Back at my desk and going through the pile, here are some things that just never fit into other posts…
There was a line of taxis out front of the convention center at all times, and all of them had individual names on the cars. Each driver had their own name – “Worldwide” “Express” “Speedy”. I thought this one was either really brilliant or really lame…
He is asking for your business...
Then there are the box lunches. Clearly, market research showed that the preferred lunch was a turkey sandwich, and the preferred beverage was Diet Coke. There were oceans of both – with sandwiches shrink wrapped and generically tasty. In this phot0, notice how they go on forever into the horizon…
You can have any lunch you want, as long as it is Turkey...
Then there were the escalator habits. The “lemming” crowd psychology was odd – more than once, I was a part of the pack of people approaching an escalator, and everyone was crowding the closest escalator, and nobody looked over to the adjacent one. It was going the same way, but was completely empty.
I think that it is a great metaphor for many of our fellow professionals and my concern for their ability to think “outside of the box” Nobody else using it? Not me, either.
Both escalators were running, and going the same way. Hmmm...
When I lived in San Diego, the constant presence of street people was just a part of living in a temperate climate. It was a little jarring to realize that the closest neighbors to my convention hotel with 24 hour room service and $4 bottles of water in the minibar were the homeless living in the park next to the train tracks.
Living next door...
Karl Ahlrichs' Uncommon Experience 