thing going on, I'm not too worried about it. I feel extremely fortunate.
9. La Trattoria still has the world's best breakfast burritos. Yum. And they get their coffee from Big Bend Coffee Roasters over in Marfa, Texas.
10. About 12 miles due West of Terlingua, there's an upmarket golf course and spa called Lajitas, built right along the banks of the Rio Grande. One of the holes is actually built on the Mexican side of the border; I guess the local Federales aren't too fussed about it. I've never been, but I hear a lot of stories about it.
11. Part of me wants to buy an Airstream trailer and just go live out in the desert somewhere, in between my paid gigs. Drawing, drinking Shiner Bock and looking at sunsets. I guess we all get these hippie fantasies, at one time or another. Though the desert is an unforgiving place to anything that relies on water for its survival, there's something about it that makes you feel "very far away from all the bullshit". Which partly explains why this part of the world appeals to me. Though it may not be the most glamorous, wealthiest or famous place in the world, I haven't felt the need to switch on my bullshit detector since the day I got here.
12. Though this part of the world went into economic decline after the World War Two [like every other ranching culture in North America], I can already see it coming back, I can already seeing green shoots springing up. Sick and burned out of big-city life, people are starting to move to places like here, more and more. And they're bringing what they learned in the big city and applying it to a place more suited to their individual needs. Hence the trattoria's, the microbreweries, the coffee roasters, the art galleries and yes, the internet cartoonists turning up. And the internet and the global microbrand make all this even more viable, even more exciting. Alpine, Texas is no longer in the middle of nowhere; Alpine, Texas is in the middle of EVERYWHERE, if it wants to be. Rock on.
February 20, 2008
notes from west texas
[A still from "No Country For Old Men", which was filmed around Marfa, the next town over from Alpine, Texas, where my father lives. "There Will Be Blood" was filmed around here, as well.]
This is my sixth full day in Alpine. Here are some notes on my time here so far, in no particular order:
1. Alpine, population circa 6,000, is actually a pretty prosperous place as far as West Texas towns go. This is mainly due to Sul Ross State University, where my dad used to teach before he retired. Besides that, the main industry round these parts is ranching. 10,000 acres is considered a small ranch. Some ranches have over 200,000 acres.
2. My main daytime hangout in town is La Trattoria, a chilled-out bistro that serves as a coffee shop by day, with excellent, authentic Italian food by night. Owned and operated by Allyson Santucci [a great, strong lady], their website is here.
3. Evenings I don't go out much. I just stay in and talk to my dad. We've not seen each other in a few years, so it's a good thing.
4. I haven't been this chilled out and relaxed since.... ummmmm.... the last time I was in Alpine, September, 1999. Funny, that.
5. It's not official, and I'm just going to play it by ear, but I'm thinking of making Alpine my permanent US base. A lot depends on how many gigs I get this side of the Atlantic in 2008.
6. If I ever end up living permanently in the US again, it'll be here. Nowhere else.
7. "Located 3 miles East of Marfa, Texas on US Highway 67/90, the vineyard and winery are surrounded by awe-inspiring Desert Mountain Ranges. Our West Texas sunsets over the mountains are spectacular, and Luz de Estrella is perfectly positioned to take full advantage of them." Apparently this is the best wine made in Texas. They sell their wines at Whole Foods Market, all over. I visited their winery earlier today. I was impressed. Not just by the wine, but also the fact that they have real Texas Longhorn cattle on the property.
8. My father is a trained geologist. Since retiring from his teaching gig, he's been publishing his own books. He writes about the local geology. He actually sells a heck of a lot of them 'round here- simply because a lot of folk who visit here want to know more than WHAT the mountains and desert looks like, they also want to know WHY they look the way they do. And nobody does this better than my father. My good friend, Doc Searls, a geology geek, was reading his stuff even before he knew that we two MacLeod's were related. Backstory here. Small world.
9. Yesterday evening, after spending the afternoon working in the library at Sul Ross, I popped into La Trattoria for an end-of-day glass of wine. In the corner was playing a FABULOUS acoustic four piece C&W act, called The Doodlin' Hogwallops. Their MySpace page is here. All young men, I'm guessing the average age was about 26. The lead singer, Neal, was a REALLY talented musician. Seriously. His original songs were just as fresh and inspiring as the classics he also covered. Though I make no claims to be a particularly gifted talent-scout, I found their act a truly moving experience. I hope you'll check them out if you ever get a chance. I've already promised myself I'd tell certain friends of mine in the music business about them. Rock on.
