Nadyne's unofficial guide to working in a booth at Macworld Expo (part two)
Each day of MWSF has its own special flavour. If I were in a coma for three weeks, and then woke up and found myself in the Moscone Centre working at our booth, I'm pretty sure that I could tell you which day it was within twenty minutes. They're all easily identifiable.
Monday
Okay, Monday actually isn't a day of MWSF, at least not for most of us. Monday is set-up day for the show floor. It's pretty cool to watch all of the booths coming together on the show floor. If you go onto the show floor that day (to help set up or to pick up your spiffy new MWSF gear for when you are working the booth), you get to experience first-hand the Apple booth before the show. It is always completely shrouded in black curtains, and there are big burly guards ready to bounce your head off the floor if you come too close. Don't hope that you can get a sneak preview of what's coming in the next day's Stevenote by walking by the booth — you won't.
Tuesday
Tuesday is simultaneously the best and worst day to be an exhibitor at MWSF. You're an Apple fanboy, too, so you were up at oh-god-o'clock to queue up to try to get a seat in the Stevenote. By the time that the show floor opens after the Stevenote, you've been awake for at least eight hours. You won't notice this immediately, because you're euphoric after the Stevenote. Everyone else is euphoric after the Stevenote, too. The attendees are walking around in a bit of a haze. The questions that they ask you in your booth are either immensely easy ('do you support Tiger?') or directly related to the Stevenote ('so do you guys support [whatever it was that Steve just announced, and you didn't know in advance because you're not Steve] yet?'). Even if your answer isn't a positive one, no-one gets upset because you're in a great mood and everyone else is in a great mood.
Around 3pm, you suddenly realise that you've been up for more than twelve hours, and the only food you've had was half a doughnut because someone was passing around a box while you were queuing up for the Stevenote. But you can't just go back to your hotel, order room service, and sleep — you've got to figure out how to get into one of the MWSF parties that night. I believe I'll be dancing to Devo that night.
Wednesday
Wednesday is probably my favourite day to work at MWSF. Everyone still a little bit euphoric from the Stevenote, but they've settled down. Everyone's had 24 hours to think about the implications of the Stevenote, and possibly even run over to the Apple Store on Union Square to buy the latest and greatest. Wednesday's questions still tend to be centred around whatever was announced during the Stevenote, but they're more in-depth now.
If you're giving demos, Wednesday is a great day. The people watching are all paying close attention, and they're going to ask great questions afterwards.
Today is the day where you realise exactly how slammed the Starbucks nearest the Moscone Centre is. Thankfully, there's one just a couple of blocks away, across the street from the W (which is my MWSF hotel of choice). You'll find me there getting a coffee on Wednesday morning.
Thursday
Thursday is the most challenging day to work MWSF. Thursday is the day where you get all of the hard technical questions, not to mention all of the off-the-wall questions. For staffing the booth, you need a solid mix of newbies (so that they have the chance to hear the hard questions) and experienced people (for being able to provide the long in-depth technical and historical answer to the question).
You'll also get all of the old-skool Mac people on Thursday. Some of these people are trying to test your Mac cred. If you haven't been on the platform since the Apple ][, you're a hopeless n00b. If you're in the MacBU booth, Thursday is the day when you get all of the Word 5.1 Plus Ten requests from the old-skool guys.
Thursday is also feature request day. Be prepared for it. Take a look at your feature request list and get your answers ready if someone asks you about it. You won't be able to predict all of the feature requests you get that day, but you can probably predict the top ten. For the requests that you weren't able to predict, ask lots of detailed questions about why your user wants that feature. You'll learn a lot about the unexpected ways that people use your app by paying close attention to their answers, which in turn will help you make a better product for them in the future.
Thursday is the day when you realise that Macworld is almost over. There are many parties that night, starting with MacBowl. If you can't bowl (I can't), go to cheer. It's hugely fun. From there, head out to one of the big parties. Trust me, it's worth it. You want to be able to say goodbye to all of the people that you won't see until either WWDC or MWSF next year, since you won't be guaranteed that you'll run into them on Friday.
Friday
Friday is kind of relaxed, but not quite. You have some leftover hard technical questions from the previous day. You also get some people who are scavenging for extra goodies. If you've got extra swag, you've got a good chance to get rid of it instead of having to take it home, but be prepared for the pushy ones.
For the record, my favourite MWSF Friday deal is the Aspyr booth. They usually offer their games for half-off on Friday. It's when I pick up Sims expansion packs.
If you're an exhibitor, walk the floor on Friday afternoon. Swing by all of those booths that you wanted to check out earlier in the week but never found the time. Exhibitors experience a comraderie of sorts on Friday afternoon — it's a 'we made it!' feeling. Compare notes about your most outrageous booth visitors. It's the most relaxed day of MWSF.
Comments
Anonymous
January 03, 2008
The "Word 5.1 Plus Ten" link isn't working (or at least not for me). And regarding new products/feature requests: all I want to know is, did <a href="http://www.backupbrain.com/2006_12_17_archive.html#a004989">my bug</a> get fixed? Oh please, oh please...Anonymous
January 03, 2008
Fixed the link, thanks. :) No clue about the latter.Anonymous
January 03, 2008
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January 03, 2008
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January 04, 2008
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January 04, 2008
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