Toiling within the office walls - diligently working of code development, pondering strategic decisions and copy writing - one could easily lose sight of the fact that real companies are using Elastic Path on a daily basis (well nightly too) to run their business - the whole deal from selling products, collecting money, shipping to the customer, and dealing with service concerns - in short conducting ecommerce, or to them, livelihood.

“Well duh,” you may say but, all cynicism aside, with the myriad tasks required on a day-to-day basis in the workplace, it is easy to lose sight of who is using the platform and how are they using it.

These observations are important at many levels, and astute observation can: 1) help the product development squad improve the core product by co-opting useful modifications made by a third-party; 2) assist the sales folks to see which customers may be ready to upgrade or could benefit from a new component tie-in; and, 3) teach marketing types how customers customize and execute their message using Elastic Path.

While recently producing collateral materials for the aforementioned trade show, I’ve poked around several real-life customer sites for a bit of learning. Some sites are easy to identify as EP while others are so extensively customized, you must look closely to see if Elastic Path is really running the show behind the scenes.

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With impending printer deadlines, I am busily assembling concept and wordsmithing copy for various trade show materials. While at first blush, this may seem simple - add a (neat) picture, write some (fluffy) words and hand off to designers, these tasks do require a series of editing gutchecks and detailed revision during which each element (both ‘what we are saying’ and ‘how we are saying it’) must prove to be absolutely essential to the piece.

Then, once the big picture is developed and key points are determined, the words must be streamlined to speak directly to the intended audience. In Elastic Path’s case, the audience is sometimes technically-minded programmer types, sometimes marketing (or sales) variety, and sometimes C-level executive/administrative flavored. Each audience segment has their own concerns and desires which certainly come into play when deciding where/when/how to spend/invest in ecommerce (or any other for that matter) software platform.

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So admittedly, I know almost nothing about Java (and the workings of Sun Microsystems for that matter), and didn’t feel lacking in this knowledge, ever, until now. However, since the core - the root, the crux - of what Elastic Path does and makes, depends on Java (and yes, my livelihood is tied to Elastic Path), I am poking around the blog-o-sphere to find out what makes Java important, or special, or just tasty (ooops wrong java … but note: Turk’s West Cafe Milano across the way is very tasty).

First off, Java is a programming language (you knew that) developed by Sun Microsystems. James Gosling (Sun technical article/interview - Business Week interview) is the “Father” of Java as it were.

I imagine white hallways with flickering fluorescent lights with tousled haired programmers geeking out ’til wee hours in some Californian technology business park coming up with a language to express what Sun founder Scott McNealy (in wikipedia, Info World interview) meant when he said, “the network is the computer.”

How they came up with the Java programming language from that phrase escapes me since I am still figuring out exactly what McNealy’s proclamation meant ;-). Really, he speaks of using many and/or specialized computers, distributed around a network, to perform tasks, resulting in increased efficiency (or leveraging specialists to reduce redundancy) - I think.

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In brief, Elastic Path is a new brand but the company is not so new. Formerly known by the monikers “Ekkon” and “Merchant Space,” the company re-branded in March 2005 to better reflect the key nature of the e-commerce software product - Flexibility.

To truly debut the new name and personality of the company, Elastic Path will be exhibiting at Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency on June 5-7th, 2006.

While I cannot tell you the semi-secret, super-exciting attraction which will be featured at the booth (#842), I can tell you that Elastic Path will be giving away a fine prize - a trip to Las Vega$ for 3 nights to see Cirque du Soleil at some fancy hotel. Personally, I would rather win a trip to Vancouver (supposing I didn’t live here), but I am quite partial to this beautiful city. However, Vega$ could likely be a fine respite from the mundane day-to-day routine and certainly seeing that wild Montreal-based performance troupe will be a treat to be sure.

Really, you *could* say this is a marketing ploy to encourage exhibits visitors to associate Elastic Path with innovation and flexibility and you’d probably be right, but don’t let that stop ya! Be sure to stop by and say hello.

Elastic Path will send a crew of five (plus a couple of secret ringers) to tend the (10′ X 20′) booth, plus meet with current and future clients to spread our friendly-brand of e-commerce mojo. Be sure to stop by and say hello and you might even score some “thinking putty” to play with (be careful, it bounces!).