I just returned from MAX 2004. Despite finally getting a full night's sleep, I am still exhausted from walking for days with a courier bag strapped over my shoulder, eating too little, and perhaps spending a bit too much time on Bourbon Street.

To understand my experience, you should know a few things about me. First, I am a Macromedia User Group (MMUG) manager. Second, I am an author. So far, I've contributed to three Flash-related books, one of which actually has my name on the spine. Third, I am a fairly extroverted and energetic person, despite being a geeky Flash developer.

Because of the user group and authoring work I've done, I've met a lot of people, including those on Macromedia's payroll, but I'd never met any of them in person. Until MAX 2004, they were just "little people inside my computer." In the days leading up to MAX 2004, I arranged to meet with all of these people, and they greatly affected my week in New Orleans. Let me tell you all about it.

Pre-conference Day

I rolled in from Phoenix around noon and bolted over to the Morial Convention Center for a Breakout session with MMUG managers. I was immediately in good hands because Jeff Garza, manager of the Phoenix ColdFusion users group, was hanging outside the room and he greeted me and introduced me to fellow user group managers before we headed into the session.

Amy Brooks and Ed Sullivan of Macromedia led the group and reviewed what MMUGs had accomplished over the last several years and, in doing so, helped the user group managers connect and share useful information. For every manager facing a challenge, there was another manager with a solution. This was a high-energy, fun gathering and I was immediately happy to be in New Orleans. (Well, I was happy to be there anyway. Who wouldn't be?)

After the Breakout session, I strolled down to the main conference room, which was steadily filling up with geeks like me, for the opening reception. I checked out the vendor booths and partook in Cajun cuisine (and an open bar) and was then quickly caught up in the excitement of meeting my online cohorts.

The opening reception for MAX 2004 gave me the chance to meet people from all over the Macromedia universe, like CSS guru Stephanie Sullivan, CommunityMX's Tom Green, author Phillip Kerman, O'Reilly editor Bruce Epstein (the editor of my book, Flash Out of the Box), and Macromedia Press Acquisitions Editor Angela Kozlowski.

After a couple of hours, I migrated from the convention center to the Hilton to mingle with the Macromedia Support team (and got answers to several tech questions). Not too surprisingly, this gathering later turned into a trip to Bourbon Street, but I'm going to skip the drinking stories and talk about the more … um … relevant topics.

Day One

I arrived at the convention center an hour early (by accident), and had a chance to eat breakfast with Phillip Kerman, author of Flash MX 2004 for Rich Internet Applications. Phillip is one of the omnipresent super-geeks in the Flash world, and it was great to meet him.

At 8 a.m., I headed upstairs to my first session: "SCORM 2004: A Primer for Flash MX 2004 Developers," which was quite informative. Then, at 10:30 a.m., the keynote began, presented by Kevin Lynch, Ben Forta, and Mike Downey. During the 90-minute presentation, Macromedia offered inside information about Blackstone (the next version of ColdFusion), Maelstrom (Flash Player 8), and Flex 1.5.

Later, I filled my afternoon with sessions about usability and user-experience issues. Then, during the early evening, I participated in a community visibility event along with 20 or so Macromedia User Group (MMUG) managers and Team Macromedia (TMM) members. We put on our Community Pit Crew T-shirts and dispersed through the crowd to spread the gospel of user groups and TMM. Every person we spoke to learned about the benefits of user group membership (free training and monthly opportunities to win books, software, and Macromedia swag – you can't lose) and was given a raffle ticket to win one of 40 Macromedia messenger bags.

During this 90-minute event, we collectively spoke to hundreds of Macromedia customers. By 6:45 p.m., 300 people waving raffle tickets surrounded us, all of them wanting to win one of those messenger bags. For the next 30 minutes, Community Pit Crew members took turns calling out raffle numbers and giving away bags and tossing T-shirts into the crowd.

Unbelievably, this was not end of my day. After the Community Pit event, I attended the Birds-of-a-Feather meeting with the Flash Engineering team. I expected the session to be packed full of people, so I got there early, and was surprised to find only 15–20 Flash developers in attendance. Eight people from the Flash and Flash Player Engineering teams sat in a row at the front of the room and answered every question thrown at them. The discussion could have been a slam-fest, but instead, it was very productive. (And yes, someone on the Flash team was feverishly taking notes throughout the meeting.) There was a lot of mutual respect during this session.

Day Two

I kicked off the morning with a session called "Best Practices for Developing Flash Applications," presented by Nigel Pegg, component developer for Macromedia. Nigel was one of the guys who built the version 2 UI components. In addition to best practices, Nigel offered ways in which you could make v2 components faster. Then I ventured to the main presentation room, took my seat and watched Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess deliver part two of the keynote.

Later in the day, I attended sessions on the Flash platform "roadmap," followed by Chris Georgenes' "Advanced Flash Animation" session. Chris is a professional animator and I had met him while working with the writing team for the Flash MX 2004 Designer Certification exam. The session was about using Flash to develop high-quality animation – animation worthy of shows like Dr. Katz and other Cartoon Network shows on which Chris has worked.

From inspiring sessions on application development and animation techniques, to the keynote and MAX Awards presentation, Day Two was a resounding success for me. And given all the learning and social activity, I was surprised that I still had the energy to meet with friends on Bourbon Street that evening.

Day Three

Prior to leaving for MAX, I saw a post on one of the list-serves from Paul Betlem, senior director of Flash Player engineering, saying that he would be at MAX and would be available to meet and talk about Maelstrom (the code name for Flash Player 8). I replied and said I was interested. He called me on Day Two and arranged to meet with me on Day Three after my morning session.

So, I started Day Three with a slight Bourbon Street headache and a great session on creating richer and more maintainable sites with CSS. Next, I headed downstairs to meet with Paul. Before I knew it, I was sitting at a table with Paul and two other Flash Player engineers, discussing my impressions of Maelstrom and what I'd like to see worked into the release. They listened and in turn, discussed future plans for the player, offered ways to deal with my current issues, and assured me that Maelstrom would be more ECMA compliant. We talked for 30 minutes, shook hands, and went about our day.

I finished up the conference with sessions about streaming live video into Flash, and another about creating accessible content for Flash, a session presented by Bob Regan, the product accessibility manager for Macromedia. Bob was extremely effective in explaining how difficult it is to use the web when you don't have good eyesight and/or good use of your hands.

With the last day of the conference behind me, I spent a mellow evening with newfound friends enjoying coffee and beignets at Café Du Monde. Then I headed back to the hotel and got ready for my morning flight back to Phoenix.

Thoughts from Home

On the way home, I wrote two pages worth of notes about people I needed to e-mail, projects I wanted to start, and research I wanted to do. I felt inspired. But more than anything, I gained a fresh, much more positive perspective—perspective on the industry, on my peers, on my work, and on the people at Macromedia. I will definitely be back for MAX 2005. But now I've got a bunch of people to e-mail and projects to start.

Hope to see you next year!

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