Adobe MAX Blog

Rethinking MAX BOFs

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Forta) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:55:00 +0000

"BOF" stands for "Birds of a Feather", and MAX BOF sessions are informal meetings on a variety of subjects. Unlike core MAX sessions, BOFs are usually not driven by Adobe and the MAX team. Rather, the community defines topics of interest, and MAX provides facilities and publicity to drive attendance. Most BOFs are focused around core products and technologies, but many are on other topics. Again, BOFs are driven by the community.

We've hosted BOFs for a long time, ever since Allaire DevCon days. But over the years BOFs have evolved ...

Year ago we added "Meet the Team" sessions, free-form open discussions like BOFs, but giving MAX attendees a chance to face product teams and ask, comment, criticize, suggest, and more. The "Meet the Team" sessions have become so popular and well attended that BOF attendance has suffered as a result.
Then, as the number of products represented at MAX grew, so did the number of "Meet the Team" sessions. This resulted in fewer available rooms for BOFs, and thus fewer BOFs, despite growing attendance and greater attendee diversity.
And on top of all that, the BOF schedules have had to change. We used to have BOFs on two nights and at two time slots each night. But in recent years we had to scale back to one night to accommodate the expanded MAX schedule. And last year the one night of BOFs started later, again because of MAX scheduling, which caused the second time slot to run way past 10:00pm, and that hurt BOF participation even more.

Still, BOFs are an important part of the MAX experience, and so we've been brainstorming BOF alternatives to better serve our attendees. And as such, this year we're going to try something quite different.

Lunch time is a full hour in the middle of the day, well, in the middle of all three days, actually. There are no sessions scheduled during lunch time, and just about every MAX attendee is in the lunch room. So what if we moved BOFs to lunch time? We'd have the big open seating area we usually have, but would also have part of the room sectioned off, round lunch tables in each, and signage designating what group is eating lunch together where. Attendees could get their lunch, head to a specific area, and then meet and chat while eating. The atmosphere would be easy and relaxed, attendees would get fed, and we could accommodate lots more BOFs over the three days of MAX. We'd leave the "Meet the Team" sessions as they are, in the evening, but move all BOFs to lunch time.

We've not hammered out all of the details yet, this is a work in progress. Still, we're interested in your thoughts on the dilemma and the proposed solution.

MAX 2009 Announced

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:25:00 +0000

SAN JOSE, Calif.- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced MAX 2009 registration is open. Registrants can now sign up for MAX 2009 sessions and labs. Adobe MAX is where the world’s most influential designers, developers and business decision makers gather to shape the future of engaging experiences and gain a competitive edge through intensive design/develop skills sessions and unique networking opportunities. This year, MAX will run from Oct. 4-7 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles.

“We are in a time of significant disruption and businesses are grappling with how technology will play in their strategies to survive and thrive”

Under the “Connect. Discover. Inspire.” theme, MAX 2009 will explore three emerging technology trends that are changing the landscape of communications: social computing, cloud computing and the expansion of rich content and video across mobile phones and other devices. MAX 2009 will feature keynotes from Adobe chief executive officer Shantanu Narayen, Adobe chief technology officer Kevin Lynch and other industry luminaries, as well as technology sneak-peeks, technical sessions, hands-on labs and exhibits.

Quote:

Kevin Lynch, Adobe chief technology officer

“We are in a time of significant disruption and businesses are grappling with how technology will play in their strategies to survive and thrive,” said Kevin Lynch, Adobe chief technology officer. “MAX will bring together some of the brightest minds in design, development and business to discuss how our industry is transforming, and learn new techniques and best practices that will fuel the next generation of rich applications.”

MAX 2009 offers three tracks of more than 200 sessions and 100 hands-on labs. The Envision track is where decision-makers managing digital experience design and development projects can learn best practices and tested strategies from other organizations. The Design track will dive into the art and science of designing across media, including Web, interactive, video, mobile and print. In the Develop track, developers will learn best practices for architecting, building and deploying next-generation Web, mobile and enterprise applications.

MAX programs back by popular demand include:

BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) Labs provides engaging, educational and hands-on sessions for attendees to learn new skills with Adobe software.
Unconference discussions — participant-driven, casual presentations on important design and develop business topics.
Russell Brown@MAX, which is the essential Adobe® Photoshop® Master Class — a three-day, hands-on course bringing together top art directors, designers, illustrators and photographers to learn advanced imaging tips and techniques.

