We’re in San Fransisco for WWDC2012, but as well as that, it’s also SF Design Week here. We’ve been taking some of the events in.

SF Design Week Launch Party

On the first night we attended the launch party held at Jaspers Cornertap to mingle, joke and jive and get a feel for how things are done over here.

We turned up, gave our tickets and provided ID to prove our age (much to my amusement). One big difference was apparent as we walked in – we had questioned beforehand whether this was going to be a flop having gone to a fair few kick off parties and other events in the UK. This one was different. It was vibrant and it was busy – really busy. There were complimentary cocktails but, like typical Brits, we went to the bar looking to get ourselves a pint of the finest. That idea was nipped in the bud when we saw the price and then it was onto the manliest of cocktails – the French 75

The whole thing was quite overwhelming. It’s hard to articulate exactly what I mean but there was a different feeling, people were passionate about design, there was no design snobbery and everyone was friendly. We were approached by a guy called Frederick who asked us a few bits and invited us to another event the following night for a company called Miselu, who had had created an Android app and shoe horned it into a tablet/musical keyboard.

We retired for the night after some great conversations with the locals from the SF Design community.

WWDC2012 Day 2

Day 2 of WWDC came round and I was up and out early again. Unfortunately, we can’t talk about what we do during the day at WWDC as it’s all ‘Apple Confidential’, but let’s put it this way – compared to Android, Windows and Blackberry development Apple are way ahead of the competition. This shows with the huge download numbers and the amount of the apps that are in the app store. The new abilities for maps are huge and will make way for a sleeker user experience.

After the presentations for that day, I had a quick look around the merchandise store and convinced myself not to buy anything. It was hard but I can’t really see myself wearing an Apple Hoodie or tee.

Day 2 of WWDC was over, I had been invigorated and new ways to utilise the new technologies were whirling around my head but the day wasn’t over, we had promised to attend the Miselu event.

Miselu Launch Event

Quite what we were going to we didn’t really know. Was it a launch, was it a networking event or was it a presentation?

We arrived at the offices after a lengthy walk through downtown SF and then some. We like walking. Honest. Upon arrival we were directed to the food and beverage area in a large empty room. There was a smaller room towards the end that had a gathering of people huddled around the ‘product’.

Then it got busier and busier. Where were all these people coming from? Why were they here? What’s about to happen? We looked at each other with bemused looks. There were no desks, no furniture other than a few plastic chairs.  We went and previewed the product. Some guests were playing around with it and there were a few people walking round with Miselu shirts on.

There was a strange (but good) atmosphere. They do things differently here. They’re passionate and they believe in their product. I couldn’t imagine an event like this in the UK. There was no hard sell, there was no presentation. They let their product do the talking and their enthusiasm and passion pretty much did the rest.

There is a reason they call San Fran the ‘home of startup.’ People are passionate, love what they do and they believe in success. The American attitude of ‘we are the best’ and ‘nothing is impossible’ is prevalent all around. That’s the same passion we at Tecmark have for the apps, websites and search campaigns we do.  We would fit in perfectly around here.

Pop back tomorrow for another overview of more goings on and a rundown of a Lean UX session we’re attending.