Post-MAX Exhaustion: A Short Review

Posted At : October 8, 2007 11:05 AM | Posted By : Leif Wells
Related Categories: Adobe, MAX

I hope that I am not the only one still exhausted by this past week's visit to Chicago and Adobe's Max conference. Let me try to express the good and the not so good of the conference and hopefully give you a good idea of what you missed if you weren't there.

The Good

To get a lot out of a conference you have to have priorities. Seeing new products, connecting with Adobe employees and friends and having a bit of fun are my general requirements for a successful MAX.

"Thermo": Adobe showed off a new design tool, code named "Thermo", which is in the works and everyone was talking about it (bump). This tool will be an awesome addition to the Rich Internet Application workflow allowing graphic designers, interaction designers and information architects to become part of the process as opposed to dropping off documents, graphics and wire frames to the developers. Now, I am projecting this as a Nirvana of RIA development while still feverish from seeing presenters convert a Photoshop document into working MXML code with dummy data, so I will have to cool down toward a wait-and-see attitude until the product becomes available. An audible gasp was heard when the presenters said that "Thermo" would be available "sometime in 2008", which I took to mean "not any time soon" — frustrating, since I feel we could have used this tool for quite some time. I'll have more thoughts about "Thermo" later.

Sneak Peeks: If you've never attended an Adobe MAX, the one single session you should never miss is the Sneak Peeks — I don't care how tired you might be. Made a tradition a long time ago by Macromedia before the buy out, Sneak Peeks is a general session where Product Managers and Team Leaders get to show off for prizes, although I am pretty sure that bragging rights inside Adobe provide far more mileage to these people than this year's prize of an iPod Touch. I had speculated that this year's sneaks would not be very impressive since CS3 had recently shipped which encompasses almost all of Adobe's product line. To my surprise, most of the sneaks were incredible looks at what is on its way from Adobe: Image Seam Carving, C/C++ libraries converted to ActionScript (along with a conversion of Quake that ran in the Flash Player), future looks at Flash and Fireworks, Flex Builder for Linux (which went straight to Public Alpha)... each of the twelve sneak peeks were illuminating.

Adobe Employees: Over the past few years I have had the privilege to get to know some of Adobe's employees, people like John Dowdell, who really are great. I can always tell that Adobe is a good place to work hard by spending time with the employees.

User Group Managers: People who give back to the community do not tend to be bitter or little. And they are more than capable to have fun. The members of the user group program are no different. I love you guys! And I can't wait to see you at next year's Community Summit.

Richard Cheese: I love it. You haven't heard lounge unless you've heard Richard Cheese live. I am so glad that I got to see him before he retired! Thanks, Adobe!

The Bad

These items could be considered minor, at best, which is indicative of how good this conference was.

Getting Locked Out: There was a particular session that I placed on my schedule and cited as a great reason to attend MAX that I did not get to go to because the room, which was fairly large and probably held 100 people, was already full when I got there. Some sessions like this get repeated, but I wish that Adobe (and the people organizing the conference) would take a look at which sessions attendees have signed up for and make allowances for sessions that too many people sign up for so people are not disappointed like myself. I am sure that it isn't easy as that, but still; why the heck am I bothering to schedule for a session if no one looks at everyone's schedule to see if sessions may be larger than expected. Then, again, maybe they do.

Conference Layout: What I really loved about MAX 2006 in Las Vegas was how the show floor, community area and dining area were all in the same place and the sessions were on separate floors which made getting from one session to another fairly easy, although sometimes it required some patience since everyone had to use the same escalator. Chicago's McCormick Place West's layout had sessions stretched down a long hall. It seemed to take forever to get from the buses to the dining area, from the dining area to the show floor, or from the show floor to a session. Or maybe it was just a poor choice of shoes on my part?

Connectivity: Connectivity, both for computers and cell phones, was poor. I realize that providing wireless service for more that 4000 people is not an easy thing to do, but most of these people aren't at the conference to swing from chandeliers — they are tethered to their businesses. This problem is not necessarily an Adobe issue, but it needed to be mentioned.

Beer and Wine Selections: Well, let's just say that the beer selection had me drinking the wine at the evening events.

Wrap Up

So overall, I'd say that the conference, rated lower than the New Orleans or Las Vegas MAX conferences, but it wasn't bad at all — if I had given up booze, gotten in shape, given up the Internet and got to sessions early it could have been perfect. See you all at MAX 2008 San Francisco.