Ted Patrick > { Events & Community } > Adobe Systems

Yesterday afternoon Adobe Engage ended and the last of our guests left the San Francisco office after the technical sessions on Wednesday morning. Simply put, Engage was an amazing event and brought together incredibly smart people for a conversation about software and the future of the web/desktop.

Amazing people
Our guests made this conference a wild success. We invited some of the best minds in the software/web industry to attend and Adobe's best customers to present. It was a rare treat to listen and understand the perspective of all our guests. Engage was intended to showcase leading projects and to understand our guests perspective in an open format. I learned a ton over the last 2 days and walked away with new friends/contacts and a fresh perspective on the future of the web and software.

Reader becomes Writer
This theme struck a cord with me in a way it hadn't before. It is as though we are beginning to document comments and annotations on just about everything from video to documents to ones personal timeline (Twitter). It isn't enough to read but rather one must have the ability to write and participate. This theme was present in many demos and ever present in the dialog throughout the event.

Understanding Apollo
There was a ton of interest in Apollo. Questions on security, capability, and opportunity were ever present throughout the event. There were many questions related to understanding the impact Apollo will have on the market and the opportunity presented to developers. One of the interesting elements was Apollo positioning. In Kevin's keynote Apollo is positioned as coming to the desktop from the web. I liked this idea that Apollo is closer to a web medium than desktop. The obvious concern is where to draw the line in terms of capability for version 1.0 and extend that line in future releases.

Design
There was a healthy dialog on design and its role in RIA applications. There were several questions about the evolution of design and how application design will play a role at Adobe ongoing. As Adobe lowers the barrier to entry on creating applications, we will see stages of design both good and bad result. Will Apollo have a "Skip Intro" period? Time will tell but the question remains as to how Adobe will handle design ongoing. Overall design remains an incredibly important element in the web and applications.

Engage == Open(*seating limited)
It is a rare opportunity to have had the open dialog we enjoyed at Engage and we need to do more of it. James Governor put it bluntly to me, "When is the next Engage?". We will get the videos of the event posted ASAP.

Showcasing Customers
There are so many projects that need highlighting, put simply, our customer do amazing things but we do not talk about it enough. Engage generated a lot of press and attention for key customers. It will be interesting to track the success of these ventures post Engage. We need to get more projects into the light and make our customers a success.

I would like to say thanks to everyone who attended Engage. It was eye opening, fun, I learned a ton, and met some amazing people. We will do Engage again, it was invaluable.

cheers,

Ted :)