We are very fortunate to have a 2009 MAX finalist to present at our November meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, November 24th from 6-8:30pm at the Ohio State University's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) located at:
  1224 Kinnear Road
  Columbus, OH 43212-1154

Maria Palazzi, Director of the ACCAD and Associate Professor of Design at The Ohio State University will be presenting the creative possibilities that exist when the worlds of choreography, interactive, animation and design intersect. 

Synchronous objects is an interactive exploration of choreographer William Forsythe's One Flat Thing, reproduced.  It has received international recognition and was recently selected as a finalist for the Adobe MAX Awards.

The team describes the research as a process in which choreographic ideas are the source of information for the composition of unique visual objects. These objects enable the ideas in the choreography to be quickly grasped in their entirety and suggest new interpretations.

Says Palazzi,"Animation is the core expressive technique that articulates Forsythe’s choreographic intention to the viewer. Artists and scientists working collaboratively on this project used animation techniques such as traditional keyframing, algorithmic and generative approaches to create animation and interactive experiences that reveal Forsythe’s strategies and re-imagine what this dance can look like. These animated manifestations (traces, scores, maps) visualize information in new ways, as an evolving viable research space and as a departure point for conversation and further discussion."

You can view, engage with and learn about the piece at: http://www.synchronousobjects.osu.edu.

You can learn more about the ACCAD at: http://accad.osu.edu/

Please plan on attending this exciting presentation.  More information will be coming in the next few days in the Event Calendar.

As many of you know, Adobe gives us a gift certificate to the online Adobe store to give away every year. There are some conditions, basically restricting us to one non-upgrade item whose cost does not exceed $2100, but given that this is enough for anything but the Master Suite it's a pretty good deal. So in order to encourage our community to really get their thinking caps on, we're going to run a contest!

In order to do this, we are going to have a special December meeting on Tuesday, December 8th, which will coincide with National Computer Science Education Week.

So, announcements for MAX have been rolling out over the past few weeks, and I figured I'd wrap up everything for you guys in one convenient post.

First things first: The links everyone wants to see-

1- Cost: http://max.adobe.com/registration/fees/
2- Hotel Rates: http://max.adobe.com/registration/hotels/
3- Stuff to do: http://max.adobe.com/agenda/schedule/

Secondly: The cheapest ways to register for MAX-

A- You can register before August 31st ( $200 discount )
B- You can register with at least three other people from the same company ($500 discount )
C- You can get 20 people together and get group pricing (READ BELOW).
D- Win a free pass (see below)

FREE PASSES
As some of you may remember, two years ago Adobe ran a Register-5-get-1-free promotion for User groups which was sadly discontinued in 2008. Well, it's back! For every 5 people that register and acknowledge membership of Columbus Digital, we get a free MAX pass to hand out (maximum 2). That combined with the software handout we get every 6 months our swag chest is looking to be pretty well stuffed this season. If you want to help us out and be counted, please register by clicking on this link (That way we can keep track of the registrations).

https://max.adobe.com/register/attendees/new?f=Michael&l=Krotscheck

IF YOU WANT GROUP PRICING
Send me a private email. I'll happily act as a proxy on behalf of a group going, but we need at least 20 people. I'm already in contact with the other UGM's in Ohio to see if we can pool resources, and we might be able to shave off another $100 or so depending on the size of our group. Assume a price point of $895-$1095/person, but please don't take that as a guarantee. We'll handle money via check as per

NEW EVENTS
Adobe's actually attaching 1.5 days of training to the days before the conference. One of them is specifically targeted at Photographers and Pixel artists (Russell Brown @ MAX) and the other is for enterprise developers looking to build on the LiveCycle platform (LiveCycle @ MAX). If you register for either of these training sessions, you're not eligible for discounts, period, so we can't help you. Still, it's something to consider.

MAX AWARDS
Last but not Least: MAX Award Nominations are open. If you've got some amazing work you want to nominate for an award (Tracer? I'm looking at you guys), or know of someone who's done something awesome, please please please nominate them! The deadline is July 31st, so get those projects rollin'.

http://max.adobe.com/awards/

Michael Krotscheck
Columbus Digital AUG

We had a pretty good time at the Social Media Cafe tonight- an awful lot of people showed up, and the food was plentiful. Among other things, I had a great conversation with a gentleman named Eric who happens to cater to one of my own secret passions: He owns his own Meadery... but I digress.

