Software behind the scenes

Despite a white-knuckle taxi ride to Nice airport yesterday that left me fairly green (my Sicilian taxi driver “Amadeo” clearly thought he was auditioning for the next Italian job remake) I left my trip to Cannes for VMworld Europe a happy chap.

So as I was settling into BA’s in-flight sarnie and G&T service, I thought that talk of software would be over for the day. As it happened, I found myself plonked next to an affable Aussie named Aaron who worked for the sound and light gurus that had made the whole stage experience happen for the keynotes this week.

We talked about “gobos” (that’s logo lights that go) and “varilights” (if you’re old enough to be a Genesis fan you’ll know what these are) and the software system controls that he used to pull the flawless presentations off. Aaron works for a company called Creative Technology (no not that one! – apparently these guys had the name first anyway) and travels the world doing this stuff.

I guess the interesting thing was that some things had gone wrong with various elements of the presentations and, as he put it, he had never seen someone type so physically fast as the techie that was called upon to hand code an operation during Diane Greene’s keynote when her demo failed.

So software runs the world – even at 33,000 feet it seems. Top marks also to cabin crew members Tim & Rory for the free champagne which was apparently provided as I had been polite when getting seated and situated.

“We thought you might like a glass of bubbly as you were so pleasant upon boarding,” said Tim.

Well, I’ve never heard it called that before! Outrageous.