New this year:

LiveCycle@MAX bundle offers one and a half days of preconference training on the fundamentals of Adobe LiveCycle® ES. Attendees will also receive a full conference pass to MAX 2009, including LiveCycle developer sessions and labs that offer in-depth training on the next release of LiveCycle ES.

2009 MAX Awards

The call for entries is now open for the 2009 MAX Awards, which recognizes the best use of Adobe products and technologies for creating engaging experiences. All entries must be submitted online at: www.adobemaxsubmission.com/submission. The entry deadline is July 31, 2009.

Finalists and winners will be selected in each of these categories:

Advertising and Branding
Education
Enterprise Productivity
Entertainment
Mobile
Public Sector
Social Networking
Social Responsibility
New this year, category winners will be selected by public online voting. Online voting will open two weeks prior to MAX 2009. The top three finalists in each category will attend MAX to showcase their entries. To see last year's winners and finalists, visit the 2008 MAX Award Winners & Finalist Gallery. The 2009 MAX Award winners will be announced at the MAX Awards ceremony on Oct. 6 in the Nokia Theatre.

Registration

To register for MAX 2009, visit the MAX 2009 registration page. Register before Aug. 31, 2009 to qualify for the early bird discount.

Exhibits and Sponsorship

For additional information on sponsorship and promotional opportunities at MAX 2009, visit the Sponsor MAX page and complete the sponsorship inquiry form.

Helpful Links

MAX 2009
MAX 2009 Registration Page
MAX 2009 Sessions and Tracks
MAX 2009 Awards
MAX Archives

Follow MAX 2009

MAX 2009 Blog
MAX 2009 on Twitter
MAX 2009 on Facebook

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

© 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Flash and LiveCycle are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

2009 MAX Awards - Now Accepting Nominations!

noreply@blogger.com (max-info@adobe.com) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:48:00 +0000

Nominate a great project you know of for a 2009 MAX Award! Send the details, project and creator’s name, into the MAX Award team and we will contact the creator to enter the competition. Click here to nominate another project.

MAX Update: Speaker Selection, Unconferences, BOFs, Registration

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:46:00 +0000

We are well underway with MAX planning now and I wanted to give an update on our progress.

Speaker Selection

We had over 800 proposed sessions and labs and we selected 100 for presentation at Adobe MAX 2009. It was a very tough year for sessions selection given the high quality of the proposals. It is my hope that many of the sessions will be presented at the MAX Unconferences being organized now.

Unconferences

We have 5 unconferences this year and have been working with the event leaders on shaping these sessions. The unconference sessions will be presented in an enclosed area of the exposition hall where each venue will be easily accessible to the expo but private. The unconference leadership includes 360Flex, FiTC, Ray Camden (ColdFusion), SoDA - Society of Design Agencies. Special thanks for all the support in building out these great sessions from the community.

Birds of a Feather & Meet the Teams

We will be organizing the BOF/MTT sessions soon. We will have a call for BOF sessions in the next week in partnership with this years organizer Greg Wilson. Greg is a evangelist at Adobe and is working closely with the product teams to make BOF/MTT evening the best yet. More to follow.

Registration

MAX Registration launched last week and we have over 100 registration booked to date in the first week. The early pricing puts MAX at $1295 but with community user group discounts you can get the price down to $1099 for a limited time.

Cheers,

Ted :)

MAX 2009 Site Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:32:00 +0000

On Tuesday 32 members of the MAX team visited Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) and LA Live in preparation for MAX. The site visit is the first time we get the entire team together and we go through every detail of how to organize the physical event into the space. LA Live and LACC are at the center of a revitalization project in downtown Los Angeles. Over the past 3 years nearly all the surrounding buildings have been renovated and many new lots apartments have sprung up. The center sits in 4 parts, LACC (big convention center), Staples Arena (Where the LA Lakers play), Nokia Theater (concert hall), and LA Live (restaurants and entertainment venues). One thing that stood out this year is Nokia theater. It is easily the largest space we have ever done keynotes/awards/sneaks in and it should be a great venue.

We really have a great team working on MAX this year and combined with a great venue, MAX 2009 will be the best one yet.

See you at MAX 2009!

Cheers,

Ted :)

MAX 2009 in Los Angeles and Online (no MAX Europe in 2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:55:00 +0000

Despite the challenges presented by the economy this year, Adobe is excited to be moving forward with our largest designer/developer event Adobe MAX 2009. MAX will take place October 4-7, 2009 in Los Angeles and online. We will not hold a unique Europe event in 2009, however, we are actively exploring options to make the Los Angeles event more accessible for our worldwide community.

