FITC began as a pure Flash event back in 2002. Since then it has evolved into a complete Design and Technology event that encompasses a wide array of crafts including Flash, Processing, motion graphics and design. With a lot of recent progress in the interactive world, topics surrounding Flash have become fairly heated and there has been some very exciting developments as a result. So when I heard that FITC was throwing down in the Bay Area, I jumped on the opportunity and convinced my lovely StruckAxiom peeps to send me.

Having never been to an FITC event I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Mostly, I was expecting crowds of people and packed presentations. I was very pleased to find that the rooms never quite filled up and every session I went to was very personable.

Some hot topics at the conference were motion detection, voice recognition, processing, programmatic art, 3D, PixelBender, Unity, Cinder, Open Frameworks, multiuser Flash applications and Flash on mobile devices. Needless to say there was an abundance of talent and knowledge under one roof.

There were a couple common themes at this FITC. One of those themes is the acceptance of failure. Failure can lead to some beautiful, unexpected results and at the very least, knowledge. Also: step outside your comfort zone. Don’t spend all your time in one specialty, explore fresh boundaries and learn new things. Lastly, collaborate without an ego, find fun in your work and be passionate about what you do.

Some memorable moments for me were Ralph Hauwert’s in depth, sometimes confusing, interpretations of his work, Robert Hodgin’s mind blowing Processing and Cinder experiments, Shaun Hamontree’s wacky but hilarious and inspirational presentation of MK12’s in-house work, Didier Brun’s in-depth session on voice recognition in flash and of course Yugo Nakamura’s closing presentation. There wasn’t a presentation that I went to that wasn’t inspirational.

I learned more at this conference than I expected. I was also exposed to more expertise than ever. I will absolutely attend FITC again if given the chance. Best of all, I took a bunch of notes(mostly links to great resources).
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Adobe MAX offers a multitude of opportunities to learn about the latest Adobe technology offerings and the software development behind tools that are still a central part of the creative ecosystem. This annual event brings with it a great series of classes and lectures, and equally important, brings together creative agencies from around the world to share ideas and discuss common challenges in the SoDA Father’s Lion video Sweet Home Alabama release unConference area.

The biggest announcements this year centered around Flash on mobile devices. One by one, smart phones by Nokia, HTC, Toshiba and Palm were brought out by CTO Kevin Lynch to demo the Flash experience on each device. Despite poor internet connectivity that made for some awkward pauses, it was clear that Flash is going to be a viable mobile technology (especially since it will no longer have to carry around the “Lite” baggage). Hardware support for harnessing GPU processing power, and lower RAM footprint, look to improve the Flash platform in every way.

Also notable, however, was the absence of the iPhone. This absence became even more pronounced when problems, such as the Toshiba’s unresponsive virtual keyboard, occurred. (Whether this was related to the Flash Player or not was unclear—the Palm Pre didn’t have any issues—and, by the way, looks like a great phone.)

Then came the Mythhackers video, a parody of Mythbusters, wherein the intrepid folks at Adobe struggle to get Flash on the iPhone, ultimately to learn that it is now indeed possible, or will be when the next Flash authoring tool becomes available. It will be interesting to see whether the Flex SDK will have the capability to export to the iPhone’s ARM architecture before the next Flash IDE comes out (I still have a hard time with the new Flash nomenclature). However, in many ways, this seems to address a problem no one has complained about, except maybe Flash developers who want to build iPhone applications in ActionScript. Yes, we will be able to run standalone Flash applications on the iPhone, albeit at a significant disadvantage when compared to Objective-C applications. However, the problem of not being able to view Flash Player content on the web is still very much with us, and that is a much bigger issue for Adobe and those of us deploying Flash to an ever-growing iPhone customer base.