10. Marfa, population circa 2100, the place made famous in the art world by Donal Judd, is the next town over from Alpine. Though it's not a town without its charms, and for all its newly acquired, art-world trendiness, it seems a lot more run-down than Alpine. I can see why the filmmakers like using it as a cinematic backdrop. For some reason there it's easy for a filmmaker to project "Godless & Bleak" through the camera lens, although I find the actual landscape in real life anything but. Apparently the New York and Hollywood crowd love to fly in there for the weekend, but weekdays I hear it's a bit of a ghost town. Earlier today my father and I visited the town for lunch. He knows a lot of people there, who sell his books. Vicki over at The Hotel Paisano springs most to mind. She's done a great job running the retail store there. This hotel, a local architectural landmark, was where James Dean and Liz Taylor stayed while filming "Giant", all those years ago.
11. They say you can always tell the history of a place by their most prominent buildings. In Europe, we're talking castles, palaces and cathedrals. New York we're talking office buildings. In West Texas, it's invariably the county courthouse. Historically, the establishment of Law & Order is a big deal here, and the more one knows of the local history, the less one is surprised. The Presidio County Courthouse in Marfa I find especially trippy, but in a good way, the same way I find Paris' Sacre-Coeur pretty trippy etc.
12. This part of the world is full of real, working ranches, and real, working cowboys. The latter are an impressive lot in real life- I would not recommend messing with them. They're a much different breed from the cowboy-hat wearing rednecks from my oil rig days, though I still hold lots of affection for the latter [I occasionally worked offshore in the Gulf of Mexico during my college days]. After all, cowboys physically wrestle with cattle all day long [a surprisingly strong, robust, and violent beast], so they're not exactly intimidated by us city-slicker or "Urban Cowboy" types, truth be told. Waiting in the coffee line at La Trattoria yesterday morning, in front of me was a young cowboy getting his morning Joe. Seeing a real cowboy ordering a caffe latte is a real disconnect, somehow. You can tell they're real cowboys five ways: 1. They're built like oxen on steroids, with hands the size of baseball mitts. 2. They're wearing spurs. 3. Their cowboy boots go over their knees. 4. They seem to have this uncanny combination of [A] a happily calm disposition, seamlessly mixed with [B] a palpable undercurrent of "I can, and will happily rip you in half, in less than three seconds, but only if I gotta". Not a bad combo to have. 5. They're surprisingly young. Like the movie says, "No Country For Old Men".
13. West Texan interaction is all about mastering two arts. [A] Being genuinely friendly and courteous, especially to women, children and the elderly. [B] Speaking with as few words as possible. You need to be able to do both, and do them well, or else they look at you funny. Again, not a bad combo to have.
14. A nice two bedroom house in this town goes for around $100K or so. In London, you'd be lucky to get a tool shed for that amount. For someone seeking increasingly high levels of solitude, I find the property market here sorely tempting.
15. The big tourist draw in this neck of the woods is Big Bend National Park, which I've never been to before. 120 miles South of here, Dad and I are hopefully checking it out tomorrow. Watch this space.
February 17, 2008
new york bartender allegory
[RE-POST: Originally published August, 2004]
A strange thing happens to New York bartenders when they hit the age of thirty: They suddenly realize they're never going to be famous.
Right up to the point where they were 29 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds old they are all absolutely, positively certain that their screenplay will be sold, their face will be discovered by a big stage producer, their paintings will be hanging at The MoMA, their photographs will be gracing the pages of Vogue etc. etc.
Then Boom! Within nanoseconds of the clock chiming Midnight on the morning of the Big Three-Oh, the dream is suddenly over. Crash. Burn. Dead. No more magic famemachine to lift their souls out of the lowly depths of bohemian hand-to-mouth living and into the higher realms of A-List parties and Central Park South apartments.
Of course, the first thing they do is panic. Holy Shit! I'm old! Despair! Despair! Utter Despair!
Then once the initial rush of fear and dread starts to wane, they decide it's finally time to grow up and do something serious. Goodbye, Dream. Hello, Sensible Adulthood. Time to stop working for The Man. Time to strike out on their own. Time to be a grownup.
They look around for ideas to start their own business. But like everybody else alive, their search is limited by what they know. Besides their art thing (auditions, gallery schmoozing etc), they've only really been in one business since dropping out of college a decade previously- pouring drinks.
