The Good and Bad of Being on the Inside at Adobe
I’m starting my 4th week here at Adobe and took a bit of time to reflect on how it’s going. I’ve been traveling a lot, which is great, and I’ve been able to meet some cool customers and talk to the engineering teams at a level that I NEVER could have as a blogger. So for those of you wondering if Evangelism really is the dream job – it is – and the team I work with makes it even better.
But there’s been a huge downside to being an insider. Adobe is doing so many cool things that I’m not allowed to talk about. It’s not just me wanting to break news (but that’s part of it) but also that there are a lot of misconceptions out there about what Adobe is planning or isn’t doing. I think it’s like that at any big company, but in the past 3 weeks I’ve seen a bunch of blog posts about different topics that I wish I could respond to. And before I started, I was writing those exact same posts questioning what was up with Adobe or whether they were hearing what the community was saying.
After three weeks, I can tell you that they definitely do. We’re planning much further ahead than I would have imagined and those ideas are in large part really good. There are some things I wish we would move faster on, but in general we seem to be moving at a good pace. I think a lot of you are going to be pleasantly surprised over the next year about what we’re doing across a ton of products. We’re innovating in a lot of different ways inside Adobe and I’m going to be a happy camper when I can post and discuss them.
It’s hard being such a geek and having all these cool things you can’t talk about…but it’s worth it 
[tags]Adobe, personal, evangelism[/tags]
Posted in Rich Internet Applications
June 18th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
“We’re innovating in a lot of different ways inside Adobe”
including greater support in the educational sector with a view to tomorrow’s developers?
the educational and benefactor programs that Adobe currently has aren’t bad and I’m not knocking them, but they’re limited to design tools (and not to things like ColdFusion) as well as being U.S centric.
Competing with Microsoft’s evangelising in Education is always going to be tough, but results can be had with a few sensible programs and getting the community on board.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I can only imagine what Adobe is cooking up. Any designer skinning/workflow evangelists needed?
June 18th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Hmmm I hear they need a coffee boy Evangelist, my Resume’s in the mail lol.
June 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Ditto dudde.. I’ve found the same here at Microsoft. I at times put my fingers in my ears when told about xyz in Silverlight , WPF etc as to me “ignorance is bliss” as i’d like to be suprised as the average joe out there… but .. it also pays to be in the know.
One thing I have noticed is how passionate the communities can be on isolated topics, it’s likea cross guard stepping out into traffic full of trucks at times.. basically you’re going to get hurt if you try and divert/halt the flow
Scott Barnes
Web Developer Evangelist
Microsoft.(New Role)
June 18th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
“I hear they need a coffee boy Evangelist.”
That’s a step up from me, I volunteered to sweep floors. And I heard David Mendels started at the front desk. You’re going straight to Coffee Boy, geez.
I’d echo Ryan, and particularly on the part about your feedback being heard. If something’s bothering you, make a good case for it, see if others agree. Such discussions do produce results.
For the “wait a year” stuff, though, I’d have to reply “ship it”…..
jd/adobe
June 19th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Barry, I agree, we should be doing a lot more of that, it’s a great group to target.
Scott, we’ve got some fun, passionate communities which makes jobs like this fun.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:51 am
Nice page. It’s good to have kids who can use this medium to find you