We were excited to not only be a Leadership sponsor at Sundance 2012, but to also sponsor the NEXT category of films at the festival. NEXT films stretch limited resources to create impactful art and truly embody the spirit of independent filmmaking.

We got a chance to catch some of the talented directors and producers in the NEXT category during Sundance. Watch the video below to hear their thoughts on what it means to be a NEXT category filmmaker. Congratulations to all of the filmmakers for their nominations, and a special congratulations to the category winner, Mike Birbiglia, for “Sleepwalk with Me.“

We’re excited to be a one of the Bay Area Hubs for Social Media Week San Francisco taking place February 11-17. As a part of this, we’re hosting an all-day series focused solely on social data and analytics. Join us Monday, February 13 at our Adobe San Jose office for a day dedicated to not only teaching attendees the value of social data, but also sharing best practices on how to leverage this data to impact your organization’s social media efforts in a big way. We’ll discuss everything from using data for decision making, down to the tools and technologies needed to get started.

WHAT TO EXPECT

For a look at what’s to come, check out our team’s quick interview with Social Week Media Week along with a few highlights and a sneak peek below.

Session highlights and sneak peeks follow and include:

Speaker(s)	Session
Keynote Address – Ann Lewnes, Adobe	Confessions of a Digital Marketer Exclusive Sneak Peek Her keynote will provide an honest look at the challenges and triumphs of leading a “digital first” marketing organization. She’ll discuss the growing role of social media as a way to communicate with customers and drive demand. Included in this will be examples of how marketers can take advantage of data and, most importantly, increase marketing’s overall value to company strategy and success.
Keynote Address – Jeremiah Owyang, Altimeter Group	Social Data is a Crystal Ball
Panel Moderated by Michael Brito, Edelman Digital	Social Measurement Best Practices Across Tech Brands
Susan Etlinger, Altimeter Group	Let the Compass Guide You: A Framework for Social Analytics
John Yi, Facebook Marianne Llewellyn, Adobe	Facebook and Adobe – Measuring the Value of a Fan

More information on other sessions from our full-day event will be shared over the course of the next couple of weeks. Attendance is free, but be sure to pre-register (required) today.

HOW TO REGISTER

Be sure to register now for each session of interest* at the Social Media Week San Francisco website.

*NOTE: If you would like to attend the full day events at Adobe, you must register for each individual session separately. No registration needed for the breakfast, lunch and reception.

WHERE TO GO

Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
Get Directions

CONNECT

Be sure to follow us on Twitter (@Adobe) and Facebook, as well as the Adobe Conversations blog, for the latest on Social Media Week 2012 happenings. Join our Social Media Week San Francisco conversation on Twitter by using the hashtags #SMW12 and #Adobe.

We might be back home from Sundance in sunny California, but the highlights from our trip keep coming! On Friday January 19^th, we hosted a panel titled “How Technology is Impacting Storytelling and Film.” The panel featured talented filmmakers and artists such as Vincent Laforet (Revelry, Mobius), Rob Legato (Academy-award winning VFX Supervisor), and Jacob Rosenberg (Waiting for Lightning). Moderated by Sharlto Copley (District 9), the panelists shared how technological advancements have impacted the way they approach filmmaking and shared their biggest lessons for budding filmmakers in the audience.

Watch the highlights below, and the full panel here.

Congratulations to Mike Birbiglia, Director of Sleepwalk With Me for winning the Best of NEXT Audience Award at the Sundance Awards. Mike accepted the honor at Saturday’s ceremony, where he provided the audience with some laughs during his acceptance speech (for those of you who don’t know, Mike also happens to be a stand up comedian!).

We were proud to sponsor the NEXT category of films at the Sundance Film Festival, which recognizes and honors impactful films created with limited resources. The films in the NEXT category truly embody the spirit of independent filmmaking, and we’re thrilled to have had the opportunity to sponsor the category.

Congratulations to ALL of the contestants on a job well done. We got to speak to a few contestants during our time at the festival, and will be sharing a highlights video in the coming days here. Stay tuned for more!

Today at the GreenBiz Forum 12 in San Francisco, Adobe announced another step toward becoming Net Zero with the installation of two-200 kilowatt Bloom Energy fuel cells at our San Francisco offices. The fuel cells are expected to provide 35 percent of Adobe SF’s on-site power needs, the equivalent of powering 320 homes.  Net Zero buildings can be independent from the energy grid supply and have zero carbon emissions annually.

Fuel cells offer a high level of efficiency by reducing power lost in traditional energy transmission. Today’s news marks Adobe’s third major renewable energy installation.  At our San Jose headquarters, we installed 12-100 kilowatt Bloom boxes in the summer of 2010, which provide 30 percent of Adobe SJ’s total power.  In December 2009, we installed 20 Windspires, which harness wind power to generate clean electric energy on-site.

