Adobe Connect Blog

Two of our partners are conducting a series of webinars on how to better use Connect Pro. Ian Justin, VP of Technical Sales and co-founder of GetConnect, and Jacquie Beck, SVP of eLearning at Brookwood, will be conducting a 3 part Connect Pro Webinar Series December 2, 9, and 16, 2008. Register today and learn from some Connect Pro pros:

December 2nd: Video, Voice and Streaming Best Practices:
http://www.brookwood.com/Newsletter/connectwebinar_dec2
December 9th: Branding, Customization and Self-Registration with Events:
http://www.brookwood.com/Newsletter/connectwebinar_dec9
December 16: Tracking Content with the New Reporting Engine, Large Events and Seminar Rooms:
http://www.brookwood.com/Newsletter/connectwebinar_dec16

I’m working on a particularly exciting initiative for the Connect Pro team at the moment.
Right now when it comes to audio/video integration Connect Pro is kind of land locked in many respects. We take advantage of some cool native capabilities of the Flash Platform, a streaming protocol, RTMP and an audio codec NellyMoser to provide the built in VoIP and streaming capabilities, unfortunately these capabilities are not broadly supported outside of the Flash Platform ecosystem.
There is nothing wrong with RTMP or NellyMoser, in fact both capabilities have helped the Flash Platform become what it is today, a ubiquitous rich client platform. However the audio / video communication industry has begun to converge around a set of standards which are generally referred to under the umbrella of a single standard, SIP. The reality is a little more complex and convoluted but not the subject of my blog post.
So for Connect to collaborate in this ecosystem of interoperable audio / video communication software platforms and devices we needed to bridge the Flash specific protocol of RTMP with SIP (one of two common presence specifications) and RTP (a common streaming protocol for VoIP) and enable transcoding between NellyMoser and G711 (the most widely adopted audio codec for VoIP).
The exciting news is that’s what we’ve done, we’ve built a gateway between Flash Media Server and the VoIP world that bridges protocols and transcodes audio. Further more we’ve integrated that with Connect Pro so you can communicate using Connect Pro and SIP based audio platforms.
Last week we launched these technologies in an early beta, specifically we have two beta’s available to participate in
1. A beta of the gateway to Flash Media Server, you can use this with SIP audio platforms to integrate between Flash based applications and the SIP infrastructure. This includes a process, API and documentation. You’ll need a licensed or developer version of Flash Media Server, a Flash development environment and some Flash and SIP skills
2. A beta of the integration into Connect Pro on Adobe’s hosted platform. You’ll need a Connect Pro Hosted account and you’ll be able to make US toll free calls from Connect Pro meetings.
If you are interested in participating please drop me a note, my email address is mblair at adobe dot com

Now that I have a rich and flexible training solution at my disposal, what exactly can I do with it? What are others doing with it?
I’ve spent the better part of the last two months attending and presenting at elearning industry conferences, and was surprised to hear this question on more than one occassion. Instructors and Training Managers were ready to embrace new ways of engaging their audiences in VCs (as described in my whitepaper on connectusers.com), but beyond holding straight lectures to meet a single immediate need, were curious what kinds of training occurs in other organizations with different needs.
In response to this, here is a short list of some of the needs Connect Pro Training departments are meeting today:

Continue reading…

If you are a user of the social networking site LinkedIn and haven’t joined the Connect Pro Users Group, come and join us. The more people who are in the group, the more valuable a resource it will become to the Connect Pro community. As the community grows, you will be able to find colleagues who may be in similar industries or geographically near and it will help us at Adobe understand where our users are clustered, what kinds of roles you have in your organizations, etc.
Join the Connect Pro Group on LinkedIn today:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=718517

A few months ago, RJ Jácquez, Senior Product Evangelist for the Adobe Technical Communication Suite and Adobe eLearning Solutions started a blog which has quickly become a favorite of professionals in those fields. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to check it out and get to know RJ. He has a wealth of knowledge and is always ready and willing to help.

http://blogs.adobe.com/rjacquez

Hi All,
I’m pleased to announce that in conjunction with the Adobe Learning Summit (happening today) we have re-launched the Connect Pro Resource Center (http://www.adobe.com/go/connectpro_resources). Where you will find a wealth of new resources to help you become more successful with Connect Pro. Among the highlights:
• A variety of types of materials including downloadable PDFs, HTML Articles, FLVs, and self-running Captivate demos and Presenter Presentations to allow you to learn in the way that makes the most sense to you.
• Content tailored for users of all levels from Beginners to Power Users that is presented by topic so users can quickly and easily find the right content to meet their needs.
• A special new section for rollout tools where administrators and product evangelists can download items such as the newly released Connect Pro Intranet Portal Template Kit or starter PowerPoint decks to train users on how to use Connect Pro via Instructor-led Training, or better yet, via Connect Pro.
• The site also includes a tie in to our community site ConnectUsers.com and the recently launched Best Practices User Group.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please let me know by responding to this post. Also stay tuned for some more exciting announcements around our customer community in the weeks to come.
Best,
David

We are pleased to announce a significant change to our Connect Pro Hosted Support offering. Starting November 3rd, Adobe’s Worldwide Customer Care now provides a new 24×7 In-Meeting support service for all Connect Pro Hosted customers. As part of your base subscription price (no additional support fee), Hosted customers requiring In-Meeting assistance can obtain phone support 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.
For additional information on the new program, please go to the following resources:

1. 24×7 Toll-Free phone numbers for our Hosted customers.
   Note: Toll-free numbers for additional European and Asia-Pacific countries will be made available throughout November
2. Updated Support Pages on adobe.com

This significant expansion of our support offering will help us better serve our customer community.