MAX Europe has been a real success for Adobe and it is our intention to return to Europe in the future. Personally having been a part of every MAX Europe event, I know how important the event is to our global community. In order to make MAX a more global event, I want to encourage everyone, regardless of location, to participate in the "MAX Call for Sessions and Labs".

We are actively working to bring Adobe MAX to a far larger audience online in 2009. In 2008, we recorded MAX sessions and published them on AdobeTV for everyone to view. To date, MAX session content has been viewed by over 250,000 users, 50 times larger than physical MAX attendance in 2008. This year will be taking the online experience to the next level.

See you at MAX 2009!

Ted Patrick
Content Lead - Adobe MAX

Adobe MAX 2009 - Call for Sessions and Labs

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:27:00 +0000

If you would like to propose a session or lab for MAX 2009, we have launched the official Adobe MAX 2009 - Call for Sessions and Labs. There are 34 proposed sessions/labs posted as of this morning in the Call for Sessions and Labs database. The MAX team will be reviewing the proposals ongoing and selecting the best sessions and labs to make MAX 2009 the best MAX yet.

PROPOSE A SESSION OR LAB FOR MAX 2009

MAX 2009 Los Angeles CA - Oct 4-7 2009

Details:

Adobe MAX 2009 Call for Sessions and Labs will end April 15, 2009 midnight PST.
MAX team goal is to have all sessions, labs, and speakers selected by May 15, 2009.

Looking forward to reviewing your session and lab proposals.

See you at MAX 2009

Ted :)

Delivering Integrated Advertising Across Multiple Channels

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Sison) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:23:00 +0000

Join Peter Cole and Charles Duncan, representatives from digital media agency AKQA for an exploration of new possibilities in multichannel advertising. Learn technical and creative strategies for delivering integrated experiences that blend multiple channels of communication for engaging customers, including web, search, mobile, social networking, offline, and outdoor advertising. Concepts will be supported by real-world examples of projects completed for some of AKQA's top clients, including Visa, McDonald's, and Xbox.

:) Stacy

ILOG Elixir: User Experiences by Erwan Paccard

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Sison) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Join Erwan Paccard as he shows us how the rich data visualizations made possible with ILOG Elixir, including advanced charts, graphs, and maps, can offer new data insight, accelerate and improve business decisions, and reduce development time. Learn about future ILOG Elixir releases with new components such as pivot charts, calendars, heat maps, and Gantt project management displays. Discover why small companies and large enterprises worldwide rely on ILOG Elixir.

:) Stacy

Using Flash CS4 in Education by Bill Bain

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Sison) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:18:00 +0000

Join Bill Bain as he shows us how Full Sail University is using Flash CS4 Professional to take students from a design-centric to a development-centric discipline. This session will focus on using Flash CS4 Professional to show design-influenced students how scripting and coding techniques affect interactive media within the Flash authoring environment. Expanding on this fundamental knowledge, students more easily grasp the concepts of interactive development and are able to progress into developing multiple documents for interactive media.

:) Stacy

Adobe Roadmap: Video by Paul Betlem and Pritham Shetty

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Sison) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:09:00 +0000

Join Paul Betlem and Pritham Shetty, as you'll hear about Adobe's product roadmap for video, the Adobe multiscreen strategy, and ways to deliver better video experiences with new tools, clients, and servers.

:) Stacy

How to Build a Mobile Business by Mads Djurhuus

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Sison) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:58:00 +0000

Join Mads Djurhuus as he shows us how mobile communications agency Little Big Ideas has successfully extended its business from the web to mobile devices. Take away new ideas on using mobile experiences to improve your business.

:) Stacy

Text Component Library for Flash Player 10 by Robin Briggs

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:13:00 +0000

Join Robin Briggs as she shows us how to use the Text Component Library built on the new text engine in Flash Player 10 (now in public beta on Adobe Labs) to expand your text layout options with Robin Briggs. The session will cover new capabilities for text in Flash Player and go through examples of how you can get started using right to- left text, columns, inline images, and all of the new typographic features that are available. You will learn the XML markup format to dynamically read in styled text for your rich Internet applications.

cheers,

Ted :)

Nokia OpenLab at MAX Milan

noreply@blogger.com (Enrique Duvos) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 09:34:00 +0000

Are you a visual or interaction designer coming out to Adobe MAX Europe this December? Come out to Sophie’s Restaurant the evening before Adobe MAX kicks off and meet other creative professionals for a cozy night of creativity and cuisine. Forum Nokia is partnering with Adobe to present Open Lab Milan, a workshop where you can leave the laptops at home and spend a stimulating evening sketching out the seeds of new service ideas with others.

