reflections on Macworld Expo 2009 (part one)

Compared to some, I’m a noob when it comes to MWSF.  My first was 2006, the year that the first Intel Macs were announced for consumers to purchase.  Most people seem to think of MWSF as being comprised solely of the show floor, where vendors (including the small company that I work for) show off their wares.  That is, by no means, the whole story.  There’s the conference, where Mac experts give seminars about their particular corner of the Mac experience.  Talks ranged from my talk about collaboration in Office 2008 to AppleScript seminars to mastering CS4.  

The show floor with its vendors felt different, as did the keynote.  The keynote was lower-key than those I’ve experienced before.  Traffic on the show floor felt lighter than it has in previous years.  Everywhere I went, there was a lot of talk about whether MWSF would happen, and what it would look like if it did.  

The conference part of Macworld felt the same as it has in the past.  The breadth, depth, and quality of sessions was what I expected.  I heard great feedback from attendees of various sessions that they really enjoyed it and learned a lot.  I know I learned a lot from the sessions that I got to poke my head into.  

Was the show really different?  Well, yes and no.  Things in our Office 2008 booth felt different (more on that in a different post), and the keynote was obviously different.  But the sessions were awesome, and all of my Expo friends converged on the great city by the bay.  We shared the usual stories and laughter about what had happened since we saw each other last year.  We shared an amazing amount of alcohol (what was that green thing?) at the parties and at Dave’s.  We learned a lot, from each other and from the other attendees.