Adobe Tech Cafe in Milwaukee

Ryan Stewart from Adobe led a fantastic tech session during today's 29 September Adobe Tech Cafe in Milwaukee, co-sponsored by Adobe Systems Inc., Fireseed and Bucketworks. We absolutely could not have had a better tech session leader than Ryan to kick off the Milwaukee Tech Cafe series. So a big thanks goes out to Adobe for sponsoring the tech cafe and sending Ryan to Milwaukee!

Ryan is one of the lead AIR guitar players on the 18-stop country-wide Adobe bus tour which concludes tonight in Chicago. If you live in the Chicago area and are reading this post on 29 September, jump away from your computer (or iPhone) and zip over to the MCA Warehouse to join in on the fun. A few of the geeks who were at the Adobe Tech Cafe in Milwaukee today are down in Chicago tonight getting some more AIR goodness. Following hot on the heels of the tour is Adobe MAX - North America which begins tomorrow in Chicago and runs through 03 October.

Adobe sponsored today's Milwaukee Tech Cafe by sending Ryan to share insider knowledge and tips about AIR and other Adobe products and by providing coffee, bagels, yogurt, fruit and other comestibles for a light breakfast. Ryan gave a clear overview of how their various web and desktop programs and tools work together for developers, designers and computer users, with Windows, Mac and Linux users all being present and vocal. The tech cafe participants were a good mix of developers and designers, so there were lots of tough questions from both sides of the aisle. Ryan said at the start he wanted today's tech cafe to be question and participant-driven, so everything was fair game and a lot of fun was had by all.

The lead question for Ryan was whether there is currently a three-way race between Adobe (AIR, Flash, Flex and others), Microsoft (Silverlight) and Google (Gears) to lead the way to a good solution for apps with both online and desktop synchronizable versions. Ryan talked about how those three companies' products compare and compete or work together, then gave a good overview of how the Adobe products differ or work together. He answered tons of developers' and designers' questions, and everyone at the tech cafe went away with some new insights about Adobe.

Ryan seemed to enjoy the hours he spent in Milwaukee (his first time), and he can now spell the town's name correctly two out of three times. After Justin K. picked Ryan up at the train station (he came up from Chicago this morning), he gave him a tour of the city. On the way back to the station, Justin introduced Ryan to the local gendarmes who wanted to complement Justin on his skillful negotiation of streets designed for much lower speeds than Justin enjoys! Fortunately the peace officer understood and agreed with the need to get Ryan back to the train station promptly so the Illinois people could enjoy him as much tonight as the Wisconsin people had this morning. People at the tech cafe agreed we need to have Ryan come back for more tech events, so we plan to show him the Lakefront Brewery and a few other local sights next time he's in town.

More Milwaukee Tech Cafes are planned for the coming months. Keep an eye on this blog or on the Fireseed website for Tech Cafe announcements. If you know someone in a tech company who'd be willing or eager to sponsor a tech cafe to talk about a their products or other tech topics they're passionate about, contact Justin K or myself and we'll work out the details for dates and the minimal cost of the event (beverages and food for a light breakfast for less than fifty people).

See you at the next Milwaukee Tech Cafe!

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