1. Its in F*ckin' New York City!
I know NYC isn't for everyone but there's everything you could imagine here. On top of learning and getting inspired about Flash you'll have everything NYC has to offer at your finger tips. The organizers of the conference know this and have created what they call the "City Track". They've organized a few "field trips" throughout the city that you can tag along with. Just think of all the cool stuff you'll be able to check out, eat, and do while you're here!

2. Its at the 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center
This place is just plain cool. Its entirely artist-run and have been supporting the arts in NYC since the center was built in 2006 just three blocks south of the WTC site. Personally, it feels good to be supporting such an organization.

3. The ridiculously good list of attending speakers
ZOMG! Srsly u guys! There hasn't been a large Flash conference in NYC...since...I don't know...2004? And that one pretty much sucked. But just look at the list of speakers! If you don't recognize the names, just trust me on this. They're are some really sharp people speaking about some great developments in the industry.

4. The Price is Right
Tickets right now are $299 (but lets just be real and say $300). In comparison to other conferences, this is CHEAP, especially for NYC standards.  And if you keep your ear in the community (Twitter, blogs, etc), you might even be able to find a coupon code!

I'd say these are my main reasons for anyone to attend the conference right now. I'm sure I'll come up with more and if I do, I'll update this post. Naturally, I plan on attending seeing as I live here and I hope to see you along with my other friends and colleagues here as well! It's gonna be a blast.

This was the first time I attended, so I'm not sure of the overall theme of previous years, but there was certainly a major focus on the social aspect of the industry. Just about everyone was talking about it. If they weren't specifically talking about it, then it was at least somehow mentioned.

One of my favorite sessions was When Worlds Collide: Human Centered Design Meets Agile Development. I know very little about either process, but it gave me some good insight into how the majority of designers and developers like to work. I felt it was interesting going into this panel without much knowledge of either process, and absolutely no experience implementing each process as well. Both are suited well for their given reasons, but they are fundamentally different in their approach. What I pulled away from this session was that its difficult to shoe-horn any given project into any specific process model, especially if you have a commandeering designer and/or engineer. It all comes down to providing respect to your counterparts. Designers and engineers must collaborate, communicate, and ultimately all be a part of the process from start to finish. This means that ego's have to be left behind and each side needs to think a little differently than normal. For instance, designers need to relax and not feel as if they have to understand everything about a user before trying to come up with a solution. Engineers on the other hand should focus on looking for opportunities rather than pointing out limitations. Personally, I believe this is the key to successful project.

There was also a lot of other good sessions during the time I was there. The most refreshing fact was that I didn't go to a single session that was focused on the Flash platform. The only Flash related thing that came up was when I was sitting in a session entitled Emerging Trends of Mobile Technology. I forget who it was exactly, but there was a panelist from Adobe (not listed on the description) who spoke a little bit about Adobe's effort to get the full Flash Player onto a bunch of devices by the end of 2009. Pretty exciting if you ask me.

Last but not least, the sponsored parties were a damn good time. Its a great time to meet random industry folks, drink a lot of tall boys, and run into the most influential people in your life. OK, maybe not the last one, but I did run into David Carson who I studied and took influence from for about three years during my college days as a graphic designer. That was pretty interesting. Wish I could have talked to him, but he was a bit distracted by something. Two of the parties I attended were at The Mohawk, a pretty rad venue/bar with all sorts of outdoor space and a free flowing bar. Highly recommend going there for some live music.

With any luck I'll be able to return next year. I really think its a great place to get in the know and see whats happening elsewhere in the digital community/industry. Oh, and thanks to Rokkan for sending me along with a few other coworkers.

This is actually a terrific idea. How many Flash conferences are we up to in the fall now? I think the number is at 5 or 6 right? That's really about 4 or 5 too many. There aren't too many Flash conferences in the spring, and none in New England. Boston is beautiful in May, so I'm expecting everyone to mark their calendars now and start drinking some great beers in preparation for Flash on Tap.

You can start by attending The Return of the Belgium Beer Fest! (also here in Boston) I'll be attending the Night of the Funk, Friday the 26th. Hopefully Todd Anderson will be joining me (*nudge nudge*).

You don't like beer you say? Well don't worry, the conference schedule is jam packed with brilliant people to keep you busy and interested. But who knows, maybe you'll actually find a beer that you might like! I have no idea what will be offered, but seeing as BeerAdvocate is a sponsor can only mean good things to come.

Additionally, Boston is a great city to visit for beer related activities. They have quite a few bars with great beer selections and food. Most notably the The Publick House & Monk's Cell in Brookline. I highly recommend that place as they have fantastic food and beer. I also just heard a rumor from Todd Anderson that the owners recently opened another joint nearby that focuses on American beer and BBQ. Radical.

See you there??

Our presentation was definitely based on common sense. It's definitely an odd topic to try to approach in that respect. Our original "pitch" to Lynda was to offer a "primer" session for Designers who want to get into object orientated programming with CS3/AS3. Ala, we wanted to help designers start to understand the development side of things so they can co-mingle better. However, when we talked to the people at Lynda, after we were accepted, we noticed that their interpretation of our pitch was a bit different than our intentions (not to mention Peter Elst basically covered that kind of content).

However, it wasn't a bad interpretation at all. We feel as if most people do not talk about the problems faced in the office and we also believe there are some issues between Designers, Developers, Copywriters, Production Managers and the sort. Especially given that we have this technology that changes every year. It's the sort of thing that we believe needs to be constantly talked about, otherwise we just fall into our patterns and continue to look at things the same way or just get plain lazy.

Needless to say, our session wasn't for everyone. In fact, we received a few harsh responses to the content and approach. However, for the most part, we got a lot of great feedback, especially while we we're at the conference. I think a lot of people were expecting us to show specific examples of how to improve the technical workflow of a project, but we knew there were already sessions concerning that kind of stuff so we avoided it. We really wanted our message to feel more human than, say, technical.

With this said, we had a great time at FlashForward and we are thankful to have the opportunity. Of all of the 'geeky' communities out there, the Flash community is definitely one of the more creative and supportive.

Thank you everyone,
~marc & matt

ps: sorry for the delayed response.