Adobe Connect Blog

Don’t miss the chance to attend the Adobe Learning Summit in San Jose this November 9th, 2009. As a long time elearning professional I’m particularly excited about our guest keynote speaker, Clay Shirky.
I recently had the honor to discuss with Mr. Shirky some of the collaborative technology topics that I believe are of interest to us as learning and collaboration professionals. In preparation for his address, we discussed impressions and questions I’ve heard from elearning professionals and have experienced myself. For example, we have all been talking up ‘web 2.0′, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and the like for years now, and have even started to see some great examples of how these have accelerated knowledge transfer within and across groups. But how does that really apply to us as learning professionals? Should we embrace these technologies just because we hear they are the latest and greatest? How can we determine whether they might work for our purposes, and if so, where should we get started? And finally, if we do provide the tools for a more social and collaborative learning environment, how do we know the users will embrace them? Is there a way to seed the community, or drive motivation to help our communities evolve and provide valuable knowledge transfer – or more – for our organizations?
With those questions in mind, and with an extensive knowledge of and passion for learning and technology, I am certain Mr Shirky’s talk will be memorable for those of us lucky enough to be there to hear him speak. Join us for this exciting keynote speech to kick off a value-packed day, created just for learning professionals at the Adobe Learning Summit.
Clay Shirky’s Biography:
Clay Shirky is a writer, educator, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. In his new book, “Here Comes Everybody”, Clay explores how organizations and industries are being upended by open networks, collaboration, and user appropriation of content production and dissemination. In this highly engaging keynote presentation, Mr. Shirky will explore these trends in light of how they impact our efforts as learning professionals.
Clay Shirky references and talks on Ted.com:
http://www.ted.com/search?q=clay+shirky&x=0&y=0

Thrilled to see that the U.S. Department of State has been nominated for an award at Adobe’s annual MAX user conference! The CO.NX project was named a finalist in the public sector category, which recognizes the most innovative use of technology. The U.S. Department of State developed CO.NX to connect U.S. experts with international audiences to better teach the world about the U.S, its policies, and people.
As a tangential aside, Mark Hamill (AKA Luke Skywalker) will be presenting the award in Los Angeles to the winner on October 6.
Please take a minute and vote for CO.NX here: https://www.adobemaxsubmission.com/viewer/?projectid=121.
Congratulations to the entire CO.NX team!

It’s flattering when a customer looks around the web conferencing market and chooses Connect Pro. Even more flattering when 200,000 people do so all at once.
We are thrilled to announce the that US Marine Corp recently selected Connect Pro as their standard across the entire organization to provide deployed troops secure web conferencing and collaboration. The big focus will be to use Connect Pro as a tactical battlefield collaboration tool for deployed troops across locations worldwide, and will used as a part of version 1.5 of the USMC’s Tactical Collaboration Work Suite, a portable data center providing robust, highly available, highly scalable collaboration and hosting capabilities to deployed forces.
The Marine Corps cited several factors for adopting Acrobat Connect Pro as its collaboration solution. In addition to meeting stringent standards for security, availability and quality, the solution is Joint Interoperability and Test Command Certified, so troops and military leaders can connect quickly across any Department of Defense network. Also, because Acrobat Connect Pro simply requires that users have Adobe Flash Player, which is already installed on Department of Defense computers and 98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops, it can be deployed in the field for use in extremely low-bandwidth environments and intermittent connectivity.
For a few years now we’ve been seeing some of the world’s most secure organizations in financial services, life sciences, and government — including the entire U.S. Department of Defense — turn to Connect Pro as their preferred real-time collaboration solution. This is because Connect Pro not only far exceeds the security capabilities of our competitors, but also enables increased efficiency by removing all the technology barriers found in our competitor’s numerous plug-ins, downloads, and system requirements.
Adobe is happy to help the Marine Corps streamline information exchange and keep troops safe in mission-critical deployments.

About a year ago, we introduced 24×7 in-meeting support for our hosted customers. We have a dedicated team of Connect Pro specialists ready to help you with your meeting needs. To reach them just dial 800-422-3623 from the US. If dialing from another country check this page for our internationals numbers.
Recently some customers seemed to be confused about which number to call when on a ‘Gold’ support service plan. Even if you are on a gold support plan, you should use these numbers to reach 24×7 in-meeting support, and not use your gold support number.