The US Publication of our first patent is fully open for public scrutiny as of March 19, 2009. The international version of the same can also be found here. We are being brave now by filing internationally in all Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) countries, but sometime in year 2010 we would have to enter the National Phase in specific countries based on the market size. See if you can figure out how Figures 8, 9A and 9B work.
In case you are new to the series, The Art of the Approach is an attempt to capture unsuspecting people’s reactions to images that we print on beverages.
Watch what happens when we approach two guys at the local watering hole with a life changing proposal.
Have an approach? Email josh(@)onlatte.com or add comments to the video above. Thanks for tuning in.
OnLatte TV is now on the air, and we are kicking it off with our first episode of “The Art of the Approach”. The intent of this series is to capture unsuspecting people’s reactions to images that we print on beverages. For this episode an Approacher, Chris, decides to convince a couple of girls that he is the face of Guinness. Let’s see how it goes…
Thanks for tuning in, and please get involved by emailing us approaches that you would like to see us do to josh(@)onlatte.com.
This post is a special post. Unlike most updates on our blog (which are short and to the point) we thought it was appropriate to document the whole trip given that it was an occasion of a lifetime. So turn off the TV, throw another log on the fire, and join us for a journey down Presidential lane.
Sunday Jan. 18th, 2009
The event officially began on Sunday after arriving at my friend’s apartment in DC late Saturday night. I was with my assistant for the event, Siobhan, and we took Sunday off and walked the National Mall to get acclimated with the area. We caught the “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration” concert going on at the Lincoln Memorial with great performances by Stevie Wonder, U2, Herbie Hancock, and Beyonce.
We also got some great pictures in front of the Capitol Inauguration stage. Above and below are a couple of photos from the day. As you can see, people were starting to get charged up for the historic moment.
Monday the 19th
Due to heightened security, we couldn’t bring in any equipment on the day of the inauguration. Therefore, Siobhan and I got up early to set up at our event located at 633 Pennsylvania Avenue. We got there at 10am and spent about 2 hours setting up and reviewing the procedures for the following day. That, of course, included becoming familiar with the Secret Service agents who were securing the area. Here is a photo of our location, and as you can seem we are literally on Pennsylvania Ave.
After the set-up, we walked around the city and down to the Mall again. We saw the media camping out, and tried our hardest to get on MSNBC’s live coverage. You could definitely feel the electricity in the air, and a part of me was jealous that we wouldn’t be in the Mall with the millions that would stream in the next day. The quickly subsided as the temperature dropped to the low 20s that night.
Tuesday the 20th
Early Morning
Finally, the big day. The event start time was 8am. We woke up at 4am to get ready and made it into the city by 5:30am. So far so good. However, when we got out of the subway, it was like a scene out of Minority Report where they’re hunting down Tom Cruise. There were barricades everywhere, helicopters in the sky, and it was pitch black. I was waiting for someone to tackle Tom Cruise as he was jumping from building to building. It was a surreal environment to say the least.
We finally got to where we were supposed to be, 7th street, and there was a big security gate. At 6:30am there was already a queue of a couple thousand people just to get to the building. There were no people in yet for the parade route.
We figured, “We’re here early enough, we’re at the first gate, when they open up the gate, it’ll be pretty easy to just pass through to go right to our event.”
Unfortunately though, what ended up happening is that when they opened up the gate, it was literally a trickle of people going through - 2 to 3 people at a time. When you’re trying to shove thousands of people through that entrance, you can imagine what happened – utter gridlock. We tried walking around all different areas to get to the security event, but we just couldn’t do it. The police weren’t letting us through, security wasn’t opening more gates, and it was really just a nightmare. At this point we were starting to get worried that we weren’t going to make the event. Fortunately, Siobhan and I didn’t quit, and after much squeezing we made it through and onto Pennsylvania Ave.
At the Event:
We set up as quickly as possible and started printing after Obama made his Inauguration speech. It was great there – when we finally got inside, it was a nice and warm building, catered food, the people were great, and we had a great view overlooking the parade route.
The party was a VIP event sponsored by IBM. Guests were mostly IBM people and members of the United Council for Negro Women. (That was the building we were in). The building was one of the key buildings for the civil rights movement, and so full of rich civil rights history. When we were there, we actually got to meet the founder of the council, Dorothy Height. She gave a speech about her involvement with the organization. She’s 97 years old now, and was actually on the stage with Obama during his swearing in. Here is a short clip of the speech she gave (first 30 seconds or so is audio only).
We started off with Obama’s face on the lattes, which everyone really enjoyed, so they gathered around to watch and to order. Tons of people ordered Obama’s face, and a few ordered the Whitehouse seal. We printed images for the rest of the afternoon – until the end of the parade. Here are some photos of the people we saw at the event:
The highlight of the event was when the presidential motorcade drove by our location. You could see right out the window as the motorcade drove by and Obama was waving out his window. Below is a short clip of the Presidential limo going by with me overdubbing some commentary. Unfortunately I had some camera troubles at the wrong moment, and didn’t capture everything.
After the President passed, we continued to do more prints for another hour or so until the parade finally passed. Even though the streets were slowly emptying, and the buzz was dying down, everyone still had a look of amazement knowing that they just had witnessed a truly historic event. Hopefully they also remembered the lattes.
