1 June 1999

I think it's been nearly a year since I was in Munich. The last time was with a Sun Technology Tour. This time Sun is supporting the Oracle iDeveloper99 Conference tour. I'm speaking about Jini on this tour. It's a twelve city tour, of which I'm covering eight of the cities on behalf of Sun -- all but the Asian cities. It's quite a bit warmer here this year than it was last year -- at least to my recollection. But that doesn't stop the developers from coming to hear the latest messages from technology firms.
The Java Business Expo in Madrid was very well attended. I didn't get the chance to address the audience of business people that I thought I would, as the show was running over time, something had to be cut, and my presentation was it. I felt a little snubbed for a minute, but quickly came to realize that the show managers were doing the best thing for their audience and as such, I was there to serve them. I did have the opportunity to address some 1,500+ the following day, at least half of whom were developers, thus satisfying my need to speak. All in all, the Madrid event was quite a success. As was the Oracle event in Munich. There are just a hand full of Sun personnel here, but Oracle is well represented. I think they drew 700 engineers over the two days of the show.
Tomorrow morning I leave for Antwerp for a few days and then off to London for a week. I'm not quite at the half way point of this particular trip, and frankly, the allure of travel has pretty well lost its luster for me at this juncture. I can imagine nothing more satisfying than spending 6 or 8 weeks straight, at home in New York, evangelizing as best as I can from there, eating meals at home or at my favorite neighborhood haunts, working out at my gym, running in my Central Park, riding my subways, walking my sidewalks, and simply enjoying my town. I could do that for several months without traveling and I believe I would still be quite happy -- perhaps I'd get the itch to travel again. I don't know. I do know I'd get the itch to evangelize, to be sure. The travel is starting to take its toll, but I am reminded of Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." The final stanza of the poem reads:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Technical difficulties have been a theme on this trip so far. In Madrid the Windows95 partition on my laptop decided it was time for me to reload Windows -- but I don't generally travel with a Windows CD in my bag. Fortunately, I also have a Linux partition on my laptop and was able to mount the Windows slice and mess around with it enough to get it to limp along.   I'm writing this entry on the Windows side now, and managed to make my presentation yesterday using it. So I think I'm out of the woods until I get home at least. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
And today, I was helping the keynote speaker from Sun by demonstrating a new product we've released called iPlanet.net, a Java/HTML based virtual private network interface into a company's proprietary applications, email and data from any internet connected terminal. It's a pretty cool product, really, and something I actually use every day when I work at home in New York. But during the download of the mail utility, the system froze -- once again, it was a Windows laptop. Not mine, one of my cohorts. But a Windows laptop nevertheless.
I made a few jokes about it probably being the operating system, made sure the audience knew from inference that it was a Windows-based system, and turned the focus back to the keynote speaker, who continued while the technical aids scrambled to help get the problem fixed. I was on stage, under the bright lights, maybe 500 people in the audience, fumbling around with a Windows laptop, trying to establish the internet connection and coming up short with the clock ticking.   The system was still running -- it was just that no data was coming through the ISDN line.
Finally, it occurred to me to check the physical connections to the router. And when that didn't fix the problem, I did what I do at home when my network access goes south and the system is still running: I cycle power on the router. And what do you know -- that fixed it. I don't know who manufactured the router, and I wouldn't say if I did. But the router had locked up. Once it rebooted, internet access was once again easily established and I was able to finish the demo.
I've never been a fan of technology demonstrations during presentations, at least not during my presentations. I'm one of those people who needs to focus on my audience and my presentation, which leaves little mental bandwidth for working a demo. Also, I have difficulty walking and chewing gum at the same time, so for me to work a demo during my own presentation is tantamount to impossible. Plus, it's been my experience that the Peter Principle holds true, for the most part, when it comes to technology demos: If something can go wrong, it will. Just as today it did. Now maybe it was my own belief that gave rise to the router failure. Maybe the expectation of failure brought it about. I do believe that we manifest our reality, and the very basis for manifestation is belief itself. So maybe it was me. Ultimately we recovered, though. So in the end, it doesn't matter. And I know at least some audience members got the idea of the product as I was asked a lot of questions by several engineers afterward. Engineers are very forgiving that way.
So tomorrow, Antwerp. I'll speak there on Thursday and help with the demo again on Friday. And then London the following week. I've heard it said that public speaking is something that most people truly fear -- it's right up there with "fear of death" for many. I've never understood why, because for me, speaking for an audience is invigorating and quite fun. But demos, doing demos in public, now that's another matter all together. I understand that fear now. Because I have two more audiences to face in Europe with a technology demo, knowing that something may very likely go wrong.   Speaking is the easiest thing in the world for me. But demos scare me to death. So I guess I'm not out of the woods yet. :)