On Monday, the Tech Club brought David Pogue to the Stanford GSB where he delivered a talk on failed consumer devices. I had the pleasure of driving David from the city where he was keynote speaker at FailCon to the Stanford GSB for the talk. The talk was exceptionally insightful and also funny in Pogue’s unique style. I think his background as a Broadway guy really helps when he’s giving talks as he is able to make them very lively and entertaining.
David talked about his problems with the New Office for Mac 2011 (which I had a chance to quiz him on the ride in the car as well) and the first Blackberry Storm that was riddled with bugs. It was a great opportunity to hear from someone who is an expert at judging the consumer experience on devices. David seemed to have strong feelings about engineers not being well suited for designing products as well, I was not completely convinced by that argument.
He was gracious, took a lot of time to answer questions and was amazingly nice to every person who spoke to him. I’m officially a fan. A lot of things didn’t go super smoothly, we went a lot later than planned, food was late, etc. but David never complained about anything.
Talking about food, I actually served the 200 or so people who showed up Sri Lankan food from Kadupul (Lakdiva Foods). It was good, only if they had shown up within an hour of the agreed upon time!
Sri Lankan at the Stanford GSB 