I didn't get a chance to blog this yesterday because my wireless connection in the auditorium wouldn't stay up. That, and the demo machine blue screened, so Damon Cooper had to basically just tell us what the sneak would have been, rather than demoing it. Nothing really new here, except I think this may have been the first time that anyone mentioned that the new gateway funcitonality would include an Instant Messaging gateway that included support for Lotus Sametime this interests me because my company uses Sametime).

MAX 2004 is winding down with only a few hours left to go. Time for a little reflection and some thoughts for next year.

Macromedia consistently puts on one of the best conferences I've been to. While it's true that some things go more smoothly than others, and that the choice of location has a lot to do with how things run, all in all, MAX is and always has been a well run event. Hats off to everyone at Macromedia who makes MAX the event that it is.

Now, on to a few suggestions. The only real "complaint" I have about the sessions is that the higher level sessions still tend to be to general. From talking with people at the conference, it seems that people want even more "advanced" content that helps them understand the concepts and gives them practical advice on how to apply it. For example, the Hal Helms session on OO ColdFusion was a great introduction to OO development for ColdFusion developers, but I think a lot of attendees were then ready for a follow-up session on applying those ideas and principals. They needed concrete examples, maybe a sample application that they could walk through with a presenter to get more indepth experience with the concepts.

This leans me into my next suggestion - include even more interactive Birds of a Feather sessions for people interested in different topics within CF and let the learning and knowledge sharing happen at a more organic level. Do a BOF for CFCs, a BOF for reporting, a BOF for Mach-II, etc. All Macromedia needs to do is provide a room, and maybe a projector, and the rest will happen spontaneously. Steve Rittler has more on this on his blog.

Next suggestion is to leave a little more time between sessions. Scheduling them back to back doesn't leave people enough time to make it from one session to the next withoug being disruptive often times.

Not sure where MAX is going to be next year, but it's looking like they are considering a West coast city. I think that's a great idea and would love to see MAX in a city like San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle.

I made some really good connections at this year's MAX and look forward to keeping in touch throughout the year. Hopefully, I'll see many of you again next year!