Andrew Shorten

At the LFUG meet-up last week it was clear that not everyone was 100% sure about what goes on at MAX and why they should go, especially given the current economic situation. So, here is your 5 minute guide to what’s happening at MAX, who’s going from the UK and how YOU can go for less…

What is MAX?

From wikipedia… “Adobe MAX is a large annual event held by Adobe in North America, Europe and Japan. The purpose of the event to provide unique opportunities for those in the computer design and development industries to connect and learn the latest cutting-edge technologies that Adobe releases.”

This year’s European event is taking place December 1st – 3rd in Milan, Italy. If you’re interested in Adobe’s technology roadmap, new product announcements or want to learn more about the Flash Platform and Flex through hands-on labs and over 50 Flex developer sessions then MAX Europe is for you. Use the session browser to explore all the sessions at MAX.

Who is going to MAX Europe from the UK?

This year, there are a host of speakers travelling from the UK to speak at MAX, alongside Adobe product managers, evangelists and designers & developers from all around the world. Here are some of the sessions from UK speakers:

• James Whittaker (RefreshingApps.com), “Perfecting the user experience in Adobe AIR”
• Samuel Williams (LBi), “Building Flex applications with PureMVC”
• Neil Middleton (Monochrome), “Structuring your development team and getting the work done”
• Mike Jones (FlashGen), “Debugging and profiling with Flex Builder”
• Rob Bateman (Away3D), “Finding Away3D”
• Stefan Richter (FlashComGuru), “Building collaborative applications with Flash Media Server”
• Carlos Ulloa (Papervision3D), “Advanced Papervision3D”-
• Rick Williams (AKQA), “Anatomy of a seriously sophisticated AIR application”
• Dom O’Brien (Glue London), “Interactive Video Campaigns”

We’re planning to hold a get together dinner on Sunday night in Milan, in conjunction with the LFUG, for all attendees travelling from the UK – come and network with UK Flex developers before the event starts, pick up your exclusive MAX T-Shirt and plan out your agenda for the conference. There is a rumour that Adobe are sponsoring some drinks

How do I justify the cost?

In the current economic climate, it can be challenging to justify the cost attending conferences - if you do need to sell it to your boss, then I think MAX is better positioned as 3 days of intensive training; in which case, at around £400 (book using discount code UKI816) it’s pretty good value. Travelling to MAX in Milan from the UK doesn’t need to be expensive - I’ve listed some low cost options for flights and hotels below; and you could always consider room sharing to reduce the cost further… why not post over on the LFUG forums for a room mate?

EasyJet have return Gatwick<->Milan flights from around £50.
BA have return Heathrow<->Milan flights from around £100.
Hotels – there are hotels on Expedia from around £45 a night staying near the Central Station. A map of recommended hotels is available here.

Why else should I go?

Well, keep an eye on Ryan Stewart’s blog for another BIG reason to attend MAX Europe…

We’re gearing up for MAX Europe which is happening December 1st - 3rd in Milan and I’m pleased to say that we’ve got some great speakers travelling (under their own steam ;)) from the UK to Italy to present at the conference.

The MAX Europe session finder is not quite up to date yet, so here’s a list of the UK speakers and their sessions, each of which is exclusive to the European version of MAX 2008…

• James Whittaker (RefreshingApps.com), “Perfecting the user experience in Adobe AIR”
• Samuel Williams (LBi), “Building Flex applications with PureMVC”
• Neil Middleton (Monochrome), “Structuring your development team and getting the work done”
• Mike Jones (FlashGen), “Debugging and profiling with Flex Builder”
• Rob Bateman (Away3D), “Finding Away3D”
• Stefan Richter (FlashComGuru), “Building collaborative applications with Flash Media Server” 
• Carlos Ulloa (Papervision3D), “Advanced Papervision3D”
• Andy Hood (AKQA), “Anatomy of a seriously sophisticated AIR application”

With all these great sessions confirmed, alongside other speakers from across Europe, including Marco Casario, Nicolas Leirmann & Mario Klingermann, and of course, presentations from Adobe Evangelists, Product Managers and Engineers, it should be even bigger and better than last year’s event in Barcelona.

MAX Europe early-bird pricing has been extended until 19th October, so a full conference pass currently costs 720 Euros (inc VAT). Flights from London to Milan with Easyjet are currently around £50 return, including taxes.

Interested in learning Flex? Want to JumpStart your Flex development skills? If so, then you should head over to http://www.bringyourownlaptop.co.uk and sign up for the FREE one day training courses that we’re running in conjunction with Academy Class.

These intensive, hands-on courses will cover the essentials of using Flex Builder to build a RIA, including the use of visual and navigation components, working with client-side data and interacting with Web Services - the full course outline is here. All you need to do is bring your laptop, pre-installed with either a trial or full version of Flex Builder 3; the training will be held at the Adobe office located in central London.

We’re expecting demand for this FREE course to be high, so a reservation charge will need to be authorised on a credit card at the time of booking, but this will only be taken if you fail to turn up or if you cancel within 48 hours of the course date. We’re doing this because we really want to ensure that all available spaces are filled on the day and that no-one misses out unnecessarily because of the no-shows typically associated with a free event.

Courses are scheduled for October, November and December - check the course website for exact dates and for more information on the course.

This autumn Marco Casario, Peter Elst and Koen De Weggheleire will be running ‘Meet the Guru’ training sessions in London - as I’m sure you already know, all of these guys are accomplished authors, conference speakers and developers and are well-deserving of their ‘guru’ status. If you’re looking for developer-to-developer training in ActionScript 3, Flex 3 or AIR then you should check out these courses.

More information on each of the 3 day ‘Meet the Guru’ training sessions is here: http://www.comtaste.com/en/training.htm