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360Flex in a post Flex world?

November 14, 2011 By John

I won’t lie, last week was obviously a blow to us :) I even wrote that I was still quite bullish on Flex, and that widespread freaking out was not a good idea. I still think widespread freaking out is not the right path for us as a developer community. Sure Adobe PR sucks, they’re not geared or (i suspect) aimed at speaking to developers, or even caring what developers reactions will be to their releases. That’s a shame.

I also won’t lie and say it was a surprise or that I hadn’t already started thinking about possible futures for 360|Flex.

I’ll also point out that none of us were Flex developers 10 years ago, most of us came from somewhere else, and likely would move on eventually, guess Adobe chose the when for us, which is never fun or ideal, but it is what it is. As an Adobe community we’re at least used to things changing and messing up our plans, usually directly at Adobe’s hands :)

So what does this mean for 360|Flex?

Well it means that our hopes of having a kick ass 10 year anniversary 360|Flex conference are probably not gonna happen :) I play to be doing conferences in another 5 years, but 360|Flex as a brand, well we’ll have to see.

But it DOES NOT mean 360|Flex 2012 won’t happen.

It DOES NOT mean 360|Flex 2012 won’t kick ass.

It DOES mean there’ll be some awesome new content around the Adobe Stack at 360|Flex 2012, which if you’ve been to any of the last 2-3 360|Flex’s that’s nothing new. Sim has presented some JS stuff before, and we’ve mixed in a few non Flex sessions from time to time to help present other options for developers. We’ll continue doing that.

It DOES NOT mean we’ll be having any Microsoft sessions, or sponsorship. That’s not what 360|Flex or myself are about. There’s plenty of events that will take anyone’s money for placement and speaking opportunities. We’re not one of those events.

It DOES mean that 360|Flex will (as all good programmers do) start looking at other aspects of delivering awesome experiences. We’re not running away from Flex, not in the least, but Adobe has a stack that’s interesting, and the community is likely to do really awesome things with Flex. Now that it’s in our hands.

Think about the timing of 360|Flex 2012… 5 months after this announcement, after the last official Adobe release of Flex. What do you think the Open Source team will have to share by April? I suspect quite a bit. If you’re at all curious/worried/interested in the post Adobe Flex roadmap, I think 360|Flex 2012 will be the place to be. Not just to hear what the future has in store for you, but to be a part of that future, which is in my opinion, the most important reason to attend.

We’ve always supported past abortive attempts at helping Adobe and the Opening of Flex. We think that was and is a positive direction… It’s great that maybe now, finally Flex will be in the hands of those who most want it to succeed. Some of the best (by survey response) sessions at 360|Flex have been ones pushing the envelope, showing what’s possible when you get creative and think outside the box, also those that talk about open options. Remember the Spoon general session?

All of this is to say that, 360|Flex is going to grow and evolve the same way Flex and the overall Adobe Stack are going to. I can’t wait for April to get here and see not just what the community has in store for Flex, but what Adobe has in store for the community with tools like Muse and Edge, and PhoneGap.

As a teaser, here’s a look at some of the session titles that we’re looking at having.

It is in the details (CSS3 magic)

Choosing the Right Mobile Development Platform
Geolocation 201
Introduction to Robotlegs
Maven by example
Advanced Mobile Q&A
Lets write some unit tests.
How not to suck as a Flex Developer
And of course way more. But that’s some of that stuff we’re looking at.

Tickets were already moving fast, and that hasn’t stopped, I’d register now before we sell out. Yeah I still think we’re gonna sell out. If you’re doing Flex today, you’ll still get a ton out of 360|Flex, and likely you’ll be doing it in April too.

Filed Under: 360flex, Adobe MAX, Announcements, Business Tagged With: 360flex, Community, Countdown, Reasons to Come, Sessions

360flex – this IS NOT the end of the world as we know it.

November 9, 2011 By John

I’m in the middle of sifting through more than 100 submissions for 360|Flex 2012, but wanted to take a minute or three to put my thoughts down on paper… err screen about the announcement that Adobe is killing off the Flash Mobile player.

I Don’t Care.

I love Adobe and their tech and tools, but I’ve never been a supporter for the sake of supporting. Nor have i ever held back constructive criticism.

Think about this…

Have and love your iPad? Then you aren’t missing Flash mobile anyway. Same goes for iPod Touch, and iPhone. Many get a long just fine. I’d even argue android phones do just fine even with it, and no one uses it.

Have a Xoom or Galaxy Tab? How many flash sites/apps do or did you use that were flash? Me. Almost none. Who’s building apps for mobile flash player only? I can’t even think of the last flash app i used on my Xoom.

Do I think Flash is dead? Absolutely not. I’m as bullish as ever on Flex and AIR. Will the crappy banner ad makers leave and go HTML5? Sure and the anti-Flash crowd will turn their ire in that direction. Will people stop building Enterprise Flex apps? Not likely. At least not likely anytime soon. To the CEO who worries about when his Fortune 100 uses Tablets, well let’s be honest that’ll be in 6 years, and your developers will package that awesome, smoothly designed Flex app into a native AIR app for whatever tablet you choose. There’s no risk in investing in Flex/AIR, there never was, there still isn’t. I’d challenge anyone to present a realistic use case to the contrary.

Community

Are your skills as a Flash/Flex developer useless? no. I’d say you’re pretty damn well positioned. Nook? Air for android. Kindle Fire? same. Galaxy/Xoom. same thing. See where this is going. Oh yeah iPad? iPhone? yup you’re still good.

Does Adobe need to improve the cross compilation for iOS, yes. Will they, I suspect so. i hope so.

