The Westin Taipei is hosting the conference down in the bowels of the building; literally two escalator flights down from ground level in an underground ballroom. In stark contrast to the night before, the place is buzzing with 100's of people jostling for space in the foyer.
Ticket prices are rock bottom and sponsors are everywhere – Sony, HP, BEA, Apple and others all pitching in. It’s a different sort of vibe to say something like MXDU. MAX Taipei is more seminar and less event; not that this is a bad thing, just different. The army of MAX staffers is impressive – no shortage of folks to help out, as long as you speak Chinese. There are a around 600 visitors for day one.
Looking for a familiar face we stumble across a sleepy Chafic in the crowd. No catering in sight with the exception of Nescafe coffee (literally from sponsors Nescafe who had a booth dealing out blend 59), I make a quick dash for the local café. Would you believe it’s a Starbucks? (I swear the franchise is like a persistent fungus reaching into every crevice of humanity – but beggars can’t be choosers) I return with a round of café latte grande Taipei style.
The keynote plenary is dressed with chandeliers and flowers. Julie and I settle in next to Lorri and Jared Tarbel for the keynote and to reminisce about earthquakes and the joys of "shub shub". Jared's work is simply magical - I'm sorely disappointed that our timetables mean I'm unable to see his session on Hatching Computational Creatures. Maybe one year I’ll coax him down to Sydney for MXDU.
I don’t speak a word of Chinese, but there appears to be a fair bit of formality to open proceedings at the conference. Having drawn the short straw the night before, Gary Grossman gets stuck with the executive hysteria pitch on the power of Flash. For a guy who invented Actionscript in his spare time, Gary does a great job.
Mike Downey follows up with some sneaks on the upcoming Flash Player. It's hard to gauge the audience as their traditionally tight lipped and not prone to any sort of feedback. Chafic and I start to hoot and cheer at opportune moments in an effort to kick start the crowd, it works. They really are pretty excited about Flash – and who wouldn't be.
In the break we run out to get some translators. Every session has a booth at the back with several real time translators communicating to all the delegates through an earpiece. Yugop is up next and he's talking Japanese so I need as much help as I can get.
Sadly the translations are only from Japanese to various Chinese dialects. I amuse myself for a while trying to work out which language makes least sense. I can understand the word "Flash" in many different languages – it's as much as I can hope for.
Yugop has technical difficulties. Someone is running a new internet cable for him. It's a vaudeville act - they reach the podium and get yanked back. The cable is knotted and three feet short. Eventually up to eight people at once try their hand at cabling. It's a "Too many cooks spoil the broth" moment.
Once Yugop gets into full swing it becomes obvious why his work reaches cult status. I can’t understand anything he is saying but the presentation is inspirational nonetheless. The rest of the day is a blur; typical conference amnesia ensues. I have a good feeling.
Macromedia's man in charge of China is taking us out to dinner. Speakers are guests of honour. Mike Downey is very hungry again. We are going to eat up-market traditional Taiwanese. We are assured, "no shub shub".
Mark Blair is at our table. He's English and equipped with an iron stomach (not to be confused with an iron lung). Everything appears to be pork. It is a favourite in this region. Mark hoes into the dishes with little regard for safety. I decide that pig's ears are not pork in the sense of the word pork as I understand it. Mike Downey is still very hungry, but not hungry enough it seems.
Room service: club sandwich, coca-cola and a Ceasar salad.
Note to Antipodean readers..
Mark Blair joins Chafic, Mike and myself in Sydney next month for MXDU 2005.
Posted by modius at 09:13 AM | Permalink
Trackback: http://blog.daemon.com.au/cgi-bin/dmblog/mt-tb.cgi/260