Bartending is the only job they know. The drinks trade is all they know.
So late one night, Bartender One (who just turned thirty) is having an after-hours beer with a friend, Bartender Two (who also just turned thirty). They're both in mourning for their recently-lost youth. They are commiserating, trying to keep it in perspective, trying to focus on the positive. But now they're also talking intently, talking passionately, thinking seriously, they're figuring it all out, they've got to come up with an idea. They need a business idea. They need a plan. Suddenly...
Bartender One: "I know! Let's open our own bar!"
Bartender Two: "Yeah! Cool! Let's open our own bar!"
So they whoop and holler and dance around and hug each other, glowing radiantly in the sheer excitement of their new business plan.
Good thing nobody else in New York has thought of it yet.
hugh & the rabbi, episode 2
Rabbi Pinny Gniwisch of Ice.com, Marketing contrarians Johnnie Moore and Mark Earls, plus myself gathered together over Skype for our second "Hugh & The Rabbi" podcast. We started talking about "Influencers", in the marketing sense of the word. We ended on something far more interesting. A good time was had by all.The Minutes:
00.32. Today’s show is about “Influence”. How clients imagine that there are these secret “Levers” out there, and all a client has to do is sign a check to make the marketer magically pull it.
01.30 Mark: Talking about how things go from being minority popularity, to majority popular. One school of thought places high degrees of emphasis on reaching “Influencers”. Another school of thought places greater emphasis on a high degree of “Random Acts of Traction”.
3.25 Hugh: All a marketer can do is create lots of opportunities where “Random Acts of Traction” can happen.
03.35 Pinny: How can you tell me that you’re going to create an uber-widget for me, when you’ve already admitted that your one big success story came down to luck?
04.10 Mark: Who wants to go into a meeting with a big client and say, “Most of this, by the way, is just chance”…? Most of us want to say, “I’ve got the secret sauce that’ll give you the edge…”
04.40 Johnnie: Paradox: Being primates, we’re all hardwired for fair play. Yet we all want to be the one with the unfair advantage.
05.35 Hugh: “All is vanity.”
05.40 Pinny: Success is 5% wisdom, and 95% luck. If it were the other way around, we’d all be a lot happier.
07.00 Mark: On creating one’s own luck: The one thing the great minds of the Twentieth Century all seem to have in common was: a very petit-bourgeoise work ethic. “You have to be there, working at your desk, when a random act of Luck comes your way”.
08.20 Pinny: The ones that influence the world are the ones who show up; the ones who are there. Anyone can create a “Vessel for Blessing”, but you have to “be there” in order to do it.
09.00 The “Influential” model is most often touted by people who would like to be seen as “Influentials”, or at least, “Friends of Influentials”.
09.30 Mark rants about “Cool Hunters”.
10.00 Johnnie: Group behavior in assessing music varies WILDLY, depending on whether people in the group are being observed by other people in the group.
11.00 Johnnie: In marketing, the order of events we post-rationalize is much, much more random than we realize, let alone admit.
11.30 Mark rants on about the record business.
13.15 Johnnie: The futility of trying to out-think the market.
14.00 Johnnie: One has to be “in the moment” [to use the Buddhist phrase] in order to truly understand the market.
14.25 Pinny: Being “present” is what truly creates sustainability. That, and staying “humble”.
15.05 Just because Malcolm Gladwell is wrong, doesn’t mean Mass Marketing is right.
15.40 Hugh talks about Russell Davies: Successful brands don’t do “One Big Thing”, they do lots of little things.
17.00 Hugh talks about the “Blessing and the Curse” of when things go viral.
18.30 Mark: It’s far more sensible to try lots of different LITTLE experiments, than try to put all of one’s weight behind the ONE BIG IDEA.
20.05 Pinny: Companies have to be not top-down, or bottom-up in order to be creative- they must be “sideways”.
21.10 Johnnie: Companies have to be Peer-to-Peer [i.e. “Sideways”], not top-down or bottom-up. People find it hard to work together without hierarchies.
22.00 Hugh talks about meeting Tim Burton in 1989, and how he described directing movies.
24.00 Pinny: Companies that allow Peer-to-Peer will flourish. The dialog rabbis have with their congregants is much different than it was thousands of years ago. Far more peer-to-peer etc. "Over time, the big answers never change, but the big questions do."
