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Here's lickin' at you, kid
The speech was extreme fun and went very well. There were a couple thousand attendees in the hall, which was immense. The stage alone was big enough for half-court basketball and lit like a rock concert. My face and my slides took turns on five screens, plus the stage monitors. Pretty wild. Afterwards all hundred books at the Computer Bookstore booth immediately sold out, and I signed every one of them. A good quarter of the customers were from other countries. Hungary, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, U.K., Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Spain, Brazil. Bunch from Canada, too. Mostly programmers. Lots of business guys. IT managers. This speech was closer to stand-up comedy than any I've done so far, with the possible exception of the one I gave at the Buzz2000 event in San Francisco two days ago. I actually flew in and out of San Francisco from San Diego for that one, which was in a large room full of PR folks, with a smattering of journalists, and some who (like I used to do) spin both ways. No less than two people told me it was the best talk about marketing they had ever heard. And there was this, which came in the mail today: I am hard pressed to find words to tell you how significant and helpful your talk was for me. For the last year I have been trying to get my head around the question "what is marketing, anyway?". Because I come from a history of anti-war protests and my sports participation has been limited to long distance running, soccer, bike riding and volleyball, the marketing jargon and metaphors are somewhat difficult for me to embody and the whole process of attacking someone who you want to start a relationship with feels totally foreign to me. I will get a copy of Cluetrain so that I can discuss the issues a bit more intelligently with you. When I told my CTO... who is British - about your presentation and the grounding in history, he said, "this guy can't be an American". I claimed that you are American. Is there any specific explanation for your unusual posture? Thank you for helping those of us down in the trenches. You have had a big impact on me. To prove my citizenship and answer the unusual posture question, I offer as evidence the above photograph. Tomorrow I drive to Santa Barbara, from which I'll depart for two more talks in the next two weeks: one in Seattle and the other in New Jersey. All while working on a bunch of Linux stories, of course. More when I wake up.
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So I'm back from the 
