The Software Giveaways! + the Swag

We gave away several copies of Flash Builder Premium 4.5 which comes bundled with ColdFusion Builder 2.   There were also developer t-shirts and some assorted swag.  In talking to a couple of the winners, they had lots of ideas on creating ColdFusion Builder extensions; and some even had an interest in creating Mobile Applications with FlashBuilder 4.5.  There was one developer who works for a military organization who wanted to create an Android App and reader device for Java Card ID’s to access their internal intranet.  Sounded interesting!  All in All, there were a lot of happy CF developers.

Met a couple of Adobe User Group Managers and members at MuraCON:

Michael Van Riper (Google), Aaron Houston (Adobe/Sun), Bruno Souza (SouJava/Sun), & Steve Chin (JUG/AUG leader–OSCON Java Track Lead)

Death Star User Groups – Fav CLS11 session:

My favorite session was led by Sun’s former Chief Open Source Officer Simon Phipps. We we worked in parallel at Sun Microsystems, mainly with the Java and OpenSolaris communities. Simon’s session was aptly named: The DEATH STAR User Group (photo here).  One of the challenges in open source (and in general)  is that some companies DO NOT always focus on the good.  Rather, they have a focus on benefiting shareholders and harming competitors without regard to how their actions might affect the community.  This session focused on how Community Managers need to reconcile at a personal level when being labeled as “evil” and how to act towards the community when conflict arises.  Interesting analogy/takeaway:  Simon proposed that all corporations are like “Reptiles” (A crocodile, was the animal he referenced).  At first this was quite a shocking analogy to me, since I am now working for Adobe. But I know Simon—seen him speak before, there was a method to his brash statement.  He proposed that in a world of shareholders and public companies — Companies are Reptiles because:

#1 — Companies need revenue to survive; so, like  hungary “Crocs”, they will feed (i.e. they have to make a profit for the shareholders or owners)
#2 — Companies, sensing fear or threats, will lash out to protect themselves (i.e. register/buy software patents or engage intellectual property lawsuits, etc)
#3 — If the Company is not hungary nor feels threatened, then IT will do nothing. Like a crocodile sitting on the bank of a river who has already eaten its last victim; sitt’n there watching passers-by—do nothing until it feels threatened or hungary again.

Simon might be a bit cynical, but his analogy was thought provoking!  (Perhaps, a bit disturbing – my fear of large omnivore reptiles….) One thing I quickly realized, while listening to Simon was that there were an awful lot of ex-Sun folks sitting at this session, so it kinda felt like ex-sun therapy.  Another thing I realized was that I kept seeing the same folks at the unconference sessions I was attending.  One of whom, Dan Allen, from Red Hat was in a lot of the same sessions I was in.

***Dan went into MORE detail about CLS Conference than I had time for in this entry. So Check out his blog: “ Learning to lead cats at Community Leadership Summit 2011 ” and the article is worth a read.

Important FOLKS Met while at CLS:

• Bruno Souza (SouJava Brazil, and a fellow community mgr @Sun; taught me everything I know about community; often wears a Brazilian flag as a cape; you can’t miss him at a conference.)
• Stephen Chin (A Java User Group Leader but also leading a Flash On Devices User Group; just wrote a new book on mobile app development: “Pro Android Flash“)
• Gunner Hillert (New Java User Group Manager of Atlanta JUG; also chairing the Atlanta DEVNEXUS conference in Spring 2012)
• Manfred Moser (Leader of Vancouver Island Java User Group; One of these days, I am going to get Adobe Evangelist Duane Nickull who lives in Vancouver to do a presentation there)
• Mark Johnson (Leader of the New England Java User Group. Dude! In the five years I worked at Sun, I never met you. I had to come to CLS to finally meet YOU in person. Thanks for all your help through the years!
• Michael Van Riper – (co-leader of the Silicon Valley Web JUG; now a community manager for developer outreach at Google; Google Technology User Groups founder; co-organizer of the Silicon Valley Code Camp AND the hardest working Community Manager I know! He IS a “Serial Community Organizer“)
• Marsee Henon/John Jons ( the Community Team at O’Reilly; They have always been good to me and the User Groups I’ve worked with! Good folks to know!)
• Zohar Babin (former Adobe User Grp Leader of Flashoo Israel; relocated to NYC; Community & Developer relations at Kaltura)

All in All, I enjoyed my time at CLS; I will be at CLS-West come January 2012.  I hope to be back in Portland again next year with Adobe being a sponsor of both CLS & CLS-WEST — and perhaps DO SOME GOOD!… Thanks Jono & the Team!

And Jono Signed my copy of  ”the Art of Community” — Coolness!

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:

• bforta-jax-sj2011-keynote-rich-exper-mobilewebdesktop.pdf
• Bldg_Enterprise_MobileApplications_with_Flex_and_Java.pdf

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:

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

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: