Community Kitchen » Adobe

Christie Fidura — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:41:33 +0000

Create Now Warsaw – A Rousing Success!

On Friday 1st March, Adobe held a #CreateNow event in the historic city of Warsaw. It was a huge success with over 500+ attendees – standing room only! Our evangelists Rufus Deuchler, Jason Levine and Paul Trani presented the Creative Cloud Workflow. The team had collaborated to create shared demo assets that each of them utilised, powering the case of the workflow as it passed from one creative member to the next. The roof nearly blew off the house when Rufus presented the new Photoshop Touch for iPhone. People were absolutely delighted to see ‘Instagram on steroids’ as he put it!

Jason Levine gave us an extra-special surprise which had the crowd in fits of laughter. I won’t spoil the surprise, but let’s just say we were taken on a cruise on ‘The Love Boat’.

It was a fantastic event hosted by my wonderful Adobe colleagues Klaudia Jaworska and Piotr Walczyszyn of the Warsaw office and I can’t thank them enough for all their hard work.

I was delighted to meet our fantastic Adobe Creative Suite Poland User Group Manager, Pawel Zakrzewski. We had a really fun dinner in an historic restaurant which I highly recommend next time you’re in Warsaw, U Kucharzy at Ossolinskich 7.

To see a Create Now event in your hometown, check out the full schedule here.

Tomorrow, Create Now London – then off to Stockholm & Copenhagen! Hope to see you there!

Rufus explains the Creative Cloud Workflow

A standing room only event!

Some great tweets from the live audience

JAX-SJ-VegasFlash-LAFlex-June2011

Aaron Houston — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 23:09:02 +0000

“June was a busy month for the Adobe Community & Evangelism Teams, so here are some highlights“ — Aaron Houston (Adobe Community Mgr)

JAX San Jose Ca – June 21-22, 2011

Ben Forta (above), Adobe’s Evangelism Director, addresses Java Enterprise audience at JAX San Jose about Adobe’s launch of new product: Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform. JAX also coincided with the update to Flash Builder, so Ben was also there talk about Adobe’s mobile story. Ben, pointed out that one can also write Flex/AIR Apps for iOS devices with the new FlashBuilder 4.5.1 update, and then mentioned the Politifact Mobile App which is the best selling new app on iTunes.

Here is a video of Ben’s talk at JAX-San Jose (link to his slides forthcoming):

Presentation slide links:

Adobe Speakers @JAX:

Christophe Coenraets (“@ccoenrats“) had a session on Mobile Application Development with Flex and Java using the new FlashBuilder 4.5.1 tooling to deploy the same code across multiple mobile devices (iOS, RIM Playbook, and Android).

Cédric Hüsler (“@keepthebyte“) is an Evangelist from Day software; and, he had a session about Data Structures, Restful Web Services, OSGi, & Java Content Repository (JCR; JSR-170, 283. He also demo’d (CRX) the new Java Content Repository Platform which is part of Adobe’s new Digital Enterprise offering. It was my first chance to meet one of the enterprise evangelists that came over in the Day Software acquisition.

JAX-SJ Adobe Booth:

Liz Frederick (left); Aaron Houston (right, background)

Liz Frederick (Adobe Community Team) and I helped out to staff the Adobe booth. While the attendance of JAX-San Jose was not spectacular, the event did provide a chance for Adobe to mingle with the Java Enterprise crowd. And, I got an opportunity to reconnect with some of my former Java community folks: Chris Richardson (Oakland JUG, POJOs in Action author, Java Champion); Chet Haase (Google, formerly w/Adobe, & Sun); Romain Guy (Google); Kevin Nilson (Silicon Valley Web JUG and Java Champion); Sonya Barry (java.net), Jasper Potts (Oracle, Sun, JavaFX); Pieter Humphrey (Oracle, BEA), Kito Mann (www.jsfcentral.com)

Folks I met @JAXCONF:

VegasFlash – Flash Builder 4.5.1 Tour 22June2011

After the JAX conference, I hopped on a plane to make an evening meeting with VegasFlash. Adobe Evangelists Renaun Erickson & Greg Wilson demo’d the new features in the FlashBuilder 4.5.1 (update) which was released earlier in the week. VegasFlash has a nice setup for larger meetings like this. They use McMullen’s Irish Pub’s backroom which has its own bar. McMullen’s is on 4650 W. Tropicana by the Orleans Casino & they have a pretty nice Flash website (mcmullansirishpub.com). There were about 50 Flash Developers onhand to watch Renaun’s demo. Greg Wilson was also in town following-up with one of the casinos who is very interested in expanding into mobile apps of tablets/phones…. FlashON! After the meeting, I got a chance to talk to a couple guys from Zappos about their plans to move into the old Las Vegas City Hall and help revitalize the area as a technology business incubator for startups. One of the Zappos guys even won a boxed-copy of FlashBuilder 4.5 that I brought to the meeting, so I know they will put that to good use. We will be checking in on the Zappos guys in the future! Wish them the best of luck bringing new jobs to downtown LV.

