The stereotype of a software engineer is a person who sits alone, in a dim domain, staring at a glowing screen of cryptic code. Indeed, I know many software engineers who would be much more at-home in that dim domain than they would be in the bright lights and crowded aisles of Macworld.
I'm not (always 
) that stereotypical engineer. Over the course of my career, I've had the good fortune of being asked to speak at a number of podcasts, trade shows, and conferences. More than that, I am the stereotypical fanatical Macintosh user. When Mindjet offered me the opportunity to meet with potential customers AND visit the Macworld expo, I jumped at the chance.
My visit to the conference came at the cost of having to "work the booth" shared by Mindjet and AEC Software. My job was to meet potential customers, demonstrate the Macintosh version of MindManager for them, and be on-hand to answer any technical questions that came up. On my off-hours, I could explore Macworld and take in all that the show had to offer. I couldn't wait. On Wednesday I showed up early to help set up the booth, eager to get started.
Over the course of my day I got to meet dozens, if not hundreds of fascinating people from all walks of life. I demonstrated MindManager for Architects and Lawyers, Bankers, Graphic Designers, and even fellow Software Developers (many of whom were as interested in how the program is written as they were in what it could do). Of all the demonstrations I did, the first one, and the last one stand out particularly strongly in my mind. Oddly enough, both involve a pair of a father and son traveling the show together. The first was an older gentleman and his grown son, the last was to a father and his eight year old boy.
When the expo hall opened, and people began visiting the booths, the first father and son pair came striding purposefully up to our booth. I was intrigued because it was obvious that they had sought out our booth as one of their first stops at the show. As it turns out, the son was already a MindManager user and wanted to show his father the software. I began by asking the father what he did for a living.
"I'm a retired CEO", he said, "but I'm sick of being retired so I'm starting a new company and need some help getting things organized. My son says you can help."
In my mind, I saw a flash of some really big shoes and me desperately trying to fill them as quickly as I could.
Demonstrating the application to someone as focused as a ex-CEO is challenging. I launched into our pre-arranged demonstration of the software, but before I had gotten too far, he stopped me. He wasn't interested in the concept that our demo was based upon (it concerned creating a film). He had just told me that he wanted to start a new company, why didn't I show him something about that?
We started a map about the new company he was starting. Our custom presentation became very interactive. I would show some of the features in MindManager, and he would interrupt at key points to ask questions. The questions he asked were remarkably adept at getting to the essence of what I was trying to show. Each question also invariably lead us to explore a different part of MindManager. In the end, we had covered the product in surprising depth, and very quickly! I had a new appreciation for the intensity and drive it takes to be a CEO.
For his part, I like to think that he learned how MindManager could help juggle the array of details he needed to manage. When his questions turned to volume discounts, and licensing issues, I was happy to pass him along to our Product Manager for those details. After the first demo of the day, I must admit to feeling a bit drained at the intensity of the interview. At the same time I was elated that it had gone so well. It was a difficult start, but I was ready for the next person to stop by.
None of the interviews that followed had the same intensity of that first one, but I had already learned the value of fitting our pre-arranged demo to the needs of the people that came by. By the time the day was winding down, I got to take that idea and turn it into what was, undoubtedly, the most fun presentation I gave that Wednesday at Macworld.
At Macworld, just about every booth has something to give away. You can get keychains, pens, mouse pads (mice pad?), and brochures. At our booth we had some Mindjet pens, and some stickers. We were also running a fun game. If you wore one of our stickers around the show floor, and one of our reps saw you, you could win a Mindjet baseball cap.
As the show was winding down for the day, I noticed a father and his eight year old son wandering down the aisle. The young man had a big plastic bag and was visiting each booth to see what kind of trinkets he could get into that bag. When he got to our booth, he asked (very politely) if he could have a pen. I started to give him a pen and a sticker and to explain how he could win a hat. After a half a moment's reflection, however, I decided that this kid needed a hat. I asked our booth chief it would be OK so we got the boy a cap.
Next, I asked him if he would like to see MindManager. He looked at his dad who said "Well, they've given you a hat. You had better see the program."
We sat the boy down at one of the demo stations and I started up MindManager. We talked for a moment about the kinds of things you could do with MindManager. Between the two of us we decided that we could use MindManager to plan his summer vacation. I asked him what he liked to do when he was not in school. "Play trains", he replied. So we put "Play trains" on the map.
After a while we had three or four of his favorite activities on the map. I showed him how you could change the colors and shapes of topics and gave him the chance to play with the map. He turned the "play trains" topic blue, and splashed different colors across the other topics. He made the central topic a large circle, and showed him how to pick a picture for the background.
Next, I showed him, and his father, how you could assign dates to the various activities. "Play Trains" was scheduled for the entire summer while a visit to the local theme park got a special weekend in mid-May. We gave the activities priorities which set off a round of applying various markers (and images) to every topic. As you might imagine the "Smiley" markers were a particular hit.
In the end, I didn't want to keep these two from their trinket hunt so we stopped mapping. But before I let them go, I exported the boy's map as a PDF, and e-mailed it to his father's account. I have no doubt that the kid got a lot of cool toys at the conference, but I like to think that that the Map was probably the only one created himself.
I'm amused by the way my Macworld experience was bracketed by the two father and son teams. It gives a very rewarding experience a poetic twist that I quite enjoy. The real value of the experience comes from knowing that MindManager has the potential to help people that have very different levels of experience and very different goals in mind. If Macworld has taught me nothing else, I've learned how important it is that we take the time to make our product both powerful and easy to use. It might not be prudent to make eight year olds the focus of our next release, but if we can empower younger kids without sacrificing functionality, then there is value in doing so. Besides, if we can get the eight year old interested in MindManager when he's in the second grade, what might we be able to do together, when he's the CEO of tomorrow?