Interloper at Richmond

I recently attended a computer seminar in London, concerned with ecommerce, which is my current employer's business. It was located in the HQ of Paypal UK at Richmond-upon-Thames.

      I found Richmond to be similar to a small English country town, but one desperately overdue for a bypass. At 9 am, the traffic was shockingly intense. I followed my map, and found myself entering a narrow, dark alleyway. Just as I was beginning to doubt my directions, it opened out onto the bank of the Thames in brilliant sunlight, and I approached an office building which looked like a Greek temple. It was part of a thin layer of grandiose buildings facing the water, which seemed oddly disconnected from the rest of the town.

      An actual receptionist issued me with a badge after some humming and hawing. The seminar room was huge, with hard seats set auditorium style. There weren't many people there. A man approached me and shook hands. He was tieless, wearing a sport coat and a worn-looking pair of jeans. This struck me as odd. His jeans didn't seem quite like old pairs of jeans that I had owned. They didn't have baggy knees or those ineradicable creases at the groin. I twigged that they were fakes, like the old farm implements on the walls of restaurants. It was clear that styles had changed since my last glancing encounter with the world of big biz, seven years before. He told me his name and company, but not his job title, from which I concluded he was the gaffer. He seemed a remarkably relaxed character.

      A row of display screens along the front wall showed that Windows XP was still in use at Paypal. The screens weren't quite big enough or sharp enough to see them clearly from where I was sitting. I saw some food sitting at the side of the room, and scarfed down a croissant and some rather luxurious yoghurt. Why not? I abandoned an empty water bottle under my chair. Somebody has to help the cleaners cling on to their jobs in a bad economy.

      There were quite a few people standing about, who gave the impression they were with the presentation, rather than being presented to. As people filed in and sat down, it became clear that the two teams had evenly balanced numbers. No-one seemed to be wearing a tie, and quite a few had newish-looking jeans.

      Eventually we were shuffled over to one side of the room, and the show started. It was being hosted by multiple companies. A young lady led off on behalf of Magento, the Internet shopping cart company. She had a big smile and hadn't bothered to iron her blouse. She explained that her nearest colleague was in L.A. and proceeded to read her presentation off a stack of cue cards. It was a lot of ill-considered bizspeak. She told us that Magento would allow us to control and drive the users as they visited our site. She changed cards and said that the users would be liberated and empowered by the software, which would allow them to customise their experience. I stopped listening.

      The next person up was the man who had welcomed me. He turned out to be the sales manager for Crimsonwing, a Magento 'solutions provider'. He frankly told us that the seminar would focus on B2B (business-to-business) using Magento Enterprise Edition. We gaped. There had been no mention of this in the promotional guff for the seminar. I was only interested in the free of charge Community Edition, and in selling to the general public. I realised that I was at the wrong talk. He explained that his company helped people integrate Magento with back-end office systems such as SAP, on a custom basis. His whole talk was a sales pitch for his employer. The text on the display screens was illegible, as the screens were too small. The product was obviously valueless, since if you already have a back-end order-processing system, what do you need a shopping cart application for? At some point he held a show of hands to see who was from a plc. It turned out only the 'tame customer' supplied by Crimsonwing was. I guessed I wasn't the only person attending the wrong seminar.

      He handed over to a bald chap who worked for a company which did website personalisation, using tracking cookies and advanced maths. The kind of guy we are always being warned against, out to destroy privacy. He wanted to help us to destroy privacy, for a fat fee. He had stats to prove he was worth it, he could reduce 'cart abandonment'.

      They finished off with a lady from Paypal telling us about their products. She was obviously bored, and told us all the info was on the web anyway, she was just reading it off the company website.

      In the Q&A session someone asked how much the Magento Enterprise Edition cost. $14,000 p.a.! A great indrawing of breath.

      Then the Crimsonwing guy sent us off for a free lunch. He seemed quite aware that this would be the highlight of the day for many of us. It was quite pleasant, a buffet lunch where I had more of the yummy yoghurt. By strange coincidence, I met someone who knew my boss and had visited our HQ! He explained that Magento had recently abolished the Professional Edition which his company had been using, which had been more moderately priced. It seemed clear that this had left them in a quandary.

      I got outside, into a blinding glare. I had forgotten to bring sunglasses. I was determined to make something of the day, so I tried to do a bit of sightseeing, though I was struggling to see. I noticed that the people streaming past often wore these mysterious creaseless jeans, which looked as though they had been carefully pressed. My boss later told me that these would be 'designer jeans', and they cost more than a suit.

      The Thamesside scene was a curious mix of very expensive and elite with very ordinary. The boats and those aboard were obviously on a budget. The bank itself was wild with weeds, including saplings which threatened to eventually cause collapse. The offices and restaurants were quite grand. Luxury and dilapidation were oddly intermingled.
     Though the seminar was a washout from the practical point of view, the whole day was quite fascinating, a window into a different world.