FlashBuilder 4.5 User Group Tour:
The VegasFlash meeting was part of a series of FlashBuilder 4.5 Launch Tours with select Adobe User Groups who could accommodate both in venue and the busy evangelist schedules. Here’s a list of tour dates & facts:

Date	User Group	Adobe Speaker	#’s
10 May 2011	Boston Flex	Christophe Coenraets	45+
14 May 2011	IndyFlex	Kevin Schmidt	50+
07 June 2011	NYFLEX	Terry Ryan	50+
16 June 2011	Dallas Flex	Renaun Erickson	45+
22 June 2011	Vegas Flash	Renaun Erickson & Greg Wilson	45+
23 June 2011	Mid Michigan Flex	Ryan Stewart	40+
28 June 2011	LA Flex	Renaun Erickson	60+

Next, a couple days after the Vegas/JAX events, it was on to the LAST Stop of the FB 4.5 Tour: a joint meeting of Los Angeles Flex User Group, LA Flash, and LA ColdFusion UG.

LA Flex – Flash Builder 4.5.1 Tour 28June2011

So after a quick flight (SJC to LAX) on a new eco-friendly Horizon Q400turbo-prop, I found myself in Los Angeles….land of Gourmet Food Trucks, Hollywood, Fine Beaches….AND MANY Adobe User Groups!Something Very LA:

I checked in to the Crowne Plaza at the LAX row of hotels and to my surprise I ran into a little bit of LA Culture (ala First Fridays) in the back parking lot — Gourmet Catering Trucks. Every Tuesday from 11am-2pm, the back parking lot transforms into a lively spectacle of colorful food vendors, outdoor seating, and music (i.e. there was a Dee-jay). And the food, very interesting! Where else, but in LA can you find Korean Nachos, Chimales, and Indian Curry alongside Southern BBQ! So here’s a slide-show of what I found.

Later, that evening I mentioned to LA Flex UGM Tom Bray that it might be kinda a cool idea to connect up with catering trucks for User Group meetings; it would solve a problem most UGMs have: FOOD! (& how to fund it). Tom seemed to like the idea…and it would be something “very LA” to draw folks to the meetings.

But food was not why I was in LA, I wanted to check out how the LA Flex holds their meetings and the venue that they use. Venue: Coloft is an interesting place, because it’s a place where “freelancers” can come an rent a space and focus on their projects in an work environment. Sometimes, working at home isn’t as productive as it could be, so there are places like Coloft where developers & designers can come and perhaps even collaborate together.

All in all, I was impressed with LA Flex’s organization and venue. Renaun gave a great talk on FlashBuilder 4.5.1; We gave away some software, T-shirts, & books. The member’s appreciated Adobe’s effort to visit their group. The visit also gives me as a Community Manager, a good idea what the User Group venues are like for future engagements. I also got to meet one of the local Adobe Community Professionals (ACP), Elliot Mebane (aka “Roguish”). Tom Bray the User Group Manager mentioned that his group has had only (2) Adobe Speakers in its entire existence. Hopefully, I can help overcome that + writing this blog will help internally @Adobe. Tom, we’re working on potential visit from folks @Zend to talk about FlashBuilder 4.5 for PHP… (So, stay tuned).

Where do LA Flex’rs hang out after the meeting?

The party continued at LA Flex’s local pub, the “Warzsawa” (a Polish Pub & Restaurant which has cool outdoor seating); it’s a couple of blocks from the Coloft facility. I got to chat with a couple of LA Flex’rs on the projects they were working on over a beverage!

Some feedback from the event:

It Gets Better

Rachel Luxemburg — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 04:47:29 +0000

Sadly none of the Community team was involved with the making of this video, but I’m proud to share it with all of you anyway.

Adobe MAX 2010 – The Aftermath

Rachel Luxemburg — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 01:18:16 +0000

Every year we have a habit of saying, “Best MAX Ever!” but this year’s MAX was pretty special even for MAX.

And starting things off with our biggest Community Summit ever was even more special. We had 200 community members face-to-face for the first time (and even more than that at the community welcome reception that evening). User Group Managers and Adobe Community Professionals from all around the world met with us, other members of the Adobe product and evangelism teams, and most important with each other, for hours of talk on a range of topics.

Somehow I managed to not take any photos of the community reception at Lucky Strike, but that event was even bigger, as community folks who’d been involved in other Day Zero activities joined the fun.

