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© 2005 by Rick Altman. All Rights Reserved.
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Over the course of the past 15 years, we have learned to expect the unexpected at the CorelWorld User Conference, and this year was no exception.
To the more casual visitor to our website, the first of the unexpecteds might be that we held the conference at all. Didn’t we retire from CorelWorld in 2003? At the time, we stated that something needed to change in order for us to continue, and the interesting irony to our unretirement is the changes that we thought would do the trick:
Our first error in judgment was in the amount of stock we placed in those 30,000,000 users. Most of them downloaded the program for $45; how many of them are going to spend over $700 to attend a conference to learn more about it, however expert that instruction might be?
Answer: zero. As far as we can tell, our addition of a dedicated Paint Shop Pro track compelled exactly zero PSP users to sign up for the conference.
But our second error in judgment was a happy one: The degree to which CorelDraw users would be taken in by this nimble, well-tuned, and tres-friendly image editor. No doubt about it: Paint Shop Pro 9 was the darling of the conference.
If Paint Shop Pro was the darling of the conference, the highlight was the hour in which a Paint Shop and a PhotoPaint expert squared off in a pixel war. It was both cooperative and competitive, good-natured and earnest, incredibly entertaining, and above all, enlightening.
Most at the conference knew of Paul Huntington's exceptional talents and solid skills with PhotoPaint; they were meeting Jim Fuglestad for the first time, and these two accomplished photographers made up their own ground rules: exchange photos the night before, and then in front of everyone, take six minutes apiece to try to improve upon each one.
This was all just one more happy accident, because we had originally slated this hour to be a duel between two from the respective development teams. But while the Jasc team was able to identify several willing to participate, the team from Ottawa could not offer up anyone. Asking Paul and Jim to do battle instead was the Plan B, and it could not have possibly worked out any better.
Scheduled to appear at the conference for many months leading up to the conference, Corel President Amish Mehta called our offices two weeks before the event. He shared with us his travel conflicts, but more importantly, essentially told us that there was little point in him giving the keynote, when he is phasing himself out of the job. This is typical of a successful rescue takeover: the people doing the taking over hope to fire themselves, and it appears as if Mehta will do just that this summer.
He promised us that he would appear via video and that the person who would be taking his place at the conference would be "the perfect person to discuss Corel's vision."
During the video, he dropped another hint when he said that it would be “under Jacqueline Maartense's watch” that Corel’s product line would prosper.
That had many of us speculating if Maartense, the current Executive Vice President for Global Product Marketing, might be taking the reins of the company before too long. Many of those same people were none too thrilled by the time the Tuesday morning keynote was completed, as Maartense did little to engender confidence, endear herself, or connect in any meaningful way with the patrons.
Before we continue, it should be said that we are used to this. We have grown accustomed to Corel executives coming to the conference and treating the throng of loyalists as if they are potential customers or prospective investors. There is some fundamental disconnect that seems to take place when you get too high in an organization and you become incapable of dealing in a personal way with people who have already bought your product, have already expressed loyalty in your cause, and are actively rooting for you to succeed.
Maartense was unable to avoid this curious pitfall. While she specifically asked for a breakfast meeting with a small group of patrons to ask them about their experience with the software, before the entire assemblage, she did not show any of that same personal warmth. Citing "extensive market research," she told us what the top five areas of focus should be in future versions, instead of asking the audience what they thought those areas should be.
This chasm widened when the list of focus areas were all extremely basic features, already present in the software, addressing none of the areas that earnest users feel truly are in need of improvement. It was as if Corel’s researchers compiled a list of most-frequently-used features and concluded from there on what they should spend their efforts. When two consecutive patrons questioned this judgment, her response was curt: “This is based on exhaustive research and we are confident in its accuracy.”
And then there was Ventura Publisher. It got dissed right from the jump when Mehta in his video told of Corel focusing on its core products and letting go of the others. While he didn’t mention Ventura in the letting-go pile, neither did he include it in the core-product group, and the Ventura users (exceptionally skilled in reading between the lines after years of practice) did not take kindly to that.
And we know that Marteense knew to expect questions about Ventura. We know that she was briefed on the passion that would emanate from the room about the venerable publishing program. So it was particularly telling, not to mention disquieting, when she said "At this time, we have no future plans for Ventura.” That was her first response, and remarkably, she was intending for it to be her last response, as well. The crowd began peppering her for more, and she almost literally had nothing more to say.
We tried to bail her out a bit by couching the “no future plans” remark to mean that there might be plans down the road, there just aren't any now. But that didn't help—it was clear to this group that Ventura Publisher was nowhere on Marteense's radar screen, and based on the list of pedestrian features that were meant to represent some sort of development list for Draw and Paint Shop, upper management does not seem to have its finger on the pulse of its other applications, either.
Again, we’re used to this at the conference, and if we had to choose between disconnected executives or clueless developers, we would choose the former. And as always, the members of the Corel team that are closer to the fire showed a keen sense of the needs of the product and the bond that develops between product and user.
Tony Severenuk, at the helm of the CorelDraw product, displayed his usual verve and spirit for connecting with users, while Tamara Brown, newly-appointed product specialist for Paint Shop Pro, won brownie points upon her arrival at the venue when she instantly sought out PSP co-authors Sally Beacham and Lori Davis and spent over two hours having them show her the finer points of the product.
As a result, her Wednesday keynote showed a keen understanding of: 1) the perspective of those in attendance; 2) the fundamental virtues of Paint Shop Pro; and 3) the particular features and functions that speak to those core virtues. And thanks to her earlier pow-wow, she had two fans-for-life in the back of the room acting as safety nets were she to need it. Tamara showed the savvy of working a user conference that management has historically lacked and we wish her tons of success integrating PSP into the Corel product line.