With the completion of this project, Adobe remains on the forefront of incorporating impactful, leading-edge clean technologies to our operations in an effort to reduce our environmental footprint. Over the next 10 years, Adobe expects to reduce its carbon footprint by approximately 121.5 million pounds, the equivalent of taking 1,810 compact cars off the road annually.

Yesterday, we finished up our week long trip to Sundance as a Leadership Sponsor. Sundance gave us a great opportunity to not only meet talented filmmakers and editors who use our tools every day, but have great conversations with fellow attendees who are just as passionate about the art of filmmaking as we are. 

We wrapped up our last day with a deep dive, titled “Modern Storytelling,” with Vincent Laforet. Not only did Vincent share some of his greatest photographs and commercials with an engaged audience, but he also gave candid explanations of stories behind each piece of work, tips on tools, best mobile apps to use for photography, and editing techniques. He shared behind-the-scenes making videos of a few commercials, his techniques and learnings, and lastly, how it all come together in the final product. Thanks to Vincent for his valuable time. You can see more of his work here.

Sundance, it’s been fun. Thanks to all of you who followed our journey along with us on social media. We’ll share a few more videos with you in the coming days, so stay tuned.

Until next year…!

On Day 3 here at Sundance we focused on gathering feedback from attendees on Main Street. Folks shared with us the best Sundance moments so far, their favorite Adobe products (!), and what the future of digital looks like to them. Saturday included quite the snowstorm, so many thanks to our video crew and all the people who stopped by to speak with us! Check out the video below (I have to say my favorite interviewee was the guy in the kilt who was braving the cold!).

In addition, we have a few special congratulations to shout:

• Julia Pott, an Adobe Design Achievement Award (ADAA) 2011 Animation Finalist, was accepted into the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Program for her work, “Belly.” Julia has created an exceptional coming-of-age animated film. Julia, the Adobe teams wish you the very best at your screening during the festival!
• Also congratulations to Columbia University and UCLA on the acceptance of their alumni, student and faculty films to Sundance. Columbia has an amazing 14 films from their alumni, students and faculty screening at Sundance. Three of the films are part of the Adobe sponsored NEXT Category.

Next up for Adobe at Sundance: a case study on Wednesday with Vincent Laforet on modern storytelling. Stay tuned here as we’ll provide a recap.

 

Friday was a long (…but I won’t say ‘hard’) day in Park City. It was our first full day to show you the variety of reasons Adobe is at Sundance, one of which is to host two panels with filmmakers about technology and storytelling. We’ve got some snippets of our first panel below – look for the full panel on Adobe TV in the near future. Adobe is also a sponsor of the NEXT category of filmmakers, and we have a clip of one of our red carpet interviews below (more NEXT filmmaker interviews coming up in its own video, as well). Of course, we caught a few celebs too … Can you find them?

Finally the Adobe teams are arriving in Utah for this year’s Sundance Film Festival! Jumping around on the free shuttles (Wow — all free? Yes, indeed. Thanks Park City), finding our way from the Egyptian Theater on Main Street (iconic image below the video), to the Sundance Film Fest HQ, we’ve already met loads of people uber-excited for this year. We met the kind folks from Indiewire who invited us to a party (though other engagements, sadly, kept us from attending). We also met two guys from Canada who, seeing our Adobe logos, lauded After Effects and Production Premium – that was a nice little pick me up for the team. We of course got some footage of that.

Then we made our way over to Eccles Theatre for the Day 1 Screening of The Queen of Versailles where the crowd was buzzing with excitement. Robert Redford kicked off the screening,  noting his vision for Sundance and support for independent filmmakers. The documentary itself was fascinating, capturing David Siegel and Jacqueline Siegel’s story of riches to “rags.”

We ended our night at the Day 1 Party, bumping to some good music and meeting some fun fellow attendees.

We put together this teaser video of what you can expect to see over the next few days – check back tomorrow. It’s Friday morning, snowing a ton, and word on the street is that today is the real kick-off. Come back daily for the next episode, yes?

Is the Egyptian Theater the 1st venue ever used by Sundance? I think it is…but let us know in the comments!

We’re uploading all of our photos over at Facebook, so be sure to check back in regularly. Hopefully we’ll have some cool celeb sightings to share!

One of the highest compliments that we could receive is an Adobe employee who says our company is a great place to work. That’s exactly what’s happened today – on an immense scale. For the 13^th time, Adobe has made FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work for list. We ranked 41, a 59 percent improvement over last year’s ranking.

Given the quality and number of companies considered for this list, I couldn’t be more proud and humbled by this recognition. It’s a direct reflection of our incredible employees and the enthusiasm they bring to work every day. Although Adobe has grown and changed significantly since its founding nearly 30 years ago, our values and commitment to creating a great place to work remain constant.

When I learned about our ranking on the list, I paused to think about what I like best about working for Adobe… I have to say it’s our 10,000 creative, passionate and innovative employees. Read what other Adobe employees have to say about working here on the Life@Adobe blog.