As Day 1 of MAX dawned, it was really special to see that the Summit got a nice highlight in the Keynote Pre-Show. If you missed this, watch the first 10 minutes of this video (and stay for the rest if you haven’t seen the keynote yet….):

And then the madness of MAX began in earnest. Each MAX is a crazy, chaotic time, full of conversations and reunions with friends and colleagues from all over the world. There’s never enough time to see all the people you wanted to see or do all the things you wanted to do. Although the format of MAX is the same very year, with 4,600 people attending, each person’s MAX experience is unique.

So rather than give my narrow view of what MAX 2010 was like, I’ll share a bunch of community links to give their impressions of this year’s MAX (and if I missed anyone please add your link in the comments!). These are in no particular order.

BLOG POSTS

Jonathan Campos
Steve Rittler compared MAX 2010 to the 1939 World’s Fair
Jeffry Houser – The Flextras MAX Wrapup
Darren Osadchuk
Dustin Tauer’s MAX posts
Our friends at EffectiveUI were blogging away (thanks for the links, RJ!)
James Lockman’s wrapup
en Espanol, César Alexánder Frick Mijares
MAX Speaker David Hogue has two follow-on posts here and here
Demian Borba tried his hand at live-blogging
Brian Rinaldi works for Adobe now but his post has a good community focus so I’ll add it too
auf Deutsch, Constantin Ehrenstein
MAX first-time Adam Tuttle’s report
Chris Georgenes
Mark DuBois asks: Why MAX?
Max Dunn
Nick Kwiatkowski’s report
Matthew Keefe did one post per day at MAX
Tom Ortega thinks it’s a great time to be a developer
The inimitable Cold Fusion Jedi, Raymond Camden, has 6 different posts on MAX, all listed here.
and Rich Tretola did 5 MAX posts. Link to the final one is here and you can click backwards to see the rest.

PODCASTS & VIDEO

RIA Radio: MAX Day 1 (and more to follow)
The Flex Show – Adobe MAX Interviews
Paul Cracknell’s MAX Video Diary

We also got a large number of thank-you noted from community members after MAX. It’s hard to put into words how grateful and humbled we are by seeing that feedback; it’s the fuel that helps us do what we do every day.

With permission of the author, I am sharing one of the notes, because it so perfectly captures what we hope everyone will experience as we plan MAX each year:

First of all, this was no doubt, the best MAX ever. In fact, I’ll go ahead and say that it was the best conference I’ve ever attended, period. Well, except maybe for my first Macworld back in the 90’s…

Secondly, while there were 4500 people at MAX, I have to say that being a member of the ACP team was really something.

I may be considered a rock star, but that’s usually in the greater setting of a design-centric universe. While Adobe is certainly trying to offer a value-add for creatives at MAX, the conference is predominantly focused on developer technologies. So I still have that feeling of an outsider looking in.

As a member of the ACP team, walking around with the Community Leader pin/magnet, and wearing the green lanyard, I not only felt on top of the world, I also quickly recognized other team members. And I felt like I belonged. And it was really nice. You know, kinda like… community

I’m thrilled that I had the opportunity to meet with so many of the folks in this group — it was worth going even WITHOUT having walked away with a Droid2 phone and a Google TV

Thank YOU, Mordy. And to everyone who attended. We loved every second of it.

Now, about that 2011 MAX plan……

Thoughts on Blogging, At Adobe and Elsewhere

Rachel Luxemburg — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:36:59 +0000

I participated in a panel discussion a few weeks ago as part of SES. Afterwards I did a quick interview with the panel moderator, Anna Maria Virzi from Clickz, sharing some thoughs on corporate blogging: I’m talkijng about blogging at Adobe, but towards the end the advice gets more general. The biggest takeaway? “Be human, be [...]

ACP Appreciation

Liz Frederick — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:15:14 +0000

Everyone likes to be recognized for their accomplishments. Whether it is a promotion or a pat on the back.

Since I took on Manager of the Adobe Community Professionals, I wanted to find a way to show the world how awesome these individuals are.

I thought about hats, t-shirts, bags, etc. Then I thought about my Adobe Badge I wear every day and how proud I am of my accomplishments. So I ordered small magnetic metal pins with the ACP logo and shipped them along with some product stickers to each person. It was a small gift but I knew they would wear them proudly at their next conference, training session, or award event.

I received many emails full of Thank Yous, Twitter messages with Twitpics, and even a blog entry! I got the sweetest delivery today to my office in McLean, VA. The card said:

Thanks for All You Do For Our Team

- Have a Great Weekend With a Big Smile All Weekend.

I think I know who this is from but he didn’t enclose his name, so I’ll leave it out for now. But I’d like to say You’re Welcome and I will forever be proud of the ACPs. Please continue to help me build a great community and you will be seeing more from this program. Pins are just the beginning!