JohnnyL’s Blogic

When the daily challenges of running a business bog me down, the best pick-me-up is to go out and talk to (and hang out with) customers and partners. There's no better real-time feedback of how well, or poorly, you're doing. One great place I love to use for getting a finger on the pulse of our digital imaging busines is Photoshop World. It's a well-attended, growing, and fun event that rotates coasts every six months. And it's run by a bunch of crazy, passionate, lunatic fringe folks. My kinda people.

I did the keynote at the most recent event in Boston. The enthusiasm for Photoshop CS3, and the newly announced Creative Suite 3 was amazing. It was the FIRST time ever that they sold out the show. Every breakout for every track -- sold out. There were people lined up in the halls trying to get in to some of the most popular sessions. And the first ever Birds of a Feather session for medical and scientific pros had more than 80 people show up for it!

As proud as we are of Photoshop CS3, and the new Extended version, it was clear that just as important to our success is the ecosystem of complementary technologies that make Photoshop World a "world" and not an "island". Walking the show floor was a great reminder for me of how our partner offerings continue to grow and support new and innovative ideas for designers around the world. Many of our long term partners were there showing their newest products, which was great. But as we passed one booth, an employee handed me a flyer for their new product and said it was "brand new... just 2 hours old". They were launching their company's first product right there on the show floor at Photoshop World. Their press release went out as the show opened. At another booth, I got a demo for a new input device that was just a prototype, but is expected to ship early next year. Brand new company. Brand new product in development. Brand new ideas all adding to the value of our products to our customers.

And the sudden flood of 3D companies that are coming out of the woodwork with products that support and expand the new 3D capabilities in Photoshop CS3 Extended is just mind blowing. John Nack has already blogged about some of these. Check it out.

We strive to build wow products. At the same time, we want to provide an open ecosystem that creates opportunities for new growth in the community that makes a wow product become a wow platform. This open approach, including using techniques like the very successful open public beta of Lightroom has proven incredibly valuable and we hope to do more along those lines.

Amazingly supportive customers. Incredibly innovative partners. Adding the zaniness of Scott Kelby, the president of the NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) performing Motown's greatest hits -- backed up by the "Histograms" (a geek version of the "Pips") made my trip to Boston a worthwhile venture. I'm just thankful I was not asked to lip-sync with Scott and the Histograms. I only play one musical instrument. The stereo.

Posted by John Loiacono at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know about you, but no matter how many times I've spoken in front of large crowds, I still get nervous before walking on stage. I fear tripping while strolling away from the podium, or just tripping up on what I'm supposed to say. Haven't physically stumbled yet, but it's probably only a matter of time. If I wasn't going to be the problem, what was? There's an old adage in tech, if you're looking for something to go wrong, just include demos in your presentation. And I had a ton of great demos.

So there I was. March 27, 2007. "The biggest launch in Adobe's history", we kept saying. My first big launch here. I made it to the stage without tripping. OK, that's good. We had a few hundred in the local audience, and another 17,000 - 20,000 viewing live on our webcast. Everything was working the way it was supposed to - just like in all the rehearsals. A bad sign. That never happens. We had the appropriate oooohs and ahhhhhs in all the right places. The demos were flawless. We were even right on time (another rare ocassion in a launch event). Life was good.

And then, the grim reaper of stage events raised his ugly head. When I first glanced up to see a light static snow storm on the screen, I just assumed we had a little signal interference. But it continued. I glanced at the guy directing the show. He was sweating and yelping into his headset mic. Not good. The static got worse to the point where almost the entire screen was static. No demo. Just static. Really not good.

Although we were demoing with Internet Explorer, this wasn't the "blue screen of death" at work. In fact, it wasn't anybody's software. It was a fried video router. Hardware! After a bit of softshoe and stallling, we had no choice but to stop the show.

For those in the room, it was a simple 20-minute intermission, complete with free refreshments. But for the people viewing online, I was really disappointed. Good news was the webcast traffic didn't drop off as much as I expected, maybe 20%. Amazing when all the web audience could see for 20 minutes was event participants wandering aimlessly around while the AV folks were madly (and I do mean madly) trying to find and fix the problem. But they got it up and running. And the rest of the event went flawlessly - if a bit longer than anticipated.

I look at it this way. In 10 years Greg (my demo partner) and I will look back and remember the famous glitch in the CS3 New York City launch event. If we'd had no issues, we would have claimed it was just another great stage event...no hiccups, no snafus, no failed routers... And no story to tell.

Posted by John Loiacono at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)