So the team (minus Ron) was finally able to get together with our Community Partners from HP on Tuesday. It was a nerve wracking day for me. I was excited to meet with these guys (there were three) but I was also terrified of what would happen. They were investing a significant amount of their time to drive down from Kokomo to see our project, of which there was little to show. Frankly, I just didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do to make their trip worth while. I compiled some questions about project development and deployment so that we would have some stuff to talk about, but I was pretty worried...
About nothing.
It went really well. We actually ended up speaking very generally about the world of programming, and they answered my questions with enthusiasm and wisdom. God that makes them sound like sages. They're not. One of them really hates Indian people. I think.
One of the more interesting points of the meeting was in hearing about what their concerns were as programmers with real life jobs. Apparently, projects being outsourced to India is a serious problem. They all seemed extremely dissatisfied both with working with the people over there (sub par results) and with losing work to people overseas. One of the guys seemed, maybe a bit too dissatisfied, but whatever.
So yeah, they weren't mad that we didn't have an end result to show them. In fact, they weren't even interested in seeing the code we had produced. I got some excellent feedback on how to inject the WOW factor into our work and on how to market the app more effectively. It was a really great experience.
In the end, they were thanking us, which initially sounded very odd. Then they told us how, since no one new had been hired since 1996 (yay for future prospects!) they were ecstatic about being able to meet with and communicate with a younger generation. We've been invited to go to their labs to see what they do, and we'll probably take them up on the offer. But not until we have something to show them...I really want to show these guys what we've got.
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