Thursday, August 23, 2007

On AIR Bus Tour - Philadelphia, PA

Wow. Where do I start?

What a great event we had in Philadelphia...and for so many different reasons.

First off the venue was terrific. We were in The Franklin Institute Science Museum for the event. We had the Planetarium inside the museum dedicated for the game room, bar and break area for in between sessions. And then a sweet auditorium for the actual presentations.

The Adobe guys did their normal bang-up job presenting their sessions, but what made the event extra special was the audience involvement and excitement. Local Adobe Flash Platform user group manager, Robert Hall, held a contest for local community members to develop AIR apps. Four entries were received and the creator of each app got time on stage to showoff their app! They were super cool apps and each received loud rounds of applause.

Just when you thought the night couldn't get any better, I was pointed to a new online AIR resource, AIRDev and then told that the guys who developed it were in the audience, live blogging the on AIR event. THEN, an hour later I find out that the two "guys" in the audience are actually a couple of 13 year olds; my new friends Ari and Ben!! So I went down between sessions to introduce myself and you won’t meet two nicer kids. They were sitting there with their laptops open, furiously typing notes...it was great!

I wanted to take a minute to give a massive shout out to the local Philadelphia Adobe user group managers who went all out in helping us promote this event. Guys, it would not have been the same without all your support, so thank you for everything!!

So I took the easy way out...while the rest of the guys piled back on the bus and started a midnight trek to Boston, I cozied up in an airport hotel and flew home this morning. I cannot make the Boston on AIR stop, which is a shame because it is in my home town, but you should still go if you can!

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