Yes, I think it is. I finally got back home Saturday night after a very long, and very exciting, week at MAX. I spent the latter half of the week at Broadchoice in some pretty intense meetings and am happy to be back in my office slinging code. In no particular order, here are my thoughts on MAX 2008.
First off - I think the biggest complaint last year involved the amount of walking folks had to do to get from one place to another. I was concerned about it again this year, especially with the larger amount of people attending. Turns out the location was just about perfect. All sessions were within two main hallways, all of which were about 5 minutes away from each other. To be fair, I spent 90% of my time at the Unconference, but the few times I did walk around, the setup seemed to work very well. I've said this before and I'll say it again - I'd much rather go for a less glitzy location if it means a conference I can more easily get around in. I think Adobe did a great job on the location.
I can't really speak to the quality of the sessions. Because I spent my time at the Unconference, the only session I attended was my own. My impression was that folks were satisfied, although I heard that most CF sessions were on one day which made it harder for folks to see them. I'll have to let other people chime in with their thoughts on that.
Keynotes were perfect. Absolutely perfect. No dull moment at all. I can't remember them ever being this good before, so again, kudos to Adobe.
Special event: It was certainly an interesting location, but I didn't stay there long. My buddies and I actually left rather early and all of us just went to our rooms and hit the sack. I blame the night before and too much Anchor Steam.
As a speaker, I was really impressed by the fact that I got my evaluations less than 24 hours after presenting. If I had been giving multiple talks on the same topic, that would have been really helpful. I've never been to a conference that had turn around speed that fast before.
The Unconference: Heh, well I'm a bit biased here as I was running it, but I loved it. I really hope Adobe gives me the opportunity to do so again. It seemed to be the place where all the 'cool kids' hung out, so I guess I'm lucky they didn't kick me out. ;) I did learn a few things. One - and this is kind of obvious - next time plan some space between presentations. Duh. Two - next time I'll insist on a projector. The TVs worked great for slides, but horribly for code. For those who want to download presentations, I've updated the main page with download links where I could.
All in all - my favorite MAX yet. I'm hoping for good things from LA next year!
And now for my 3 OT best things about MAX.
Seeing Mike Relm display my giant fat head on screen in front of 5,000 people.
Beating my high score at Galaga (no, mine isn't the top score, but the one on the left):
- And the number one best OT thing about MAX - the 5 Tagger Posse:
