We are well underway with MAX planning now and I wanted to give an update on our progress.

Speaker Selection

We had over 800 proposed sessions and labs and we selected 100 for presentation at Adobe MAX 2009. It was a very tough year for sessions selection given the high quality of the proposals. It is my hope that many of the sessions will be presented at the MAX Unconferences being organized now.

Unconferences

We have 5 unconferences this year and have been working with the event leaders on shaping these sessions. The unconference sessions will be presented in an enclosed area of the exposition hall where each venue will be easily accessible to the expo but private. The unconference leadership includes 360Flex, FiTC, Ray Camden (ColdFusion), SoDA - Society of Design Agencies. Special thanks for all the support in building out these great sessions from the community.

Birds of a Feather & Meet the Teams

We will be organizing the BOF/MTT sessions soon. We will have a call for BOF sessions in the next week in partnership with this years organizer Greg Wilson. Greg is a evangelist at Adobe and is working closely with the product teams to make BOF/MTT evening the best yet. More to follow.

Registration

MAX Registration launched last week and we have over 100 registration booked to date in the first week. The early pricing puts MAX at $1099 but with community user group discounts you can get the price down to $899 for a limited time.

Cheers,

Ted :) 

I want to share the process we are using to build out sessions and labs for MAX 2009. We established a new content creation process for MAX 2008 with the goals of getting more people involved in MAX content creation and improving the session quality. As a result of the process change, we saw MAX session survey results year over year jump 30% in quality. This year we are refining the process a bit and making our process public. We want everyone to know how MAX is built and how much work goes into making MAX sessions and labs great. Onward!

Tracks and Track Managers

MAX has 3 tracks managed by 3 track managers. For MAX 2009 the track managers are Ben Forta (DEVELOP), Doug Winnie (DESIGN), and HB.Mok (ENVISION). These three have the final say on track related issues and both select and manage Camps and Camp Managers.

Camps and Camp Managers? huh?

Camps are where sessions are selected, managed, and delivered in partnership with speakers. Camps are essentially a biased interest group focused on a particular technology, market, or product. As a biased interest group they are centered on making sure the sessions they own are the best ones for the interests of the Camp. To make a Camp great we select a technical expert who best knows the Camp's market and needs, this is the Camp Manager. Camp Managers are accountable for the speaker and session quality at MAX and have direct authority over the Camp itself. As a technical expert, they are best suited to select session and lab content and often know who would be the best speaker on a particular subject. Camps are typically small and consist of 3-4 sessions so as to best provide speakers the support they need during content creation. Becoming a Camp Manager is a big deal and requires time to dedicate over 3-4 months to make session content great. Contrary to popular belief not all Camp Managers work for Adobe. Last year both O'Reilly Media and several 3rd party conference organizers got involved in the camp management process with great results. The Camp and Camp Manager process supports making content king and allows many people to get involved in MAX content creation. Over time we would like to see more Camps managed by the community and the plan is to have the MAXOWG lead this effort for MAX 2010 but to open the process for feedback and comment this year.

Right now we are selecting Camps and Camp Managers for MAX 2009. As we head towards the completion of the MAX Call for Sessions and Labs on April 15, we will then focus on selecting sessions and speakers to be completed between May 15-June 1. 

Our team would love to better understand what camps the MAXOWG wants to see at MAX. We will make sure the suggestions posted in the comments here are posted into our weekly meeting for review with track managers. After we get your feedback we will post our initial list of Camps for review and comment. 

It is great to finally share how we build the content for MAX. I look forward to sharing more details as our progress continues and getting the community more involved in MAX management and planning. Making MAX a more open and community driven event is one of our key goals within Adobe and we look forward to making this happen in partnership with the MAX Open Working Group.

I will be posting updates more regularly as MAX content development is fully underway.

See you at MAX 2009!

Cheers,

Ted :)

We are 15 days away from the close of the MAX 2009 Call for Sessions and Labs. If you would like to propose a session or lab for MAX 2009, please complete the forms below. The MAX team will be reviewing session and lab proposals ongoing during the Call for Sessions and Labs. We look forward to reviewing your proposals.

MAX 2009 Los Angeles CA Oct 4-7 2009

Details:

• Adobe MAX 2009 Call for Sessions and Labs will end April 15, 2009 midnight PST.
• MAX team goal is to have all sessions, labs, and speakers selected by May 15, 2009.

