let the fun begin

Well - it's day one here at the Macromedia Conference. I'm on the lunch break and thought that it would be the perfect time to blog, seeing as I just got out of the keynote session which was a great one!



The keynote started with a presentation from Ze Frank. It was hilarious and got things going. Ze was followed by Stephen Elop, CEO of Macromedia, who thanked all the people out there that have made Macromedia what is today and asked us all to stick around for the ride to come, assuring us that we wouldn't be disappointed. Kevin Lynch handled the majority of the keynote with help from other MM employees, including one that I had the pleasure of meeting on Saturday evening. After showing a bit of Flex Builder 2, which was announced in Alpha at the keynote, Bruce Chisen, CEO of Adobe Systems, closed out the session with a great pep-talk like presentation on how things will only get better in the future.

Macromedia announced Macromedia Labs, which is a freely open developer portal, used to deliver the very latest builds of upcoming products and other assets directly out to the public in the fastest means possible. This site is live as of today and YOU can grab Flex Builder 2 Alpha and start playing with it! Yes - Macromedia rocks!

Yesterday I enjoyed the Community College, where I got to mingle with fellow User Group Managers and finally put some faces to the names. Team Macromedia members and Macromedia employees were also there. After learning some about Flex Builder 2 and the Flash Platform, it was off to the conference reception. Following the reception, Macromedia put on a User Group Manager appreciation event at Dave and Busters! It was a blast. Do you remember the skit that Dave Chappelle / Charlie Murphy did about playing basketball with Prince? Well - a very similar thing happened when I decided to play Simon Horwith at pool.

More on sessions later... I gotta run.