The Adobe MAX North American conference was held this past week in Chicago, and I had a great time hanging out with my co-workers from Schematic and other friends that I routinely see at various web conferences. The multitude of new information was a lot to take in—if you’re not familiar with MAX, there are at least 10 or more concurrent sessions. Even though there’s a scheduling manager application you can use to sort and arrange your session preferences, it’s nearly impossible to play it by ear. If you decide a session’s not for you, you’ll easily miss another 15 minutes of an alternate session if it’s on the opposite end of the conference building. I guess it’s nice to actually get some exercise during a jam-packed day. I thought the Sneak Peeks session was worth the whole trip—getting to see potential new features for the next generation of Flash-based tools was thoroughly exciting. (Aral Balkin has posted a few videos highlighting the Sneak Peeks.) I was yelling, screaming, and heckling during the two-hour session, maybe because I wasn’t too jazzed (read bored) about the whole Blues Brothers theme despite the fact that I actually like the real Blues Brothers. All of the attendees received a free copy of a new software title called Adobe Visual Communicator—it’s a pretty sweet app, but unfortunately it’s Windows only. The “big party” was weak compared to past MAX parties. (BTW, my all time favorite MAX party was the Anaheim Disney California Adventure night.) If you have to wear a helmet on a Segway after waiting in line for 30 minutes or so, then it’s not really a party—it’s a safety class. On the last day, I only got to two other sessions besides presenting my own. I enjoyed sitting in on a hands-on Photoshop CS3 class, where I learned about smart objects and new Auto-Align and Auto-Blend features. I really dug the Adobe Image Foundation material, which showcased the Hydra programming language.

If you’d like to view my session slides for my “Branding and Protecting Flash Enabled Video” session, you can find the links on this forum thread:

http://www.flashsupport.com/max

You can also access other speaker materials here:

http://adobemax2007.com/na/sessions/library

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