UGN Info Manager UGN Info Manager
Tuesday kicked off the show itself. (There were Pro Conference sessions on Monday.)
Thanks to Bostom traffic, I was late getting to the show and was unable to see the Feature Presentation, hosted by David Pogue with panelists, Jef Raskin, Andy Hertzfield, Bill Atkinson and Jerry Mannock. All of the panelists were members of the original Macintosh development team and the presentation was a "Celebration of 20 Years of Innovation." This particular presentation was available on DVD and I ordered a copy for my personal viewing and perhaps the viewing of a couple of the groups to which I belong in Texas.
The first thing I did was head to the User Group Lounge, where Andy Ihnatko was doing a Q&A session with user group members. He mentioned that IDG appears to be looking at doing stronger conferences and not emphasizing the Expo as much. He also speculated on a multimedia iPod.
From there, I went down to the floor to make my first quick trip around. After almost an hour, I returned to the UG Lounge to listen to Bob LeVitus talk about the state of the Mac and the show. He mentioned a portable JBL speaker for $99 he saw on the floor at the Harmon Multimedia booth. I later looked it up. It does look like a terrific product along with another one for $50 more that has a similar form to the Airport base station.
Tuesday night was the User Group Soiree. Once again traffic didn't cooperate with us and I was late getting down the turnpike to the event. But then we took a wrong ramp and went to Logan Airport, circled back to the Callahan tunnel, missed a ramp there and wound up in Chelsea before finally getting it correct and getting to the restaurant. Until Boston finishes all the highway construction, roads will be continually changed and it will be difficult to get around via automobile on the Interstate. However, Raines Cohen formerly of BMUG, John Barnes who was a conference leader on the UGF on AOL, and a few others had made it to the restaurant before I got there. Unfortunately, they decided to leave before I got there as well. Jim and Ellen Alguire of San Diego joined me later after they left a party for Expo exhibitors. They were at the show to represent Microsoft in the Apple Specialist's booth.
Wednesday, I saw Dennis Sellers of MacMinute in the MUG Lounge. He indicated that they would be looking at expanding services at MacMinute. Dennis has "Reporter's Notebook" looking back at this show and several others.
As expected, David Pogue had the largest audience at the UG Lounge. He started to talk to us about "Ten Technologies" that will dominate your life in the next decade, but quickly got side tracked to the topic of an upcoming show he is to do on July 18 on CBS Sunday Morning News. It covers electronic voting machines. He covered it for us in his normal entertaining style and then quickly went over 8 of the 10 technologies.
Wednesday evening, was the "Mardi Gras" party featuring the Macintosh All Star Band. This was the 12th time in 5 years that they have played together. (According to Bob LeVitus.) They and the audience had a great time. This was the first time that someone had one of these pay for admission parties. Although the previous ones run by Your Mac Life required that someone sponsor your admission by buying tickets in multiple blocks. Perhaps next year, Ilene can get back into the party business.
On Thursday, I spend more time on the floor and then attended a meeting with the show management in the UG Lounge. This was another first, where they asked what we liked and disliked about the show. Another first I discovered was that they had done a MUG tour to promote the show. They indicated that they felt that the shows final attendance records would be about where expected at 10-12K. Last summer, they started counting attendees by registration rather than having someone at the gate counting people as they enter. That of course greatly inflated attendance since nearly everyone goes into the show multiple times over the 3-5 days of the show.
I felt that this show was still pretty good, even with the small vendor and attendance numbers. It was possible to actually talk to the vendors instead of being pushed aside by other attendees. Additionally, the vendors also agreed that they approved of the way things were going. It was however, thanks to stages for music and the "Geeks & Gadgets" one of the noisiest shows ever. The presentation of "the Notorious Ballet MŽchanique" was one of the worst. In a booth, the Berklee School of Music was doing a presentation on setting up a home recording studio. The two areas really competed for our ear drums.
In a future article I want to talk about some of the vendors, but one thing I would like to do now is ask if you attended, what did you think of the SpyMac booth. I felt it was one of the most unusual booths I have ever seen. What is your thoughts?
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