London Acrobat User Group

Meeting Notes Archive

February 29 - March 1, 2007

The Stars Come Out for Miami Conference 

There are few things worse than travelling all the way to a conference to learn more about your favourite software just to find that the only product in evidence is... PowerPoint.

So it was a relief to wander through Mogo's recent Miami Beach event and see that all of the invited experts were - gasp! - actually demonstrating the very software that they had been invited to talk about, and using real-world examples that we could all connect with.  The only slides in evidence were those for some of the more technical sessions - and even those were fun!

The conference actually comprised of 4 separate events - the InDesign conference, the Vector conference (Illustrator etc.), the Pixel conference (Photoshop etc.) and of course the conference for Adobe Acrobat - but with many of the delegates experienced Creative Suite users, - determined to snap up as many tips as possible - the majority seemed to have booked in for all 4 days (and some for the following Workshop day as well!)

They weren't disappointed - sometimes conference speakers can leave you a little underwhelmed, but in Miami we had a star-studded cast. As a non-creative Creative Suite user, even I recognised some of the famous faces that peek out of bookstore shelves - was that Anne-Marie Concepcion (InCopy, Indesign) in the line for the croissants, with Olav-Martin Kvern (Indesign, Pagemaker) eyeing up the blueberry muffins? Could that be Diane Burns (mother of Japanese DTP) studying the typography on the back of the juice carton, with Mordy Golding (Illustrator) casting a critical eye over the print quality? And we can confirm that lynda.com is definitely run by Lynda... (check out her logo)

The Acrobat conference opened up with a keynote by our very own Lori DeFurio -  "I Didn't Know Acrobat Could Do That!".  If you've never been to one of these sessions, you're missing out - even though she is a longtime Acrobat guru, Lori never seems to lose enthusiasm for the product - and manages to find features that no-one else knew existed, given the "oohs" and "aahs" coming from the packed audience.

We don't have room to list all the great sessions and speakers, but personal highlights were: Dov Isaacs, explaining how "Print is Anything But Dead" (and managing to fit more one liners into this serious subject than Jackie Mason); Brian Wood showing us how to "Break Out of the Box with Acrobat 3D" and Leonard Rosenthol abandoning his lectern to plonk himself down in the midst of the session attendees and give a private masterclass in "PDF Standards - What You Need to Know"

All in all, a great conference, which gave delegates a deeper understanding of the respective products (and how they work together) and literally hundreds of practical tips to start using in their day-to-day work. Definitely an event to put in your diary for 2009!

Thanks to MOGO for inviting the AUG to experience the conference for ourselves. For more information, www.mogoevents.com.  Miami Beach Convention Center is a 20 minute walk from many of the famous art deco hotels on Collins Avenue, and 10 minutes from the ocean.  Flights from London with British Airways start at around £340 return.

Photos from the conference