Not Wearing Shorts
Set up day. The venue is really nice, but on the setup days they don't turn on the air conditioning. In a very public spirited gesture I was not wearing shorts (anyone who has actually seen me in shorts will agree that this was a pretty public spirited thing to do) but it did mean that I got rather warm.
The setup followed the usual pattern of moving from "How on earth are we going to fill six hours?" to "Oh my goodness, how are we going to get everything done?". David Grey did a sterling job of finding little bugs and glitches and the team did a sterling job of putting them right. We had some lovely customer/developer conversations, where the team tried to argue that a some of the behaviours were "features" not "bugs". If nothing else, this competition has certainly improved their debating skills.
Once we had got the software polished we moved on to the presentation. I don't think that the team thought they needed a rehearsal. Until they tried one. And then they kind of saw the light. There is a pretty good Mark Twain quote about the huge amount of time it takes to prepare a spontaneous talk and it applies in spades. We worked until we were fairly sure that we could work no more (always a good trick - otherwise you start to go backwards) and then we all went out for tea.
The food was interesting in a "you can see where all the bits came from" kind of way, but the parts that I dared to eat tasted very nice. In something of a recurring theme the aircon in the restaurant was turned off as well, which meant that by the end of the evening you could have made the coffee on our heads. The coolest part, if not in a temperature kind of way, was the fact that as we walked out on to the balcony we could hear Rolling Stones music. Being played by the Rolling Stones. They were giving a concert next door. I took a picture of the wall of the stadium and hoped that my imagination would do the rest. You wonder what motivates them to go out there and strut their stuff after all those years but if they enjoy it, and audience enjoys it (and it certainly sounded like that) then what the hey. And anyway I guess you can always use another private jet/villa in Gran Canaria etc.
The setup followed the usual pattern of moving from "How on earth are we going to fill six hours?" to "Oh my goodness, how are we going to get everything done?". David Grey did a sterling job of finding little bugs and glitches and the team did a sterling job of putting them right. We had some lovely customer/developer conversations, where the team tried to argue that a some of the behaviours were "features" not "bugs". If nothing else, this competition has certainly improved their debating skills.
Once we had got the software polished we moved on to the presentation. I don't think that the team thought they needed a rehearsal. Until they tried one. And then they kind of saw the light. There is a pretty good Mark Twain quote about the huge amount of time it takes to prepare a spontaneous talk and it applies in spades. We worked until we were fairly sure that we could work no more (always a good trick - otherwise you start to go backwards) and then we all went out for tea.
The food was interesting in a "you can see where all the bits came from" kind of way, but the parts that I dared to eat tasted very nice. In something of a recurring theme the aircon in the restaurant was turned off as well, which meant that by the end of the evening you could have made the coffee on our heads. The coolest part, if not in a temperature kind of way, was the fact that as we walked out on to the balcony we could hear Rolling Stones music. Being played by the Rolling Stones. They were giving a concert next door. I took a picture of the wall of the stadium and hoped that my imagination would do the rest. You wonder what motivates them to go out there and strut their stuff after all those years but if they enjoy it, and audience enjoys it (and it certainly sounded like that) then what the hey. And anyway I guess you can always use another private jet/villa in Gran Canaria etc.
posted by Rob Miles at
Sunday, June 29, 2003
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