UPDATE: My friend Andrew Wilkinson who worked at the Delicious Monster booth has posted a bunch of his photos from our trip
here. I have also posted a bunch more photo
here.
I am back from a really great week at
Macworld in San Francisco. I met a ton of great people and introduced
Delicious Library to hundreds of new users.
On Monday we all flew in and spent the whole day setting up our booth. When we got to the show floor there was a huge 800 lb. crate with the booth I had designed but never actually built. It took us about an hour to figure out exactly how everything was supposed to fit together, but once we got going things went very smoothly.
I got up early on Tuesday and went to the
keynote (you can see me in the stream at 44 minutes, 30 seconds). Apple had given me a VIP pass so I got to hang out and talk with a bunch of great people right next to the keynote doors. I got a great seat right in the middle of the room about 4 or 5 rows back (right behind Al Gore). After the keynote I went over and talked with Al Gore for a second offering him a free license to Delicious Library and handing him my business card. I also chatted with Robin Williams (the actor) for a second and also gave him a free license and my card.
Right after the keynote I went down to our booth and worked all day selling Delicious Library. We became and instant hit on the floor. People kept on coming by saying, "My friend told me I HAD to come over and look at your booth". Our booth was packed for the entire show, with thick crowds of people lining up to hear about the software and then lining up to buy it. We had a self checkout store that I had designed set up on our demo iMac and it worked out perfectly. I would demo Delicious Library to someone and if they wanted to buy it (most did) I would just slide there credit card, the store would come up full screen, they would select the library package they want (with the scanner or just alone), and then an official Delicious License Certificate would come out from the side of the desk. People loved it. By the end of the show it looks like we sold enough licenses to pay for our expenses and then some.
On Tuesday night I got invited to this party celebrating the launch of
Andy Hertzfeld's new book
"Revolution in the Valley". The party was a lot of fun. A whole bunch of people from the original Mac team were there including Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson,
Susan Kare, Bud Tribble, Chris Espinosa, and oh yes...
Steve Wozniak. Everyone at the party got a free copy of the new book and I quickly started circulating the room gathering signatures and getting to know these guys. I went to give Steve Wozniak a free copy of Delicious Library but it turned out he had already bought a copy. I had a lot of fun chatting with Susan Kare, the artist who did all of the original Mac icons and fonts, she told me she is still in the icon design business but enjoys doing 1-bit icons for the challenge. Susan signed my book and drew me one of her most famous creations, a happy Mac.
At Andy Hertzfeld's party I also met Leander Kahney, author of
The Cult of Mac who is also a Wired.com reporter. We talked for a few minutes and I mentioned he should write an article on Delicious Monster. The next day he called me up and we met for lunch and talked about an hour for an
article he posted a few days ago profiling our company.
On Friday I went over to
Pixar for a tour and lunch. I got to meet a bunch of their animators and the director of
Monsters, Inc. (a proud Delicious Library user). One of their animators brought up a scene he had done from
The Incredibles, the one where Elasta-Girl gets stuck in all the doors. He showed me how their software worked and how they manipulate and animate the characters. It was fascinating. After he was done showing me how he did that scene, you better believe I gave him a free Delicious Library license. The Pixar building and campus was REALLY nice - designed by the same guy who did the Apple stores. The main area in the middle of the building is like a HUGE Apple Store, all nice and clean, then you go into the "Animation Pods" and it is like Disneyland. Everyone had built false fronts to their offices - one was a wester saloon, one a Japanese hut, another had an old wooden bookcase in the back that what was really a hidden door into the "Lucky 7" gambling room. I also got to go into the "Love Lounge", a small hidden room found in one office that was converted into a little lounge with the walls coated ceiling to floor in famous signatures.
Now that Macworld is behind me I am ready to get back to work on our new software. We have some really cool stuff in the works.
In the VIP waiting area before the keynote
Waiting for the keynote to begin behind Al Gore (the bald one)
Oh fuck... What do we do with this huge crate??
Ahhh, that was not too hard (6 hours later)
Drew Hamlin (support engineer) hands a new Delicious Library user his official Delicious License Certificate.
Sinbad, just the latest in a long line of celebrity Delicious Library users.
Delicious Monster booth staff left to right: Jeff Rooney (designed our website), Tim Omernick (programer we recently hired), Me, Andrew Wilkinson (friend)
The Incredibles defend the Pixar lobby.
