Andrew Shorten @ Adobe

Over the last couple of years I’ve had the pleasure of being part of the Platform Evangelism team at Adobe – a smart, diverse and unique group of people who care passionately about Flash and who genuinely like helping others learn about new technology.

A big part of that role has been spending time out on the road talking about the Flash Platform and showing how to use Flex, Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder to create rich Internet applications. An equally important part of being an evangelist is listening to feedback, suggestions and constructive criticism from designers, developers, technical architects, press & analysts and channeling that information back into the product teams so that we can fix bugs, add new features and improve workflow between tools.

I’m hoping to use some of that experience, gained from talking with many of you, in my new role at Adobe, as Senior Product Manager for Flash Builder.

I’m really excited about taking on this new position – there are lots of great additions in the upcoming version of Flash Builder 4 (currently in beta), including the data centric development tools, the network monitor, support for Flash Catalyst projects and enhancements to core code editing, refactoring and debugging features. But there is a whole lot more that we can do to enhance developer productivity, enable a more fluid design/develop workflow and, with the availability of Flash Player on smart phones and the upcoming mobile version of the Flex framework, to support multi-screen application development.

Whilst the engineering team continues working hard on completing Flash Builder 4 for a release in the first half of 2010, I’ll be joining with more of a view on future versions of Flash Builder and be part of the team planning out what’s important to developers building applications on the Flash Platform.

If you are interested in some of the directions that we’re thinking about and didn’t attend MAX, I’d encourage you to watch the Flash Platform Tooling & Framework Roadmap presentation on Adobe TV.

I’ll be relocating to San Francisco with my family in the New Year and am looking forward to the many new experiences that will come from living in California. I will of course miss being in Europe (although maybe not the winter weather so much), working with all my friends on the European evangelism, PR and marketing teams and being close to the many people I’ve met at conferences, user group meetings, Flash Camps and other local events. I do hope however that I’ll be back during the year to support some of the European events/conferences and to get feedback on our plans for future versions of Flash Builder.

I’m going to do my best to continue blogging here, I’ll continue to be on Twitter and more than ever I welcome your comments and thoughts on how you’d like to see us develop Flash Builder.

Cheers,

Andrew

My news and first post here is that I’m returning to Adobe later this month; I will be joining the Platform Evangelism team, alongside Mike Downey, Kevin Hoyt, Daniel Dura and Ryan Stewart. I will be based primarily in Europe, with the aim of engaging with designers, developers, agencies and organisations on Adobe’s platform technologies, including Flash Player, Flex and the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR).

Having worked at Macromedia, then Adobe until November last year, some will remember that I made the decision to move to Microsoft. When talking about the move I wrote “The software industry is a small world and it’s not uncommon for people to move between the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, Google and Apple”. Needless to say I wasn’t anticipating on moving again quite so quickly.

From the outset, I found my colleagues within Microsoft to be genuinely passionate about improving the computing experience and creating compelling software products. In particular, the product team lead by Forest Key and the group of User Experience evangelists within DPE will undoubtedly make a significant impact on the next generation of web and desktop experiences, through the tools and runtimes that Microsoft is delivering.

Microsoft is however an organisation with 70,000+ employees and a hugely diverse set of products and priorities, of which User Experience and Rich Internet Applications is, comparatively, a fledging operation. When I learned about the Platform Evangelist role at Adobe and was considering this in relation to my role within Microsoft it really came down to a question of “Where do I feel I can make the greater impact?” both on a personal level and when working with designers, developers and customers so as to have an impact on the industry and the applications/services that people will use in the future.

As I have continued to follow Adobe’s progress I have been impressed by the level of investment that is being made in the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), the Platform Evangelism team and in events such as the onAIR tour and MAX. Adobe is really focusing on engaging with the community and want to ensure that the Platform Evangelism team has a worldwide reach. Europe is a key region for Adobe and I’ve been asked to lead on the efforts here to engage with developers, partners and customers on our platform technologies.

You’ll have already seen that MAX is coming to Europe for the first time this year and that’s just the start – I’ll be working with the US and European teams to make sure we’re out across Europe talking about Adobe’s platform and listening to feedback as we continue to build out future versions of Flex, AIR, Adobe Reader and Flash Player.

Hopefully there will be plenty of opportunities for us to connect in person; I’m already planning to be at Deconstruct in Brighton, MAX in Chicago, FOWA in London, MAX Europe in Barcelona and Flash on the Beach in Brighton; additionally I hope to join parts of the Creative License tour and be at future LFPUG and Flex usergroup meetings in the UK and at others across Europe over the coming months. Come and say hello and be sure to tell me about cool Flex and AIR apps that you’re building!

It’s been fantastic to see the vision that many of us have had for Rich Internet Applications actually become reality over the last twelve months; with the upcoming release of Flex 3 and the Adobe Integrated Runtime, alongside continuing product developments from Microsoft, OpenLaszlo, Sun and others it will certainly continue to be an interesting and inspiring area in which to work.

Upon moving to Microsoft last year I wrote “competition is good for everyone and hopefully the resulting tools and platforms that designers and developers use will enable the next generation of web and desktop experiences to be richer and more engaging than ever before.”

My goal remains constant: making experiences richer and more engaging than ever before – I feel that at Adobe I’ll be better positioned to help make this happen.

I look forward to talking to you via email, IM, twitter or in person over the coming months so that together we can realise that vision.