Thursday, November 4, 1999

by the Wunderland Toast Society

A few weeks ago, I compared the state of things in our life to the calm before the storm. This week, we've been weathering the storm, and things have been pretty darned frantic. The Executive Summary is that all of the pre-ordered Icehouse sets have been mailed, and they are magnificent. As for the details...

Our new catalog: The first big task of the week was getting our new catalog printed. With Icehouse now in our regular product line, we needed a new paper catalog to include with orders, and to fax or mail to those unfortunate souls who don't have internet access. (We also needed a new flyer to include with the Kadon mailing described below.) Our new catalog fills out a regular double-sided copy: on the front is the Icehouse splash panel shown here, with product descriptions and ordering info neatly arranged on the back.

Orderama programming: The second big task of the week was a major programming push on Kristin's order tracking system, which we call Orderama. In order to stop using a kludge I'd written in Perl awhile ago, we had to re-implement its functionality in Panorama, plus we had to completely re-do/re-design our invoice. Kristin did most of the programming, while I served as a sort of human expert system, looking up functions and writing tricky lines of code for her. It was actually a very good working relationship, and made programming more fun for both of us.

Halloween: The eye of the storm passed over us on the weekend, when we took time out to enjoy our favorite holiday. It felt a bit rushed, but we nonetheless managed to carve pumpkins, go to a costume party, give candy to several dozen kids, and even skulk about ourselves in the middle of the night, putting candy bars into our neighbors' mailboxes. We didn't get around to assembling the costumes Alison had designed for us until about an hour before the party, but they came together wonderfully -- we went as the 3 Blind Mice. Number 12's Spooky Halloween Party was held at the big old Gilder-Murray house, which was wonderfully lit up and decorated and which was just the perfect setting for such a party. (It's too bad the owners are trying to sell the place off; it's probably destined to be turned into a Burger King someday...)

Kadon mailing: One of our local game company peers is Kadon Enterprises, run by Kate Jones. (Perhaps you've seen her shoppe at the Renaissance festival.) Kate has been marketing her games direct-to-consumer for eons, and was an inspiration to us 10 years or so ago, when we first decided to go into business making Icehouse sets. About 7 years ago, we did a joint marketing thing with her, in which we inserted our single page flyer into her annual catalog mailing (and paying a share of the postage). It worked out well, and with the release of the new Icehouse sets occurring at the same time as her next catalog mailing, we decided to do it again. We spent Monday hanging out at Kate's really cool house/game factory, stuffing about 3500 of our flyers into her catalogs, and folding folding folding. If you're on her mailing list, you probably got one in today's mail. If you are a game/puzzle fan... be sure to check out her extensive web site.

Icehouse Pre-orders: Lastly, we put together the first 300 Icehouse sets, and packaged most of them up for shipment. The assembly work is very time consuming (although I was surprised to find that the slowest step was the shrink-wrapping), and between that and everything else we were doing this week, we didn't manage to get them out until the very last minute, rushing to the Post Office at 4:55 PM yesterday. But if you've ordered one, it's on its way to you now. Enjoy!