PhoneGap anyone? Think that’s not more important now? Options are important and the community has many of varying sizes and shapes.

There’s so much future ahead for Flex’ers and AIR’ers(?) that i hate seeing the community go into collective conniption fits. The Flash community is an awesome group of people with really awesome skills, making really awesome things. Losing a platform no one really targeted is not going to hurt anyone. My biggest hope is those engineers now move to building better tools and such for Adobe to help make AIR and Flex, etc more awesome. I know that’s a lot of awesome, but really, it fits.

Ok time to get back to creating an awesome line up for 360|Flex 2012. I think you’ll see that the future is bright for Flex/AIR and mobile when I publish it the schedule. I’m already having a hard time picking the best of the best submissions.

Filed Under: 360flex, Announcements, Business, Community, Reasons to Attend, Sessions Tagged With: 360flex, Amazing Deals, Community, Competition, Countdown, Denver, Flash Platform, Reasons to Come, Sessions, speakers

360|Flex 2012 – Trying something new – Speaker Labs

November 2, 2011 By John

We tried this at another event and it was popular, but it wasn’t well executed :) As we like to do, we’re improving on the next iteration.

So here’s the deal. We all know that at the end of a session there’s questions. Sometimes there’s 2 and they’re answered before the session ends. Sometimes there’s 15 or the speaker goes until time is up. Our speakers don’t hide in green rooms, and would rather sit with you over a beer anyhow, but to help make getting questions answered we’re doing what we call speaker labs.

How do they work?

The old way was a separate room off to the side of the conference where speakers were scheduled to basically hang out and answer questions, etc. For those that found the room it was great. Many got one-on-one help from industry experts, and loved it. But like I said, it was hard to find.

This time we’re making it easier. Basically in one room each time slot there will be a lab, the speakers from the previous time slot will all have a table. As soon as their session is over they’ll go to the LAB room for extended Q&A and discussion.

This means attendees can choose, attend the next session or get a question answered or more direct help. That’s a downside for sure. But we think it balances out in that we do try to get 100% of the sessions recorded, and posted so you might miss a session live, but could go back and watch the recording.

The other downside is that it reduces the total number of sessions we can offer. I hemmed and hawed on this aspect, since I think part of what makes 360|Flex so awesome is that we pack so much information into the conference. BUT I think (and you can correct me on this) what really makes 360|Flex awesome isn’t only volume of sessions, but depth of knowledge and I think while trading off a few sessions to have labs, we’re opening the door for a lot more knowledge transfer and education.

I think this will add a new aspect to 360|Flex for both attendees and speakers and really add to the value of the conference.

I think it ends up being a win win from that stand point. So we’re going to give it a try. I’m working on the schedule now, the Call For Papers closes in about 2 weeks, but I’m starting to look at sessions and plan things.

Can’t wait to reveal the line up. I think you’ll like it! You have bought your ticket right?

Filed Under: 360flex, Announcements, Business, Community, Hands-On, Reasons to Attend, Sessions Tagged With: 360flex, Amazing Deals, Community, Countdown, Flash Platform, Reasons to Come, Sessions, speakers

360Flex 2012 – Paid Pre Conference training?

November 1, 2011 By John

When Tom and I started the conference one of the things we hated was how other events charge for pre-conference training. Just adding to the price of conferences.

I was talking to Sim the other day and we were talking about the Sunday training and my philosophy that it shouldn’t add to the price of the conference because we want to keep it affordable for those without expense accounts or companies that will pay their way. But then I got to thinking. There’s no reason to not offer both.

There’s plenty of room for Flex 101, intro to AIR for android, etc. but what if we offered something more in-depth, with more prepared materials, etc. Basically regular training you’d get elsewhere. For a small fee. You could still attend the free hands-on sessions, but could also opt in to pay for the paid training.

I’m thinking two paid training sessions, plus 3-4 of our standard hands-n sessions that are included in the registration price.
This type of hybrid pre-conference option opens some interesting doors for the conference. Obviously we’d get a little bump in income which helps keep us going (we’d of course split with the instructor of those courses or something) but it also keeps true to our initial thinking that pre-conference training shouldn’t be an added expense.

What do you think? Would you be interested in paying say $100-$200 for an 8 hour training course on something that you were interested in or needed to learn?

Filed Under: 360flex, Announcements, Business, Hands-On, Reasons to Attend, Sessions, Training Tagged With: 360flex, Amazing Deals, Community, Countdown, Flash Platform, Reasons to Come, Sessions

Welcome to the New 360|Flex!

October 17, 2011 By John

Just a quick post to welcome everyone to the new 360|Flex site. It’s been too long in coming, but here we are.

And Just in time to start making noise for the Call For Papers! Have you submitted? You should. This coming 360|Flex 2012 is gonna be off the hook. I know I say that about them all. But I’ve never been wrong right? OK Well maybe the DC one, but still. You don’t want to miss out on 360|Flex 2012. 2011 Sold out with a week to go. Waiting on the fence would be a hugely bad idea, you’re kidding yourself if you think 2012 won’t sell out faster than 2011 did. There’s only one 360|Flex (figuratively and literally) in 2012, and if you’re a Flex/AIR developer, missing it should not be an option. Check out what’s been said about previous 360|Flex events.

We’ve been a quiet around these parts, what with Adobe MAX and the site being under the maintenance header, but now, watch out!! It’s 360|Flex 2012 time!!

Take a look around the site, see what you think. More importantly, let us know what you think about the new look.

Filed Under: 360flex, Announcements Tagged With: 360flex, Community, Countdown, Reasons to Come