Let the games begin....

Well I guess this has been a long time coming. And thanks to everyone for the warm welcome.

As Jonathan mentioned, one of my main responsibilities is overseeing the Adobe User Group Program. If you are not hooked into your local user group, you really should be. They are a tremendous resource for learning new skills, honing existing skills and keeping current on the latest and greatest from Adobe. If you are unsure if there is an Adobe UG in your area, please check out our handy UG locator at: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/usergroups/. If there is no UG in your immediate area, maybe it is time for you to start one!? If so, please feel free to drop me a line.

As also mentioned by Jonathan, I will be on the AIR Bus Tour all of next week, so if you are in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia or Boston, plan on popping in to say hello. Early feedback from previous tour dates has been positively glowing! Additionally, I will be attending MAX in Chicago and will most likely be providing live updates from the conference via the blog for those of you unable to attend.

So, what can you expect to see from me in this space? A lot of the information that I make available to my user group managers would also be plenty valuable to the communities they serve, so expect to see that type of info frequently. Everything and anything as it pertains to the Adobe user communities will be fair game...information on user group events and meetings, special initiatives, technical content, as well as updates from adobe.com and Adobe Labs that folks may not have time to seek out on their own.

One great example of the type of info I will be surfacing is the fact that Adobe ColdFusion user groups worldwide are holding CF8 launch events in the month of August in support of our recent announcement regarding the immediate availability of CF8. Check the UG locator posted above to see if a CFUG near you is participating. These meetings will be a great resource for learning more about the latest CF release as well as provide an opportunity to meet and network with local like-minded professionals, win one of a kind CF schwag and maybe even walk away with a complimentary copy of CF8 Standard!

So thanks again to everyone for the hearty welcome and feel free to let me know via the comments section what type of information you would find valuable in this space.

One thing I can state in no uncertain terms is that the Adobe community absolutely rocks and it is a pleasure to work the leaders of these communities on a daily basis.

Thanks for listening (err, reading)...Ed

Giving back through code

I just got a note from Ali Daniali who is at the Flex 360 conference right now in Seattle. Ali has been running the Flex Code Jam, which has gotten a bit of mention in blogs, but I wanted to call it out specifically. Ali really wanted to find a way to give something back to the non profit world and pull a group of developers together to do it.

So he's organized a coding event at Flex 360 to pull some folks together to build a Flex based Virtual Food Drive application for a charity called Northwest Harvest.

Here are a couple of links:

• The Code Jam site - http://www.flexcodejam.org/
• Flicker pics from the Jam in progress -
• Northwest Harvest - http://www.northwestharvest.org/
  

And by the way, Ali runs our Seattle Flex User Group. - http://www.flexilicio.us/blog/

I love this concept and think that combining coding and charity makes a lot of sense. Special thanks to all the sponsoring organizations and most importantly all the folks participating in this!

Developer Social Networks

So I know I'm new to the blogosphere and given that, I've been thrilled and surprised by how many people read and commented on my first few posts. But then the well dried up.

My last post was read by bunch of people, but I didn't get any comments. Maybe the post just didn't connect with readers. Or maybe no one really cares. But I have to believe that people must have some opinions about this and want to share them under them premise that this info could help Adobe deliver better resources for developers.

So I'll ask my questions again, and if you have an some thoughts please share them. If not, I promise I won't beg for feedback on this stuff again. Ok, at least for a little while. But I'll definitely be asking for opinions on other stuff very soon.

Here are my questions about developers and social networking:

• Are you a fan of social networking? Why or Why not?
  
• What social networking sites do you use? Why?
  
• Do developers need better social networking capabilities? What do you want to see?
  

Tweet, space, or link?

Are you a member of a social network? Do you use Twitter, My Space, or LinkedIn? (Ok, I'm not an expert here, but I'm not sure if everyone even agrees that Twitter really is a social network. But I think it is)

Anyway, there are social networks cropping up all the time it seems, especially with the Web 2.0 Expo this week. I was excited about Visible Path after they were TechCrunched. But after a quick exploration of it yesterday, I'm less excited. Time will tell though... And one of the more interesting developments I've noticed is the Expo Cal/iCalico app being used for the Web 2.0 Expo. Now I'm not actually using it because I'm not at Web 2.0, but it still seems interesting.

And of course, everyone is Twittering. Well, not everyone. I'm not. I do have a Twitter account and a few friends on Twitter, but have never actually posted anything. I just can't seem with to come up with a compelling reason to tweet. I don't think anyone I know really cares about the specific details of what I'm up to, or what I'm thinking at an exact moment in time. But then again, I'm slow to adopt this stuff. Plus most of the people I know aren't on Twitter - yet. By the way, there are number of slick Twitter applications out there using Apollo. I personally like this one, and if I was actively using Twitter, I'd use this app.

There also have been a wide range of posts I've seen about LinkedIn recently. For example, this one. Now I actually find LinkedIn useful for tracking people I know, and most of the people I know are on LinkedIn. Just this morning I got a connection from a longtime colleague to connect with someone in my network. Not only do I hope that turns into a fruitful conversation, but it also led me to reconnect with him. And I'm using LinkedIn right now to try to connect with folks that have worked on similar projects to what I'm working on in the past.

So that leads to my questions associated with this post. Feel free to answer any or all of them, or just provide your comments.

• Are you a fan of social networking? Why?
  
• What social networking sites do you use?
  
• Why should I Twitter?
  
• And here's the biggie that I really hope a few folks will shed some light on. Do developers need better social networking capabilities?

Oh yeah, if you are curious, you can find me on LinkedIn here. And if I ever start using Twitter, you can find me here.

Do you participate?

Before I started my blog, I asked some folks for advice on what makes a good blog. Mike Potter told me that he recommended having catchy post titles. And clearly, John Nack, Photoshop product manager, and if you ask me, blogger extraordinaire, has mastered this art. So I was going to call this post "Why even bother?" but figured that might just come off as a bit negative.

Anyway, today's question is this -- do you participate in online activity, or just consume information? If you post comments, rate content, tag items, provide feedback, answer questions on lists and forums, why do you do it? Now I also realize that the consumers of info, those who don't immediately participate, may not be immediately inclined to provide feedback, so I'm anticipating that my comments will include lots of participants, but not a lot of folks that prefer to only consume info.

So if you don't normally participate in the conversation, well here's your chance to break out -- why don't you more actively participate in shaping great content, helping other developers, etc? What would it take you stop doing what you are doing, and jot off a quick note, suggestion, some feedback, or even click on some stars to rate content?

And since we're at it, is this whole community participation thing just a passing fad, or is it here to stay? I'd argue that forums and mail lists have been around for years, and we're just experiencing a natural evolution...But like my first post a few days back, this isn't really about what I think, its what you think. So please, comment away....