Photoshop Express is fully web based. No CDs. No downloads. No updates or activation. Whenever you log in, you’re using the very latest version. While we have leveraged Photoshop core technology to build this new solution, it is not Photoshop online. It is a targeted solution focused on this new generation of content creators that will extend the power of creativity to the consumer at large. For this audience, it is a complete solution. You can easily upload, organize/sort, edit, store and show off your images. And when you’re done, share them anywhere, including social sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

It’s easy. It’s fun. It’s free. All you need is a browser. To learn more about Photoshop Express, and to participate in our just released beta program, go to www.photoshop.com/express.

You take the pictures. We’ll help you make them look great as you share them with others.

And obviously, I have thought about whether open source has a place in Adobe's creative products strategy. But what designers need is tightly-integrated workflows and high reliability right out of the box so the really important question to ask is what's the impact to the user. Yes, clearly it's cheaper, but does it really save money in the end?

I read a really interesting blog written by Eric Vreeland, a creative professional who works across print, web and video - virtually all of the CS3 product line. His description of the time it took to manage the lack of interoperability between those products, reduced feature sets, differing interfaces of the various free products, inconvenient file formats, etc. really gave me some insight into his business. He used so much of his time "fixing" all that free software that the savings on the cost of the software evaporated incredibly quickly. Time he could use on new projects - and by the way, bill to a customer to help drive up his bottom line - was taken up being his own system administrator and software integrator.

In the end Eric decided that the open source products had too big a cost to him for this set of tasks, and he bought our Master Collection -- an integrated suite of some 12 individual products like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash software, all with a common user experience, interface, installation, etc. He found he could spend his time taking full advantage of not only rich feature sets but the incredible integration of the products. Less time on getting things to work meant he gets to spend more time on what he really loves. Being creative.

Don't get me wrong, open source software can be a perfect solution. It's just not right for everything. Or for everyone - like many creative professionals who are on deadline and prefer to innovate vs. integrate.

For people like Eric, it has become clear. Less time per project. More time spent on the work he loves. More dollars to the bottom line. Priceless. Just proves the old adage. Time is money.

Some of you might have seen the announcement we made with FedEx Kinko's regarding putting a "Send to FedEx Kinko's" button in the 8.1 version of Adobe Reader and Acrobat Professional. And you might have also seen the blogs and articles about the reaction of many members of the print community. The reaction was immediate, strong, and negative. That was our first lesson learned. We met the objective of developing new business opportunities for our technology and addressing a customer's print workflow problem, but did not engage with print industry thought leaders and influencers early in the deal cycle to determine how to best implement the program. We have a long-standing, very supportive relationship with the print community, so getting their input should have been baked into the process.

Bruce Chizen, Adobe's CEO, immediately acknowledged that our process, and therefore the end result, was flawed. We received a number of letters and emails letting us know just how problematic this is for print service providers, universities, government agencies, etc. We initially attempted to respond to each and every email. But as the volume built, we had to resort to a standard letter and a posting on our website. Another lesson learned. Immediate response is great, but the community wants action -- and quickly. What we really needed to do was sit down with them and have a conversation to see if we could find some common ground.

So Tuesday, Bruce and I met with a representative group of print industry leaders. They were tough on us. Big time tough. They told us exactly how they felt and the hard truths of what this deal means to them. We heard them. And they clearly told us what their expectations for next steps are. They had a lot to say, we had a lot to listen to. At the end of the discussion, we committed to coming back to them within two weeks with a decision on how we will move forward. We are going to do everything possible to find a way to deliver a win - win situation on all sides. It's the right thing to do. Another lesson learned.

In the meantime, some good has come out of all of this. We finally got many of the industry leaders in the same room and we spent the last 20 or so minutes of the meeting talking about what we could work on together once we resolve this big hairy issue that is on the table. And we will resolve it. That's the other lesson learned. At the core, we all want to work together, support each other, and ultimately, succeed together.

