December 18, 1988

TRUE COLORS: If you’ve never been to a computer trade show, you’ve missed the abiding pleasure of nondescript parties, watching Important People get drunk and overeat boiled prawns and roast beef sandwiches.

This trend may come to a screeching halt at Macworld Expo in January. McLean Public Relations in Redwood City and Starr Group of San Francisco are planning a “color party” that sounds like it will blow everyone’s socks off.

Picture this: the empty top floor of a new, unfinished office building in downtown San Francisco, with a killer view from all sides. Theatrical lighting. Kinetic structures and holograms. And color Mac IIs running all the highest-tech software, rising up out of the darkness.

“The whole feeling will be of floating in space. People will be able to touch the machines and move around them, but they won’t be on all the time. You may be standing next to a triangle or a pyramid, then it will start to glow and there will be a machine inside,” says events specialist Sheila Starr, president of Starr Group.

Environmental designer Gregg Loeser, a friend of Starr’s who is head designer for Edwin Schlossberg Inc. in Manhattan, the design group owned by Caroline Kennedy’s husband, came up with a design for her concept and donated it — a job which normally would cost $50,000, Starr says. The design will be implemented by David Keenan, a close friend of Loeser’s who is chief designer for the State of California. He’s donating his time as well.

Agency president Laurie McLean first had the idea for a color party last year. “Everybody in the industry is sick of going to parties with lots of alcohol, dancing and loud music. They’re pointless and expensive,” she says. “So in keeping with the concept of guerrilla marketing, we felt you could do something that has great impact and doesn’t have to cost a lot of money — to get a bunch of color vendors together and do a really outrageous party. It’s more a celebration of color on the Mac II, rather than promoting any particular client of ours.”

Even though most of the companies approached were ecstatic about the idea, McLean and Starr are having a heck of a time getting anyone to be the first to sign up. I don’t get it, do you?

RAW DATA: Computer maker Zenith Data Systems of Glenview, Ill., is considering using Intel Corp.’s DVI (Digital Video Interactive) technology, which offers full-motion video; could be a good way of blending video and computers. Since Zenith is in TVs and computers, it could be an intriguing match.

Speaking of multimedia (that’s the new buzzword for the blend of TV, computers, music and animation), Radius Inc. in San Jose has wired video cable to every desk in its new 95,000 square-foot offices. Right now, multimedia is being touted mostly as an alternative to boring slide presentations. But marketing veep Alain Rossman says the possibilities are much greater than presentations — and Radius, which sells peripherals for Macintosh, will find a slice of the multimedia pie to call its own. “We’ll do something to solve 5 percent of the problems,” he says.
Fifth Generation Systems of Baton Rouge, La., which sells a hard-disk backup program called FastBack for the Macintosh, is rumored to be buying the popular Peter Norton Computing of Santa Monica (which sells the mucho useful disk-utility program called Norton Utilities). Norton did not return calls by press time.

FOR YOUR (SHOPPING) PLEASURE: You were thinking there are no truly practical applications for technology. So please note the following, from the Winter ‘88 issue of Common Ground, a San Anselmo catalog of “resources for personal transformation.”

It’s the “Orgone Energy Accumulator,” from Klark Kent Super Science of Dayton, Ohio. Quoth the ad: “Dr. Wilhelm Reich invented the powerful Life Energy charging device, called the Orgone Energy Accumulator Blanket. This apparatus concentrates the life energy from the atmosphere upon any object or person lying beneath this controversial device. Once banned by the FDA, Orgone Blankets are available again; however, for experimental purposes only. Our Price: $189.95.”

Sounds like the Orgasmatron from Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” to me.

IT’S A JOKE, OKAY: Q: Do you know the difference between God and a lawyer? A: God never thinks he is a lawyer.