Thursday, April 11, 2002
Let me tell you a story...
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 11:51 AM
When I was on the Mobile Experience Tour last year, we had several Pocket PC Fan Fests across the country. The concept of a Fan Fest was simple: it was a Microsoft sponsored event with free food and prizes, but it was only for Pocket PC owners. At every stop we had presentations and a partner area for people who didn't own Pocket PCs, free food, drawings for Pocket PCs, etc. The Fan Fests were parties for people who wanted to hang out with other Pocket PC owners, get shareware software and content from laptop "beam stations" we had set up, get help from the "Pocket PC Doctor" if they had questions, show off their gear and custom modifications, and trade Pocket PC war stories. The goal for me at these events was to make sure that everyone I talked to learned something new about their Pocket PC, or left with something to improve their Pocket PC experience. It was a party for the fans!
I always had a great time at every Fan Fest - I got to meet developers like Alex Kac from WebIS and Judie Clark from The Gadgeteer. The best part was meeting the people who used their Pocket PCs every day - these were the people who knew the ups and downs of the platform, and it's always fun to show them a trick to make their experience better. Back to the story...
We had a Fan Fest in San Francisco last year. Several people who weren't Pocket PC owners wanted to come in, and someone politely turned them away. Anyone who had a Pocket PC was let in. During the evening, I noticed something odd - there was a guy there who worked for Palm (I recognized him from a previous event), and he used a Pocket PC to get in the door then took out his Palm m505 to show people "something better". He wasn't there to share tips with Pocket PC owners, he was there to try and prove that his platform was better. He wasn't there to show Pocket PC owners ways to get more from their device, he was there to "educate" people on how "ignorant" they were being. It had all the tact of going into a Jewish Bar Mitzvah with a slab of bacon, preaching about the virtues of pork.
So which one are you? The person coming here to learn more about Pocket PCs and trade some war stories, or the person who has feels they have something to prove and wants to convince everyone that their solution is the "best"?
As a footnote, I should add that many months later I talked to that Palm guy one on one, and he's a nice person - but I still have no respect for tactics based on deception or crashing someone's party.
I always had a great time at every Fan Fest - I got to meet developers like Alex Kac from WebIS and Judie Clark from The Gadgeteer. The best part was meeting the people who used their Pocket PCs every day - these were the people who knew the ups and downs of the platform, and it's always fun to show them a trick to make their experience better. Back to the story...
We had a Fan Fest in San Francisco last year. Several people who weren't Pocket PC owners wanted to come in, and someone politely turned them away. Anyone who had a Pocket PC was let in. During the evening, I noticed something odd - there was a guy there who worked for Palm (I recognized him from a previous event), and he used a Pocket PC to get in the door then took out his Palm m505 to show people "something better". He wasn't there to share tips with Pocket PC owners, he was there to try and prove that his platform was better. He wasn't there to show Pocket PC owners ways to get more from their device, he was there to "educate" people on how "ignorant" they were being. It had all the tact of going into a Jewish Bar Mitzvah with a slab of bacon, preaching about the virtues of pork.
So which one are you? The person coming here to learn more about Pocket PCs and trade some war stories, or the person who has feels they have something to prove and wants to convince everyone that their solution is the "best"?
As a footnote, I should add that many months later I talked to that Palm guy one on one, and he's a nice person - but I still have no respect for tactics based on deception or crashing someone's party.