There are programs in several parts of the US, the UK and India - and the one I visited is called Build San Francisco. It's a program that mixes academics with internships in architecture and design. This year the participants are researching and documenting through photographs and interviews the impact of globalization on the people and places close to them, whether it's the world of fashion, food... or even martial arts. It was a fascinating day as we met with volunteers, the teachers, and the kids. They are all incredibly passionate about what they are doing and that passion is contagious.

What I really love is the program is run like a true design studio - with real tools, real projects, real deadlines, real end products. Unlike most school assignments, if the client doesn't like the output, the students have to re-do the project. They don't just get a C grade and move on. They re-work, iterate, and alter until the client is satisfied. So the kids are learning a ton about how the real world works - and how even though they live in a world that faces issues of war, racism, poverty, and crime... they can make an impact.

And their work is amazing. I saw some early photography samples that I'd love to hang on my wall! Really compelling work. I can't wait to see the final photo essays and the book from these kids and the kids in Noida, India working on a similar project. You can check out some of the practice photos from the BSFI students and some of the truly amazing and moving final products from many of the groups of kids around the world and learn more about the program. I'd love to hear your comments on the work you see on the site. This is a project that really makes a difference and that I'm going to stay close to - so you'll be hearing more from me about Adobe Youth Voices and what the kids participating around the world are accomplishing.

I was checking out some of the web forums the other day and came across kuler talk. This is the online forum for our new free online service to create your own color themes, browse color themes created by others, and share your creations with the kuler community, now over 150,000 strong! What I read there absolutely stunned me—in a positive way. I never thought I'd see the day when someone described themselves as being "addicted" to an Adobe product. But that's what has happened.

Boyd Wiebe , one kuler member said "I don't really consider myself an addict, yet", but acknowledged his immediate family was starting to wonder about his usage. Six hours straight on Kuler... Boyd, let me just say that admitting the problem is the first step in the 12 Step Program!

CBuckley calls herself a "kuler addict.” She's not into denial. I think that when she struggled to reduce her number of published themes from 63 to 36, she knew this was serious. And now she's building up her library again. To her, I say, “We've got plenty of storage space. Keep creating!”

And then there are the folks who are using kuler in interesting ways. Lou*ser is going to paint his house "using sweet color schemes from Adobe kuler.” My personal favorite is another kuler talk post by jaynan.narayanan who has been using kuler along with a few of his colleagues to make interesting rather than "traditional color combinations.” The good news is his wife likes the site too and has begun to spend time there with him —so I’m guessing it’s been good for his marriage.

kuler: Explore your colors, share your creativity, save your marriage. But do be careful as we are still searching for the antidote.

By the way, what you see in kuler, an online hosted service application, is just the beginning. Stay tuned for additional wildly successful web services that will augment the incredible foundation of the CS3 Suites and point products.

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.

Photoshop World
Just returned from my first Photoshop World and my first keynote in my new role. There is good news and bad news about standing in front of 3,000+ people who have deeper knowledge than you about your own products. Some of the interesting facts are that the show, put together by the NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals), is the largest in its 14-year history, even ahead of the numbers during the dot com boom. My new best friend Scott Kelby (NAPPs president) roasted me well in his introduction. I asked him not to use my corporate bio as a reference point since I find them to be ultimately boring. When Scott asked what I recommend as an alternative. I suggested that he just make something up. "Tell them I was an astronaut, then professional baseball player, then part-time open heart surgeon prior to coming to Adobe. See if anyone's awake at 9 a.m." He took that as a challenge and proceeded to introduce me, as best as I can describe it, in a style that was a cross between a presidential national convention and WWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation). I'm not usually at a loss for words, but this was one of those rare moments. It was great. I don't get mad, Scott, I get even.