PROPOSE A NEW SESSION

Looking forward to seeing your proposal!

Regards,

Ted :)

Today we start the content development on Adobe MAX with the Call for Sessions and Labs. If you would like to propose a session or lab for MAX 2009, please complete the forms below. The MAX team will be reviewing session and lab proposals ongoing during the Call for Sessions and Labs. We look forward to reviewing your proposals.

MAX 2009 Los Angeles CA Oct 4-7 2009

Details:

• Adobe MAX 2009 Call for Sessions and Labs will end April 15, 2009 midnight PST.
• MAX team goal is to have all sessions, labs, and speakers selected by May 15, 2009.

PROPOSE A NEW SESSION

Looking forward to seeing your proposal!

Regards,

Ted :)

I just arrived in San Francisco this morning returning from MAX Japan 2008. The event was great and it was a great way to end the MAX 2008 conference season. Japan had record attendance at 1900 attendees and the community was there in full effect. Overall 2008 was a year of great change for MAX, we added a new track "ENVISION", we added 4 Unconferences, and we built the content (sessions & speakers) different than past years. Overall it was an amazing success, even with the economic downturn we had record attendance at all 3 events.

MAX 2009 will be my 3rd year coordinating content (keynotes and sessions) for the event. Over the past 2 years we have built a foundation delivering a better quality event (process and team) while at the same time growing attendance(2X in 2 years).

So what should you expect in 2009?

MAX 2009 keys for success

• Openness
• More Community
• Better Speakers & Content

We are going to build the content for Adobe MAX 2009 openly under the Camp process we established last year. The goal is to make the content at MAX the best ever, content is king. To start, we are making changes to our speaker benefits to eliminate any barrier to having the best speakers at MAX. We are also going to get the community much more deeply involved in MAX content creation, planning, and speaker selection within the Camp process. Additionally are going to expand the Unconference program and better integrate it into MAX overall. To drive all this planning, the team has created the MAX Open Working Group on Adobe Groups to get anyone involved in MAX planning at a very early stage(9 months away!). We will leverage the MAX Open Working Group site to build all the content from session proposals to Camp Management to Session ratings and comments. Ideally anyone who wants to contribute to the conference can join us online. It will take a lot of work but this level or transparency and openness is essential to making MAX a leading industry event and the best event possible for attendees.

Camps and Camp Managers

In 2008 internally our team built all MAX content using Camps and Camp Managers. If you look at MAX as an whole there are about 36 biased interests that make up the content, examples include: RIA Design, Web Standards, Photoshop, ActionScript, Mobile Development, Web Design, ColdFusion, etc. Our first task was to define each biased interest group into a Camp and find a person passionate about the camp's interest to lead/manage/own the camp. Each camp was then allocated a number of sessions to balance into 3 tracks: 50% in DEVELOP, 35% DESIGN, and 15% ENVISION. Each camp manager then picked the best sessions from the entire pool of proposed sessions that best met their camps interests. The camp managers were given complete independent control over sessions and speakers selected limited to the submitted session pool. Last year especially, we saw a lot of new faces speaking at MAX and overall session averaged 20% better than prior years in quality in the surveys, these were largely due to the Camp and Camp Manager process. The process placed content control in the hands of the Camp Manager allowing them to do what was best for their biased interest group or Camp. It also made one person accountable for the quality of one set of sessions and this drove better session quality.

In 2008 a large majority of Camp Managers were Adobe internal, but this year we want a better balance of external Camp Managers. Given the success with externally managed Unconferences, MAX will be a much better event if community leaders manage more Camps at MAX. I really believe that this type of change will result in a much better content and event for everyone attending. Better still it lets attendees get involved in building the event they attend and that is great all around.

If you are interested in helping build MAX please join the MAX Open Working Group as we begin the process of making MAX 2009 the best yet. I am looking forward to working with you.

Cheers,

Ted :)

This is your change to help influence the future of MAX NA. The team needs some blunt, open, and honest feedback about your experience at the MAX NA event. Great feedback, both bad and good, can make a world of difference in doing the right things in 2009. Please leave your feedback about MAX NA in the comments below. Regards, Ted :)