Recently
Brian and I paid a visit to Adobe Max, the Creativity Conference, and it was
absolutely incredible! We got to hear
amazing stories from tons of famous creative professionals, hone our skills
through creative workshops and sessions, and even get a first glimpse at new
technologies from major tech companies. All the while surrounded by the
splendor of Las Vegas, Nevada.
The first day is
pretty typical as far as conferences go: Get on a plane, watch a movie, get off
a plane, check in at a Hotel, and go to the convention center to get checked
into the conference. The difference this time? The Hotel and convention center
are the same building. And no, it's not like having a meeting at a Holiday Inn
lobby. This place is MASSIVE. There's a full casino(for obvious reasons), tons
of restaurants and shops, and there's a river on the second floor.
I could go on a rant
about how amazing the Hotel/Resort was, but there's not enough time in the day.
What's important here is that you can leave your room, hop on an elevator, and
walk right over to the conference. This is a life saver, because Ubering/Lyfting/Whatevering
back and forth from a Hotel to a Convention center(like we had to do in Los
Angeles) gets old. It made it easy for us to walk down and grab our conference
passes before passing out from a long day of travelling. Props to you, Adobe.
Day two is when the
action starts.
The opening Max
keynote is when Adobe themselves open up to you. They show new features for
products you already own, share new ideas for what the future holds, and they
do all of this through two hours of presentations and live demos. After the
Keynote, you've got ample time to grab a bite from the lunch hall and tour the
vendor expo floor before heading off to the first set of sessions. This is, of
course, assuming you don't get sucked in at the vendor expo….. It can easily
happen. There's lots of cool stuff.
Speaking of sessions, there were tons of good ones. We started off strong by going to "A Fireside Chat with Pete Souza". Pete Souza was the White House Photographer for the Regan Administration and, more prolifically, for the Obama Administration. Set in the style of an interview, he shared a multitude of stories, insights, and nuances through many of his incredible photos. This set the bar pretty high for the rest of the day.
We decided to divide
and conquer for the remaining sessions. Brian tackled ones revolving around new
web features and responsive design, while I revolved around sessions dabbling
in video production through Adobe Premiere and After Effects. It was a long
day, but ending it with food, drinks, and music at the vendor expo was
rewarding.
We started off day
three with another keynote. Instead of hearing from Adobe, we got to hear from
creative professionals such as, Jonathan Adler(renown potter), Annie
Griffiths(National Geographic photographer), and Mark Ronson(music producer).
This preceded
another set of sessions before leading into the evening events. The first of
which is something Adobe calls: Sneaks. It's a very informal showcase where
they bring up a guest to give commentary while they show entirely new products
that Adobe hasn't even released yet. In our case, our guest was the very
talented comedian Kumail Nanjiani.
This pretty much
wrapped up our Adobe Max experience. Although we did step out into Vegas to
take a look at the sights. I could share what happened, but you know what they
say… What happens in Vegas, stays on YouTube. Which reminds me, there will be a
full recap video coming to our YouTube channel soon. Thanks for reading!
