notes from San Jose

So I spent two days with 250 other Adobe certified instructors from around the world, and got to rub shoulders with a number of Adobe employees.

The only piece of information we're allowed to share is that Creative Suite 3 will be announced March 27. This was subsequently reported in the media this week.

It was interesting to talk to trainers coming from the Macromedia side of the house, as Macromedia had run their training partner organization quite differently than Adobe, and now those trainers are part of the Adobe Solutions Network.

Based on conversations I had with other trainers, the market for providing training is currently quite good. Many of them are busier than they'd like and are looking to hire staff. (To work as an ACI, you need to pass an expert-level product exam and have a teaching certificate. Most people get these through Comp TIAA, but state-issued teaching certificates such as I have are also accepted. Those would be minimal qualifications, by the way. You also need high-level knowledge of the product and the ability to teach.)

I learned from the other trainers about an Adobe product called Captivate which I'd been previously unaware of. This product enables training professionals to "quickly create interactive, engaging training content without learning Flash or hiring a professional developer" (according to the website). There are other tools out there, but several trainers told me they really like this one. So I plan to check it out. Adobe sells an online conferencing tool called Connect (formerly Macromedia Breeze) which my colleagues also gave high marks to; it sounded like many of them were using Captivate and Connect together.

I'm unable to reveal any details of the products we saw, but the public beta of Photoshop CS3 should provide some hints. I'll say this: Adobe will probably remain my favorite software company for the foreseeable future.