Lightroom
I polled the audience on a couple of subjects. Based on my guesstimates, it looked like about 70% were running Photoshop and/or the Creative Suite on the Mac platform. It was great to then see that about the same number were also running on Windows (many shops run both). I'd estimate about 60-65% of the attendees said they'd downloaded Lightroom. It's been astonishing to see the interest in Lightroom since we began making the Beta available early this year. Closing in on 350,000 unique visitors, half of those Windows, and we've only made the Windows version available for a couple of months now.

Red Pill
I jokingly asked if anyone was interested in seeing us put Photoshop and CS natively on the MacTel platform. Strangely, about 99% raised their hand and applauded. Hmmm. That prompted me to give folks a glimpse of "Red Pill", the code name for our universal binary version of Photoshop "next". This is a monumental effort within Adobe. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view), we are not able to simply do a quick and dirty port of Photoshop to MacTel. Our customers have an expectation that we do an optimized, performant, killer implementation that takes full advantage of what the new hardware is capable. Therefore, we committed to, and are sticking with, our spring delivery.

All in all, a great couple of days in Vegas (a city I could easily do without). What was most enjoyable for me was the interaction with the passionate community that has made Photoshop what it is today. Meeting the Hall of Fame inductees, the NAPP staff, the trainers and guest speakers, the folks bending my ear on the show floor, the partners -- great stuff. You can build great products, but the real test of extensibility is how fast and broad an ecosystem forms to support and expand the product's success. There are few with more passion and who are more boisterous and opinionated than our Photoshop world.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

JohnnyL

How Do You Eat an Elephant?

I just sat through most of a 3-day internal marketing summit where our global corporate, field and product business unit marketing teams gather for strategy, motivation, skills development and time to interact (I heard there was also some evening parties and a few late night antics, but that can’t be confirmed just yet). As a former chief marketing officer, my experience is that no matter how good the speakers/content/breakouts are, most of the attendees find that just getting time to network with their brethren is the most valuable output. My second experience is that it can be very difficult to do breakouts for employees, who tend to be one or more of the following: pessimistic about anything you say; skeptical that anything will ever change; tired after flying in from Japan, India or the like; more excited about sampling the local drinking establishments than hearing about the best way to implement a direct mail campaign in Portugal. The breakout my VP of marketing and I hosted (“hosted” as in I just showed up), was a quick, hands-on and hopefully engaging exercise on the age-old common sense requirement: customer input. The outcome was in many ways just what was hoped for…people understood the value of why direct customer input is so important to how you create, build, market and sell your products. But the big epiphany for a lot of us what the comments that came when we asked about their thoughts on the exercise. The ah-ha was working on a problem that was narrow in scope, had a clear objective, was short in duration with a specific time limit, didn’t involve all the normal, tedious, pain-in-the-rear processes and approval cycles that usually kill momentum, and, had a result communicated right there in the room (award winners were named at the conclusion of the exercise). How we solve our internal issues is very similar to how any company addresses a huge, complex, seemingly overwhelming problem…carve it up into bite-sized pieces. You’ve heard the old adage, Q: “How do you eat an elephant?” A: One bite at a time.

So why did I come here? The positive experience of our exercise, and the corresponding frustration that occurs when a similar process is carried out inside a company with real business issues is not unique to Adobe, or our industry, or any industry. In engineering if you want something to happen fast, task one individual to go away and come back when he or she has developed a solution. If you want to go even faster, isolate three people in a remote cabin (with power and a high speed internet connection) and turn them loose on the same problem. If you want to slow down the development, add 15 more people and double the budget. No magic in understanding that small, focused, motivated teams do better than huge monoliths. Both the challenge and opportunity with Adobe is 1+1=3. Adobe, by itself, is an interesting company with an incredible brand, really smart people and the ability to address the needs of the most creative people on the planet. But Adobe + Macromedia is even far more compelling, with huge upside potential. If, of course, we are able to attack our new, bigger, more threatening challenges one bite at a time. That’s why I’m here, and welcome to my Blogic.