One of the big takeaways I had from the event was that there are plenty of people, programs and opportunities for community members to videotape, interview, record or create stories and videos of various types, but that the challenge lay in getting them the resources to actually do so. Part of those resources are budgetary, others are skill based, and I realized that we here at Columbus Digital not only have the experts to educate the interested, but also can provide that information in the context of the budget-sensitive contributor. In short- there are three points of intimidation that must be overcome to enable a contributor: Skills, Cost, and Content (also known as the How, Which, and What).

So here's what I'm thinking: We put our heads together and see if we can arrange a "Media Production on a Budget" event. Yes yes, we'd need a catchy name, but it should be fairly easy to line up a day's worth of sessions intended to take a reasonably computer literate person from zero to independent journalist... all for ~$100 or less in equipment and software. Here's what I'm thinking:

• Hour 1: Process workflow, aka the pieces you'll need.
• Hour 2: How to choose your topic, how to tell a story, how to ask questions, how to lead an interview... soft skills that help people choose their content.
• Hour 3, Audio Track: Basic Audio tools and techniques ( Cheap microphones, etc, white noise, location, etc)
• Hour 3, Video Track: Basic Videography tools and techniques ( FlipCam, hand cams, cellphone cams, how to line up a shot, lighting, etc)
• Hour 4, Audio Track: Audio mixing and editing. Composition, tracks, software, etc etc.
• Hour 4, Video Track: Video Editing on a budget. Software, tracks, composition, transitions, timing, special effects, etc.
• Hour 5: Publishing your content. Youtube, blog sites, iTunes, etc.

All that, followed by a happy hour like social event where you can mingle with the experts and ask any additional questions. My current pie-in-the-sky date is early March, either the 7th or the 14th. What do you think? Is this too much for a single day? Too little? Does it make sense to split things apart by track more? If we're going to do this, we need to get moving on it pronto.

We had an excellent presentation tonight at ICC. Yury gave us an excellent overview of planning out mobile SMS campaigns, and fielded many questions from the group about the specifics of dealing with providers. After that, Lane Kuhlman gave us a presentation on gesture-based interfaces (including the Wii and touchscreen apps), and finished off with showing us how video shape tracking actually worked in Flash. No, really, we saw how the Reactable actually worked, including camera and Infrared camera and everything! It ruled.

Also, tonight was our 6-month raffle, and I'd like to congratulate Stephanie Myers on winning this time around! I've already contacted her with the specifics, and she'll be able to pursue her dream of finally getting more involved with her creative group at work.

Lastly, I'd like to remind everyone that we are NOT having a presentation night in December, but we have a great lineup set up for our next two quarters. We'll be addressing individual products directly, beginning with Photoshop in January and Dreamweaver in February. More information will be released as we get closer to the dates, but stay tuned to our site on groups.adobe.com (or groups.columbusdigital.org) to for specifics!

Wouldn't it be nice if...

• There was a place we could be publicly recognized as Adobe experts?
• You can advertise yourself as an independent contractor and/or expert seeking work?
• Recruiters can post any job openings and directly address the community across the nation?
• Sponsors and their contribution to the group can be easily viewable?
• You can post interesting links, media, projects of yours, and what have not?
• All this stuff was available without one of us poor manager schmucks having to develop in the first place?

Guess what! One of the big announcements at MAX is the launch of groups.adobe.com, one of Adobe's major initiatives to extend resources to the community and give us the tools we need to grow. No more home-baked websites all over the world, now there's one place where you can post, ask questions, pimp yourself and your company and get the latest and greatest from the Adobe community.

And best of all, there's actually an API you can code against :)

I'll be giving a more in-depth description about what this means to Columbus Digital tonight, but don't let that stop you from checking out the new site, get your profile in order and start posting questions :).

Adobe Groups
http://groups.adobe.com/

Columbus Digital
http://groups.adobe.com/resources/b4a50b1159/summary

Or, if you really don't want to remember that silly complicated URL:
http://groups.columbusdigital.org/