'Demo Challenge' win at Adobe Sales & Marketing Conference

At the conference last week, all the SEs (System Engineers) and Evangelists were invited to participate in a demo shootout. Entries were judged prior to the conference and two finalists from two categories (Creative and Acrobat/LiveCycle) were selected to participate in the 'on stage face-off' as part of a general session (~2000 attendees).

My team's entry made it to the finals and we (Adam Pratt, Lynn Grillo and I) got our chance to present our demo - taking an XML file of book titles, producing a multi-page catalogue in InDesign, output to PDF, output to Digital Editions and output to Spry-based (Ajax), mobile-friendly webpage. Plus, we took a low-res video of a guy dancing, stuck our manager's head on it using After Effects, keyed out the background using Ultra, and brought the video into Flash for web playback, and used the same video as overlay advertising for the Adobe Media Player. All in 5 minutes! Whew! Well, most of the stuff was baked in advance, so it was merely a matter of getting through our 'script' with some jokes thrown in for good measure.

Our opponent in the face-off was Rufus Deuchler, an evangelist from Europe, who did a fantastic demo on LiveColor and Kuler in Illustrator.

In the end, the 'applause-o-meter' determined the winner - us! :) Our team had decided in advance to give the $2500 purse to charity - and we're hoping Adobe will match the donation. One of the nice perks of being an Adobe employee is that the company will match your charitable contributions on a 1:1 basis up to a certain amount, so we should be able to make a small difference this holiday season.

Changes at work!

One of the problems of working at Adobe is that there are so many exciting things going on at the company, it's hard to decide where to focus. "Should I dive deeper into Flex or AIR or Flash or Creative Suite or Connect or Mobile & Devices or Production Premium or or or... ?" Get the idea?

Therefore, when I was recently presented with a choice of a slightly different, more focused role within the SE team, I decided to accept (Although I haven't made the final call to my future and past managers!). My new role is essentially going to focus on our Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional and Flash Media Server business, which is super exciting!

So as I start a transition to my new role over the next few months, the focus on my blog will probably shift to these technologies. Wish me luck!

On the road...

I'm at an Adobe staff conference in San Jose all week, so haven't been able to get to the blog the last few days. For an employee that works away from a major office, these types of conferences are great for getting some rare face-to-face time with my colleagues. Every year I'm amazed by the incredible talent at the company - just great people to work with!

Anyway, getting the skinny on all the new and exciting things happening at the company.. but unfortunately most of it is confidential, so you'll have to wait, but I promise it'll be worth it.

There is a large event planned later this week to officially celebrate Adobe's 25th anniversary - I'll try to post some pictures afterwards of your fav Adobe personalities gettin' down.