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Since turning over the reigns as editor-in-chief to Ed Hardy last fall, I no longer get the chance to attend any of the industry conferences and trade shows. Sure, I still travel a lot, mostly for speaking engagements at colleges and universities, but no more Comdex and no more CES. But with Ed on his way to Paris for ten days of culture and French cuisine, I packed my bags and headed to San Francisco to cover the PalmSource Developer Seminar.
Now we typically don't do this style of reporting, since we don't prefer to think of ourselves as a blog. But this time I've decided to share my personal trip diary with you, mainly to offer an inside peek at what Ed and I really do -- and see, and smell, and taste -- at these fetes.
Again, it's not something we do very often here at Brighthand (we prefer to limit peeks behind the curtain), so let us know if it's something we should continue to do, or skip it and stick to the meat and potatoes of news and reviews.
Ready? Here goes.
Packing for these trips is a chore. Not that it's difficult, it isn't. But it's extremely confusing. Do you take a laptop, or a PDA and keyboard? Do you pack a book for the long flight, or will you be seated next to an off-duty flight attendant deadheading to her next locale? (No book required, in that case.) And what clothes should you bring? This ordeal is what I dislike most about traveling. I've learned to tolerate the coming and going, and I thoroughly enjoy myself once I'm there. But it's the packing that kills me.
I arrived in San Francisco from Tampa (via Houston) hungry and cold. All those years in the hot and humid South have obviously thinned my blood. And standing outside for an hour in the wind waiting for the shuttle to the hotel didn't help matters. Fortunately, Dan Royea, a developer who also writes for PalmInfocenter, showed up at the same time and we managed to pass the time trading notes on the Zire 71 and Tungsten C. Being from Vancouver, Dan didn't seem to notice the chilly wind. I, meanwhile, shivered like a Chihuahua.
Once at the hotel in San Mateo, I bumped into Jen Edwards...literally. Despite having worked together on Brighthand for more than two years, Jen and I had never met. We'd talked a lot on the phone and exchanged emails, but nothing face-to-face. Ahh, the ways of the modern Internet world. For those of you unfamiliar with Jen, she's goes by the handle PalmGoddess and has written and moderated for Brighthand for several years. Jen, Dan and Hal Schechner of PalmStation, along with several others, including ace Brighthand moderator, Jennifer Shelamer, are members of the Palm OS User Council, which advises PalmSource and its licensees on issues in the handheld community.
At five o'clock I made a mad dash for the Caltrain to San Francisco to attend the secret Tapwave launch party. Caltrain is a commuter train that runs from San Jose to San Francisco, stopping in places like Palo Alto, Stanford, and Sunnyvale in between. I wasn't quite sure about the logistics for this whole trip so I didn't rent a car. Big mistake. When I found out that a taxi from the hotel in San Mateo to San Francisco would cost approximately $70, I settled instead for the $3 Caltrain ride.
The Tapwave party was held at Sno-Drift, a funky little club in the Mission area of San Francisco. It's all black inside with the exception of piles of, you guessed it, fake snow here and there. I tried to make my way to the back room, where the Tapwave presentation was taking place, but it was packed. So I ordered a cosmopolitan (Grey Goose, of course) and struck up a conversation with Tim Twerdahl, Tapwave's senior product manager. Tim was genuinely excited, and proud, of what they are doing at Tapwave and gave me a complete run-down of the Helix's specs. Tim had worked for Palm on the Tungsten T but confessed that he is happier now with Tapwave.
I also met Joyce Morrell, another former Palmy, who's now Tapwave's director of developer programs. Joyce actually had a Helix and gave me a ten-minute hands-on demo. Everyone in attendance I spoke with agreed that the whole Tapwave thing could succeed. The problem is capital. It's extremely difficult for hardware companies to get investors nowadays and Tapwave is no exception. Still, two VCs in attendance, one with a $700M fund, told me that they were very interested in funding Tapwave.
Before heading out into the night air to catch the train back to San Mateo, I tossed back a couple more cosmos, which I've discovered may actually be the cure for cold weather. ;)
The tricky part of the whole East Coast/West Coast thing is adjusting to the time difference. I notoriously find myself waking up at 4am and becoming an absolute party-pooper by 10pm. But getting up early did allow me to have a big breakfast in the hotel restaurant, snag my press badge for the seminar on time, and get a front row seat for David Nagel's keynote (which you can read about here).
One thing I failed to mention in my article on the keynote was that Brighthand moderator Will Lau, who is gainfully employed in New Zealand as one of the brains behind Snappermail, received the Best of the Best award for Snappermail. Congratulations, Will!
After the keynote I perused the exhibits, getting an opportunity to see the HuneTec device for the first time. The key to this BlackBerry-like device is its pervasive, and cheap, network access -- we're talking $15-$30 dollars a month through WebLink Wireless.
I also ran into Shawn Barnett, Palm OS editor for Pen Computing magazine; Andrew Eisenberg of Handheld Media Group, owners of PDA Buzz and Handheld Computing magazine; and Kenny West, founder of PalmGear. These are three guys who have my utmost respect, having made significant contributions to the handheld community and having survived the ups-and-downs of the industry and the economy.
PalmGear, in particular, has emerged from its troubles with a new focus and new management, including Brighthand guest editorialist Ted Ladd, who's now its VP of Sales. Developers I spoke with at the seminar were pleased with the direction PalmGear is headed, which includes a cool new site redesign that's coming soon.
After touring the exhibits and listening to a few sessions I rushed back to my room in hopes of writing it all up, touching up some photos, and posting it all on the site. But ten minutes into my work there was a loud crack and...no power. Two hours later, with my iBook down to 20% and darkness upon us, I called down to the front desk. They had "no idea" when power would be restored but offered me Glo-Sticks to "make my stay a pleasant one." Thirty minutes later and the power was back on but by that time I was exhausted (that time difference thing again) and could barely finish the story on the keynote. Well, there's always tomorrow.
This morning I met with David Nagel, President and CEO of PalmSource. We spent more than an hour, one-on-one, discussing industry topics. I found him to be pleasantly open and candid and was caught totally by surprise when he thanked me for all the work we've done on Brighthand. He admitted that "the overall level of enthusiasm and passion" in the Palm community is "incredibly uplifting." I agree. (You can read more about my discussion with David Nagel here.)
I would have liked to spend another hour with David but needed to catch another train, this time out to Milpitas to visit some folks at Palm headquarters. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures while there although I would have liked to take a few of their "history" room just off the front entrance. It's like a walk back in time. One question I never could get an answer to was regarding the origins of the Zire 71 name. No one seems to know. Although someone did tell me that it simply "sounded good" in research they conducted. OK.
Two hours later and I was back on the train. This time I was in a rush to get back to the hotel, clean up, and hop another train to SF to meet someone for dinner. You see, I met a young woman at the Tapwave party and decided to mix a little pleasure with business. She's a budding star on the SF art scene, working out of her loft in the day, covering cool events for Iconocast's Michael Tchong by night.
We shared an incredible dinner at Chez Papa Bistrot, took in the breathtaking views from atop Potrero Hill (see picture below), and ended it all with cocktails at Bacar. (Thanks for showing me around the city, Beth.)
Then, what else, another train back to San Mateo with a 4:30am wake-up call to catch an early flight back to Tampa, where I arrived at 10pm on Thursday.
All in all, an enjoyable trip, and at the risk of sounding cliche, I guess you can say that I left my heart (well, maybe just a tiny shivering bit of my heart) in San Francisco.
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