As always, the CorelWorld crowd showed an equal zeal for learning and for socializing. This embattled group just loves being able to drop its defensiveness about swimming against the Adobe tide, relishes talking shop in a supportive environment, and cherishes reuniting with conference buddies whom they have known for, in many cases, over a decade. The free happy hours at the Embassy Suites didn't hurt, either.
The annual trivia contest doubled as a 20th anniversary party for Corel Corp., founded in 1985. Ever seen a cake that feeds 100? Or maybe you would like to try your hand at the category of questions we added to the game all about Corel's history:
Q. Where is Corel Corp. headquartered?
A.
Ottawa ON
Name two of the three company presidents the company has
had.
Michael Cowpland, Derek Burney, Amish Mehta
How many Corel products can you name that pre-dated
Draw?
Tabin, Newfont, Headline, WFNBoss
And then there was Tuesday evening, when a couple dozen of us went to watch the doormat Kansas City Royals host the Baltimore Orioles. When the Orioles scored 10 unanswered runs, the only question that remained was whether the Royals would amass 12 hits in the game. You see, if they were to reach that magical milestone, one's ticket stub would magically be good for one dozen Krispy Kreme donuts.
And with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a sub-200 hitter who had already struck out twice that night surely scratched out an opposite-field single for hit No. 12.
We went nuts. Can you imagine 24 people unloading from a bus at a Krispy Kreme donut shop all asking for their dozen donuts? And having given an extra ticket to the bus driver from the transportation company we hired, we were sure he would drive us the two miles down the road to the nearest one.
He didn’t. He refused to take us there! Even after we bribed him with a $24 tip, a dollar from each of us, he insisted upon driving directly back to the hotel, raining all over our little parade.
I don't even like Krispy Kreme donuts, but I sure was looking forward to creating a big tower of them in the ballroom the following morning and letting the patrons help themselves. We tortured that poor bus driver the whole way home, asking him (okay, shouting out to him) to stop at every conceivable point of interest we saw along the highway. Pretty good chance he was not sorry to get rid of us back at the hotel, and you can count on that little tale of needless calories making its way directly into conference lore.
But the story of 2005: It was the year that Paint Shop Pro came to the party and everyone danced with it...
May 2007: As simple as possible, but not simpler... · April 2007: Killer Keystrokes · March 2007: Resolution Confusion · January 2007: Fearless Forecasts for 2007 · November 2006: Epiphanies at PowerPoint Live 2006 · August 2006: Escaping Death by PowerPoint · July 2006: Notes from the Floor of InfoComm · June 2006: Beyond PowerPoint--Making Movies for Business and Pleasure, Part II · May 2006: Beyond PowerPoint--From Photos to DVDs · April 2006: It’s Your Music!--Overcoming the oppressive restrictions of iTunes · March 2006: CorelDraw X3—A few must-haves and a few missed opportunities, all in all, a credible upgrade · February 2006: Making Windows Inhabitable · January 2006: Fearless Forecasts for 2006 · September 2005: Just What is a Background Anyway? · August 2005: Meet David Dobson, Corel's New CEO · July 2005: Community, Blind Dates. and Albert Einstein: An Interview with the PowerPoint Live Conference Host · June 2005: CorelWorld 2005: Image Editors, Executive Appearances, and Krispy Kremes · May 2005: As Adobe's Shadow Grows, Is Corel Better off or Worse? · March 2005: Delivering Your Presentation: How Close to the Source Can You Get? · February 2005: Digital Photography: The Killer App of this Generation Part II · January 2005: Digital Photography: The Killer App of this Generation · November 2004: A Killer Deal for Corel Or Another Distraction? · September 2004: The Scourge that is Kazaa and AOL Instant Messenger · August 2004: The Golden Triangle: Presenter, Audience, and Slides · July 2004: A Blast from the Past: How Fast is Fast Enough? · June 2004: Guilty Pleasures · May 2004: A Personal Wish List for PowerPoint 12 · April 2004: Eyedropping: Version 12 makes a good tool even better... · March 2004: Deadly Sins Of Modern PowerPoint Usage · February 2004: Is the even-numbered curse finally over? · January 2004: Another take on Achieving Absence of Ugliness · November 2003: What can we do it again??--Debut of PowerPoint Live Leaves Unquenchable Thirst with the Host · September 2003: Corel Corp. Has a New Custodian · July 2003: Candor and Contrition at CorelWORLD · June 2003: What a Long, Great Trip It’s Been! · May 2003: The Boat that Corel is Missing · April 2003: No Fooling...Is Corel Breaking Up? · March 2003: The Annual Design-a-Brochure Contest · February 2003: Symbolism is Everything · January 2003: Mania, Our Semi-Annual Pilgrimage to Holland · October 2002: On Creativity, Problem-Solving, and Paper Bags · July 2002: CorelDRAW 11: Surprise, Surprise... · May 2002: The Sound of Silence: What does it mean when a company plays its cards so close to its chest? · April 2002: The Art and Science of Presentation Graphics--Creating for the Screen Has its own Challenges · March 2002: CorelDRAW 11: What kind of personality and attitude should a software program have today? · February 2002: Oy, my aching fingers... · December 2001: Digital Photography · November 2001: Can we say goodbye to the Rolls Royce Mentality? · October 2001: An Unforgettable Week: The drama that unfolded around CorelWORLD · August-September 2001: The Art of Paragraphics: New-age ingredients for success with Corel VENTURA · July 2001: Your Very Own Interface: How to make Corel applications read your mind · June 2001: Fighting the Font Wars: How to stay sane with your sans · May 2001--Turning the Key at Nicholas-Applegate · April 2001--A Modest Proposal for Reviving VENTURA Publisher
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