I just finished an informal "interview" at blist in Pioneer Square. My brain stalled out when it was my turn to answer questions, but even so, I think there's a >25% chance of getting an offer by Christmas. Before last week I'd never heard of them, but it sounded like they were doing something interesting, which would be a welcome change.

No. What they're doing isn't interesting. It's mindblowing. It does for relational databases what Scripting News and Blogger did for writing. I mean, your grandma can keep recipes in this thing.

Pointless Section

The computerized recipe file, to me, is practically the Holy Grail of usability -- a marketing cliché older than the IBM PC, a diversion to distract your 1970s-vintage housewife just long enough for you to plunk down fifty grand on a box that smells like solid-state cologne and comes with 512 bytes of memory.

She tries to love the recipe software, she really does, even when that means upgrading to 16K. But after data-entering enough recipes to fill two boxes of Elephant diskettes,[1] you are both horrified to learn what happens to floppies when you decide to use a giant horseshoe magnet as a bookend.

She doesn't even get angry. But a month passes before she forgives you for throwing out all of her cookbooks.

blist will save your marriage.

But blist is not only a really smart UI. Consumer applications for blists are also a free demo for organizations who are traditionally dependent on IT[2] to build and manage database applications for them. Need a timecard application? Drag 'n drop. Need a gradebook for your school? Copy an existing design shared by the community. Need a warehouse management system? Tricky -- you might need an analyst. This is everything Access was supposed to be.

The other end of the system is a massive-scale database fleet on a par with AWS or Google, capable of providing enterprise-class service with the same economies of scale. I'm a hippie-geeky idealist like my dad, so it pays to be skeptical, but I think these guys have the experience to pull it off. The CEO, Kevin Merritt, is a nice guy. He's also got a track record. Even without attending the Steve Jobs School of Mass Hypnosis, he's got me excited about this thing.

And they understand that the UI is crucial -- with only a dozen or so employees, they already have a full-time UX person on staff.

I think I want this.

Elephant. Never forget.

Elephant Memory Systems logo

Footnotes

  1. Okay, sorry, Elephant wasn't around back then. But there are plenty of other holes you could have picked at besides this one. Oh wait, it's the only one with a footnote.[3] Never mind. As you were.
  2. It always feels weird to speak of "traditions" relating to IT.
  3. I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong.