PixVox

I lived in Cupertino, CA back in the 60’s. That was a long time ago. The Santa Clara Valley was wall to wall orchards and every housing tract had an an elementary school and a park. Ozzie and Harriet didn’t live on our street, but they could have. It was downright placid. This was the calm Cupertino, before the storm, the Interstate, silicon valley tycoons and long before Apple built their interplanetary headquarters.

So when our IT Director, Kevin Glick and I embarked on our maiden voyage to the Apple campus for a seminar, it was part homecoming and part pilgrimage. I’m not sure which I was anticipating more, the current height of the tiny palm tree my mother planted in front of our home almost 50 years ago (at least 85 feet), or the house that Steve and Steve built. Probably, the Apple campus.

Not a big surprise, considering my lifelong affinity for all things Apple. You name it and I’ve owned it. With the single exception of a Lisa, I believe I’ve owned every major model of Apple desktop, laptop and handheld ever made. I owned Apple when it was cool, not so cool and then cool again. I bought thousands of dollars of gear when Apple’s market share had dropped below 2%. I had it bad.

Several years ago I visited the computer exhibit at the Smithsonian in DC. Someone has cleverly assembled every one of those bad boys. It was a trip down depreciation alley.

Perhaps my most anticipated purchase was the original 128K Mac. I think I paid $3500 for the computer, printer and software. That was in 1985. You could call me a loyalist, enthusiast or sucker. John Sculley, former Apple CEO, would probably say sucker. He once described the first Mac as a Ferarri with a one quart gas tank. I am loyal and as if 25 years of uninterrupted brand loyalty wasn’t enough, I remain a shareholder.

With the stage set for a life changing experience, we headed down I280 to the De Anza Blvd exit and on to the sacred asphalt at One Infinite Loop. I have to confess, I’m not really sure exactly what I was anticipating. Something squarely in between HP in Palo Alto and Google in Mountain View. But what I found was the stark separation of brand essence and brand reality.

If you peeled the small Apple logos off the smattering of buildings around the loop and replaced them with any major pharmaceutical bug, or even dare I say it, yes the M word, no one would blink. At best, it’s a collection of identical concrete and glass warehouses. And to add insult to injury, the buildings are numbered. Numbered! Not named after those cool people that made up the classic “Think Different” posters. We have 1 Infinite Loop, 2 Infinite Loop…you get the idea. A stroke of pure creative genius. And we were just getting started. The worst was yet to come.

A brief trip to the mother ship’s Apple store had all the thrill of, you guessed it, going to an Apple store. Nothing unique to buy short of a few items to commemorate the trip to Mecca. My back teeth were starting to ache.

After a brief respite in retail hell, we drove around the loop to building #5 where the seminar is held, It was strategically located between #4 and #6. Apple had instructed us to arrive at least an hour early. We’re from Oregon, so we’re 90 minutes ahead of time. We enter and approach a completely disinterested employee at a large reception desk. “We’re here for the server seminar”, I said. “Go upstairs and wait”, she relied, pointing to an adjacent staircase. No worries, we’ll just mosey on up and relax. Nice idea, but easier said than done.

We head upstairs and quickly discover there are far more people being herded into this area than there is available seating. And we still have an hour and a half to go. Gradually even more geeks are packed in.

After 45 minutes, I head downstairs looking for something to drink. Back to the receptionist. Bad idea. There is nothing to eat or drink, I’m told. But directly behind Miss Congeniality is what appears to be a huge cafeteria behind a wall of glass. “Hey, can I head back there and grab something?”, I ask. “You don’t have a pass. That’s just for employees” she replies. Discretion being the better part of valor, I spare her the speech about my first Apple II. She was born after it was shipped to the Smithsonian.

Back up I go, weaving my way through the Apple employees making their way upstairs with trays of food and drinks from the cafeteria. I briefly consider asking the woman ahead of me if she’d take 10 bucks for her lemonade.  Upstairs I miraculously stumble on a lone water cooler. Relief is just a feet away. Cool clear water and no paper cups. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

After releasing the cooler from a tearful bear hug, I notice the herd is beginning to move towards an open classroom. Then in a twist they head back down the stairs. Why we were sent upstairs when the meeting is  downstairs is something of a mystery. But pushing through dehydration and leg cramps, I’m ready to head in, grab a seat and get started. Not so fast. We’re not going anywhere. The crowd that was upstairs is now downstairs, packed into even less space. Just as I’m started to get really heated, the crowd starts to move. We’re heading through the foyer and turning right into a large room for registration and then back out to the foyer and a further wait. This is the point at which I usually fake a seizure to clear some space around me. Some of the crowd is growing impatient and restless. The rest seem resigned to the wait as if they had been here before. We haven’t. We’re from Oregon.

Finally, we’re directed into the meeting room. I’d like to report it was spacious and the seats comfy. But pilgrims don’t get leg room. The chairs were so tightly spaced from the row in front that no one could move through without everyone standing. It was so tight, I was beginning to feel claustrophobic and it was far too late for my seizure routine.

The seminar was informative, but the moment was lost. I was a whipped pup. The trip to Mecca had turned a believer into an infidel. I swear, if they were selling copies of Vista in the parking lot I might have bought one.

But there was a lesson to be learned. My return to Cupertino turned out to be more meaningful from a marketing perspective than a technical one. I came away convinced that the true genius that makes Apple hum isn’t at One Infinite Loop after all. The swagger, vibe and attitude I expected was actually 300 miles to the south at 5353 Grovesnor Blvd, Los Angeles, the home of TBWA/Chiat Day, their ad agency. I’m an ad guy. I should have known better.