Macworld 2011

Wow. 60 video segments at our booth. Several more shot by my bloggers, plus lots of posts waiting to flow into the site... An unbelievable amount of hustle for people who basically got paid in food (like an independent movie crew). It was like a dream. Pity Macworld seems to be shrinking, or at least not evolving as it should, but I remain hopeful.

The people at TUAW are truly remarkable. Dave Caolo is a warm, funny, kind and caring man and I think his kids are incredibly lucky to have him. Dave also worked his ass off. Mike Rose is the same superhuman dad plus his years of show experience made this thing go as close to clockwork as was possible with our limited resources. Mike Schramm, as always, is a freakin' machine with posting, scheduling and keeping on task. That guy has a huge amount of hustle. Steve Sande is an alarmingly patient and witty guy who managed to stay on his feet the entire time and still knock out a ton of work. David Winograd also hit the floor like a beat reporter on a mission and I thought his passion for his job put many younger bloggers (who have all since left TUAW) to shame. Brett Terpstra, as always, was genius and wound up writing, coding and meeting some of the people who he's deserved to meet for a LONG time. Kelly Guimont is some sort of mutant superhero, I think. Whatever mind ray she possesses managed to keep us all together and make me sing karaoke.

Also, a couple of special guests joined us. One, Shawn Boyd aka Doc Rock is one of the most amazing people I've met in my life. I'll talk more about him at a later date because now I have a reason to visit Hawaii. Just for that one motherfucker, yes. I also met Andrew Tokuda, whose work I have admired for years without realizing. He's a cool cat.

Then there's a slew of peers I either reconnected with or met for the first time. Chris Foresman, for one, surprised me with creative awesomeness. It's always good to see Dave Hamilton, Jeff Gamet, Ken Ray, David Chartier, Shawn King, Paul Kent... my brain is going numb and I'm likely to leave people off this list (like Peter Cohen, who I really wish I'd had more time to chill with), but there's the thing -- there's just too much to digest now.

I'm typing this at the airport before my flight on 4 hours of sleep. Last night I did two hours of karaoke, the 2nd time I've ever done karaoke EVER (and the 1st barely counted).

I also had an amazing time in San Francisco reconnecting with people like Nick Starr and Violet Blue, but those are all stories for a time when I can collect my thoughts. I shared magical secrets with a working magician. I interviewed a man with a REAL story (as close as I've come to real journalism in a while). Did I mention I met Rod Roddenberry, son of Gene Roddenberry? Yes, this was the twist ending to my time in California this past week and it kinda sums up the surprise that this year's Macworld became. Truly magical.