25.00 Pinny: Kids are much stronger "consumers" than they were 100 years ago. Their questions get bigger.
26.12 Hugh: The reason Web 2.0 is so “charming” is that what drives it at its core, is a lot of young people, “Just trying to build and share cool stuff with their friends.” Apps are built around pre-existing relationships, not trying to create relationships. For their own sake.
29.30 Hugh and Pinny talk about the diamond business. “It’s not the rock that’s interesting. It’s that Tom and Jill love each other and are getting married, that is interesting”. Getting the product to “Transcend its own utility” is where the action is.
31.00 Mark talks about how Web 2.0 shows us so much about our real, “Social Ape” selves, not our “Scientific Marketing” selves.
32.50 Hugh talks about Euan Semple’s thesis about “Love” being the main driver of Web 2.0.
34.40 Pinny: The Five Levels of Mysticism. How as time goes on, we get deeper into the soul. Society is getting deeper in the spiritual level.
36.40 Mark talks about getting away from business being seen as a mechanical thing, towards something more based on “Belief”. The companies that excite us the most are not “just about the metrics”. People need “Belief”, both as individuals and as members of groups.
39.30 Hugh: “Sing like you mean the words.”
39.45 Johnnie tells a great story about the actor, Charles Lawton. “I know the psalm, but she knows the Shepherd.”
41.15 Mark tells a great story about a theater group. “Even when nobody is watching…”
44.15 Mark talks about the great 1973 Barbarians vs All Blacks rugby game, as a metaphor for achieving greatness.
46.50 Pinny tells a story about grabbing a dropped scroll while crossing the street in heavy traffic. A metaphor for “Always being on”. Being transparent means “Always being on”. Hugh: “When you’re in that state, you are in a State of Bliss, a State of Grace.”
49.43 Finis.
February 15, 2008
greetings from alpine, texas
[View of Apline, Texas from my dad's porch. Twin Peaks mountain in the background. Click on image to enlarge etc.]
[UPDATE: It seems my cellphone doesn't get coverage in West Texas. Please e-mail me if you're trying to get in touch. Thanks.]
I'm writing this from Alpine, Texas, where my dad lives. Hanging here for the next week or two. Hardcore West Texas, Brewster County. Miles away from anywhere, just how I like it [Movies like "Giant", "There Will Be Blood", "Dancer, Texas" and "No Country For Old Men" were all filmed 'round here... not to mention, the famous Marfa Lights.]. Blogging light for the next while. Off to NYNY after this. Rock on.
February 6, 2008
cartoonist for hire
[Me drawing cartoons at the ODC event. People hand me their business cards, I draw on them on an EMO overhead projector, so people see them being drawn live on a big projector screen, a few feet away. Very cool.]
1. I'm writing this from San Francisco. Microsoft has sponsored me to come over and draw some cartoons for them at the Office Developer's Conference. I've had a blast so far.
I got the gig through Kris Fuehr, who hired me last year to come to Redmond, back when she was still working for Microsoft. She's since left the company, and started up a new enterprise. Based in Seattle, she's basically my Microsoft handler. So anyone from Microsoft who wants to hire me to draw cartoons should talk to her. Thanks.
I'm really open to the idea of doing more cartoon stuff with Microsoft, if they'll let me. The more I get to know the company, the more interesting I find it. Maybe not so much from a technological perspective [I'm not really much of a techie, truth be told], but more from a cultural perspective. The culture is so vast and complex, as are their challenges, positive and negative, I find it all extremely stimulating. Besides that, I generally like the people meet there. Smart, nice and driven is a good combo, if you ask me. So if any Microsoftees are reading this, please feel free to spread the word.
2. I'm also available for cartoon commissions for other companies, as well. Again, talk to Kris.
3. I'm also available as a public speaker. Again, talk to Kris.
4. I'm also talking to other companies re. other consulting gigs, all to do with "Marketing 2.0" and how "Social Object Theory" applies to their businesses. Again, talk to Kris.
5. "Have Laptop, Will Travel."
