Travel Update, Dec 7 and 8

With the When 2.0 conference completed, my focus turned to the other meetings I had arranged for Wednesday and Thursday in California.

First up on Wednesday morning was a meeting with a Californian-based law firm on collaborative infrastructures. It has been a long running user of Documentum eRoom standalone, and had some questions over its direction, with an especial focus on eRoom vs. SharePoint. We had a great discussion over about 5 hours.

My next meeting was down the train track a bit. I tried to get a taxi to where I needed to go, but after ringing about 7 different companies with no success, I hopped onto the CalTrain and then walked to where I needed to go. The chief marketing officer ran through their ideas about a forthcoming calendaring service, and I asked a range of why/how/why not questions, and gave feedback from my perspective. It was a good meeting, culminating in dinner at a local bar.

I had to go up-state a bit for my Thursday meeting, and was planning on taking a cab. When I was informed that the price would be close to $300, I elected to take the CalTrain into San Francisco, and then catch a cab from there. It worked fine, but meant that from the point of being dropped at the train station in Palo Alto, to getting where I needed to be over the Golden Gate Bridge took something like 2 hour 40 minutes of travel. I hadn't quite budgeted for all that time!

Thursday morning dawned fine, albeit after a fairly short sleep (due to watching Braveheart for the first time, and then being unable to get to sleep until 2.30am). I visited with a vendor planning some collaborative extensions to an in-market product, and again responded to their ideas, asked why/why not questions, and generally had a great time. Thanks to Mike and team!

With my meetings all completed, it was time to hit the cab back to the San Francisco airport (the T-Mobile WiFi network was awfully difficult to use), catch a plane to LAX, and wait for my New Zealand flight. After landing in LAX, I met up with Isaac Garcia of CentralDesktop, and we talked market place dynamics, product strategy, and other good stuff. I'm looking forward to the various goodies that Isaac & team have up their sleeves.

There was no business class upgrade on the way home, so I settled in for a long flight. Thanks to the lack of sleep the night before, I was able to get about 7 hours of sleep in a row. Not too shabby! I also got to read one of the more recent John Grisham books I had missed.

There was no Friday, so I landed in Auckland at 6.05am on Saturday morning, and then waited for a flight back home. I acquired a bunch of flowers for my lovely wife, a bag of M&M's for each of my sons, and a single red rose for Susanna (18 months). The gifts were gratefully received, although Susanna took one look at the rose, saw what the boys had received, and felt rather short changed! It is good to be home.

Thanks to all who made my trip last week such a rewarding and pleasant visit.

Comments

[Daniel Taylor]

Years ago, I made my first trip to Silicon Valley, and I made the same mistake of thinking I could get around the San Francisco Bay Area on public transportation. After taking two hours to get from Santa Clara to Palo Alto on a combination of light rail and CalTrain, I knew there had to be a better way.