Flash familiarity would be fantastic, but not essential – Open Lab Milan concentrates on providing a stimulating environment for breeding new ideas, while providing you with the knowledge, guidance and support for building your service after the event.

You can find more information here http://events.nokia.com/openlab_milan/

Duane's World: Road to MAX 2008 Europe with James Ward

stefan@stefanmedia.com (Stefan Gruenwedel) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:22:00 +0000

Adobe platform evangelists Duane Nikull and James Ward share a scotch and discuss the "good reasons" for attending MAX 2008 in Milan: meet the engineers, air your grievances with the evangelists, and be inspired by other developers doing amazing things with Adobe technology.

MAX 2008 NA Session Recording

noreply@blogger.com (Stacy Sison) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:56:00 +0000

Last week at MAX in San Francisco, the MAX team coordinated digital recording of over 290 hours of session content, about 4TB of video! We will be releasing this content FOR FREE, WITHOUT GEO-RESTRICTION ON ADOBETV starting around the first week or two of December. We plan to release 20 new sessions per week well into 2009. Additionally we will be posting all videos as soon as possible to the MAX NA Group on Adobe Groups for the exclusive benefit of paid attendees. All attendees will be invited to the MAX NA Group throughout this week.

The teams are working around the clock to get the video content posted online. The goal is to benefit the ecosystem with the latest educational material as soon as possible. As only 5000 attendees were able to enjoy MAX NA onsite, we plan to reach 2 Million by providing the session content for free online. To reach as many designers/developers as possible we chose Flash for an end to end video solution. Onsite at MAX NA we captured using Flash Media Live Encoder and Flash Media Server and published content to our video partners Digitally Speaking, Brightcove, and Akamai.

Thanks for being patient.

Regards,

Stacy

The road to MAX 2008 Europe

stefan@stefanmedia.com (Stefan Gruenwedel) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:46:00 +0000

Adobe platform evangelists Duane Nikull and Piotr Walczyszyn share a beer and discuss the benefits of attending the MAX conference. Piotr adds a special word to his compatriots about why they should come to MAX 2008 Europe in Milan too.

MAX AWARDS 2008 - Scrapblog

noreply@blogger.com (Julie C) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Adobe interviews Omar Ramos of Scrapblog, which won the MAX Award for Best Rich Internet application.

MAXOWG - How was MAX NA?

noreply@blogger.com (Ted Patrick) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:51:00 +0000

This is your change to help influence the future of MAX NA in the MAX Open Working Group on Adobe Groups. The MAX team needs some blunt, open, and honest feedback to make MAX overall a better event.

Great feedback, both bad and good, can make a world of difference. We are open to hearing about the things we did both good and bad. This is your opportunity to be heard and be on record making MAX a better event.

MAXOWG, MAX Open Working Group, is an open group created to create and change MAX within the Adobe community. This working group will create the 2009 MAX events, discuss changes, define content/direction, and gather feedback in the open.

I look forward to working with everyone openly on MAX in 2009!

Cheers,

Ted :)

MAX AWARDS 2008 – NASDAQ Market Replay

noreply@blogger.com (Julie C) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:27:00 +0000

Adobe interviews Claude Courbois of NASDAQ OMX about NASDAQ Market Replay, which won the MAX Award for Best Enterprise Application.

MAX AWARDS 2008 - The Happiness Factory - AKQA

noreply@blogger.com (Julie C) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:22:00 +0000

Adobe interviews Kaare Wesnaes of AKQA about the Happiness Factory, which won the MAX Award for Best Advertising and Branding Category.

Question of the day: What was your geek-out moment on Day 2?

noreply@blogger.com (Julie C) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:16:00 +0000

It’s Day 2, and our roving reporter continues to capture thoughts on all-things-geek at Adobe MAX in San Francisco.

Adobe MAX 2008: Day 2 in San Francisco

noreply@blogger.com (Julie C) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:13:00 +0000

From Flash Catalyst to Adobe CS4, see highlights from Day 2 of the Adobe MAX General Session, along with comments from the crowd.

Question of the day: What was your geek-out moment on Day 1?

stefan@stefanmedia.com (Stefan Gruenwedel) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:25:00 +0000

Interviewing MAX attendees on Day 1, our roving reporter captured thoughts on all-things-geek at Adobe MAX in San Francisco.

MAX 2008: Adobe kicks off Day 1 in San Francisco

stefan@stefanmedia.com (Stefan Gruenwedel) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:57:00 +0000

From Cocomo to mobile, see highlights from the General Session, along with crowd reactions to announcements and demonstrations.