6. Thanks Again.
leo burnett and microsoft
My old advertising buddy, Dave Everitt-Carlson, who started working at Leo Burnett in Chicago the very same day as me, countless years ago, just wrote a book about his expat adventures in Asia. One passage really got my attention:
During my time in Korea it was relayed to me that Burnett Chicago had a shot at the Microsoft advertising account. Having created icons for some of the most prominent brands in history, Marlborough, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s and the Keebler Brands to name a few, it seemed only natural that Burnett would desire the Microsoft name in their stables, not to mention the billings.I wasn't at that presentation, nor can I testify to the veracity of what Mr. Gates said, but it would've been would've been early 1990s [My office still boasted a working IBM typewriter back then]. One world ending, a new world just beginning, and the people caught in the middle not liking either side of the deal, much.As the story goes, Bill Gates visited the agency and was treated to a pitch owing to the spirit of P.T. Barnum. Creative teams showed storyboards, sang songs and put on a show extraordinaire, in keeping with the finest Burnett traditions. After the pitch Mr. Gates was reportedly treated to the customary agency tour, replete with aisle upon aisle of pristine offices looking more like those of a Japanese bank than an American creative powerhouse.
At the end of his tour I was told he exclaimed, “Excellent presentation gentlemen, but as I see it, you don’t use computers and that would make it impossible for you to understand my business.”
And now many I've spoken to are wondering if Microsoft is having the same problem I saw Leo Burnett having all those years ago. As fond as I am of the groovy cats in Redmond, hey, I was also fond of Leo Burnett once, and still am. Apparently Burnett has done very well these last few years by finally understanding that their business, like their clients, was now global, not American Midwestern. Rock on.
It's easy to say in a meeting, "The world is changing, and we need to change with it". And just as easy to get everybody in the meeting to agree with it. What's harder is what happens after everyone has left the room. When everyone has to worry about keeping their jobs.
Personally I am hoping Microsoft carries on happily for the next thirty years. Two things have to happen, as far as I can see:
1. Like the Blue Monster says, Microsoft has to get better at telling their story. In the grand scheme of things, that's actually not difficult, once you've REALLY decided to do that.
2. Microsoft's current schtick is, "Unless we can get 75% plus of the world's computer users buying our product, we're not interested." I think if they could change their schtick to, "Unless we can get 75% of the world's computer users LOVING our product, we're not interested," I think they will do just fine.
I know, I know, if the latter were easy...
This is why I'm watching the recent Microsoft offer to buy Yahoo with great interest. To me, this is not just about "Search" and "Taking on Google". Like I told Dave Winer after reading his wonderful post on the subject, "The thing that might save MSFT long-term is a massive infusion of Silicon Valley DNA. That's why I think they're offering Yahoo the $40billion."
All companies, no matter what the size, have a their own, unique cocktail of four different forms of capital- Financial, Intellectual, Technical and Cultural. Microsoft is relatively fine with the first three. But in the next few years, it's with Number Four that the really BIG problems AND BIG opportunities will show themselves.
[Update:] Another Burnetter I knew back then just e-mailed me: "I wasn't at the meeting either, but the story you reference is the story I heard."]
[Disclosure: I consult occasionally for Microsoft, like I am for this upcoming Office Developer's Conference next week.]
February 5, 2008
off to california on saturday for the office developer's conference
This Saturday I'm putting on my traveler's hat and heading for San Jose, California, for the Microsoft Office Developer's Conference, 2008.
Here's a page on the reasons people attend:
-Take a deep dive into the real world product and deployment experience and guidance about the Microsoft Office System products and technologies since Office 2007 came to market.I've been commissioned by Microsoft to basically walk around the place, talk to people, and draw cartoons. The doodling equivalent to Gonzo Journalism, I guess you could say.
-Expand your thinking by learning about Office Business Applications and how Office as an application development platform is revolutionizing the software development landscape.
-Learn key software architecture patterns for designing and building Office Business Applications.
From a personal standpoint, I like hanging with the Microsoft people. Because [A] they've got so much going on all the time and [B] they're very, very smart people, there's a lot for me to learn. I've already done the "Art" thing in spades. I like the totally contrasting, somewhat naive foray into tech.
There are rumors I might get to meet Bill Gates. That would be interesting.
Then I'm off to Texas for a week or two to visit my father, who I've not seen for a while. Then I'm in Las Vegas for Mix '08 in early March.
I'm really looking forward to being back on the road again, after a month or two off in Cumbria.
I seem to have two sides of my personality. One is the hyper-social side, where I get on a plane and meet and talk with lots of people, again and again.... then I burn out and head back to Cumbria, and play recluse for a while, and recharge my batteries.
James Joyce once said that a writer needs three things- Silence, Exile, and Cunning. I suppose my Cumbrian-Globetrotting mix is my way of achieving exactly that. Rock on.