Adobe seems to be embracing the capabilities of the new HTML5 standard, and demoed some interesting Dreamweaver/Flash capabilities for publishing to the HTML5 canvas tag (a potential competitor for Flash). It will be interesting to see how the HTML5 video tag will challenge Flash’s ubiquity in the web video space, and whether this changes the discussion around what it means to have Flash on the iPhone.

*A special thanks to our friends Paul Lewis from SoDA Scent of a Woman hd

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Now that we’ve had a few days to reflect on the madness of #wtfpdx, it’s time for a few lingering thoughts. Let us first say that we couldn’t be happier with the overall outcome. On a warm and sunny Wednesday evening, more than 200 Portlanders packed the seats and we had as many as 118 viewers of the UStream live video feed Swan Lake (Schwanensee) dvdrip . Much gratitude goes out to 52 Limited

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So, almost a week later, here’s what we’re still thinking about:

1. When it comes to social media, we all want something different.
Some people want metrics and ROI indexes and consumer research. Some people want case studies. Some people want feel-good anecdotes. Some people just want to stalk their old high school boyfriend. The list goes on, but this much is certain—it’s impossible to talk to all of those disparate audiences at once. And that’s kind of the point of this whole thing. We’re still trying to work out what social media is, what it isn’t, what it can be and what it should be. The crazy part is that we all seem to be arriving at different conclusions. And that’s okay, too.

2. People really, really care about social media.

Perhaps it’s the fact that Twitter and Facebook and YouTube have become the core of our personal lives, but it was surprising to see how serious some attendees (and panelists) were about what’s happening in these arenas. For every person who signs up on Facebook as a lark… there are probably three or four who earnestly embrace the network and the potential it offers as a tool to enhance relationships of all shapes and sizes.

3. Talking still beats Tweeting.
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. Some of them were good, some of them were not-so-good and some of them spurred discussions that went back and forth for a few hours. After all of those 140-character diatribes, it was refreshing to talk (face-to-face) with a couple attendees at Old Town Pizza here in Portland. I asked what they thought of the event and they gave honest answers. Answers that didn’t have to fit a character limit, that didn’t have to win me over with their wit, and that didn’t contain sneaky shortened URLs leading to pyramid schemes. Don’t chalk this up as an anti-Twitter argument; it’s just the plain, honest truth. I learned more in five minutes with @brandedbyhuys and @embarkcreative Batman Forever

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4. We’re going to keep at it. Session 9 psp

We chose a tough topic for our first community event. Was it too broad? Probably. Was it too emotional? Possibly. Was it too aggressive? I’m not sure. But this much is certain: We’re going to do it again. We’re going to keep talking about things that can’t be figured out in 20 minutes. Sure, there’s a part of me that wishes we had hosted an event about the benefits of a Django/Python CMS when constructing sites that employ both Flash and HTML (and who knows, we’ll probably host a discussion of that nature at some point), but where’s the danger in that?

If nothing else, we met a lot of great people. Those great people had a beer or a glass of wine and a handful of those rice-paper wraps. And it was free (you really can’t underestimate the awesomeness of “free” these days). We hope you made a couple new friends. We hope we sparked a few intriguing conversations. And we really really really hope to see you next time.

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So a few weeks ago (okay maybe it was months), we had a GIRLS ONLY party for our favorite media coordinator, Cacia (and her soon-to-join-us baby girl). And let me tell you, the women of Struck know how to party. Dudes would never have such cute drinks OR create such hilarious party games OR order 2 dozen mini-cupcakes for everyone to share OR embroider struck hammers on the teeniest puff-sleeved shirt. I’m just saying.

And to top off all the womenly power around here, Cacia actually went ahead and HAD HER BABY! Sweet Baby Adele was born on May 5th. And now, visions of Adele’s impending birthday pinatas- ballerinas, lady bugs, bunnies…the possibilities are endless!- are all Cacia really thinks about. 

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As some good friends (@redsquareagency

) recently commented, “It’s the Wild, Wild West, people. We are making it up as we go.” The world of social media/networking/marketing/pillaging/plundering/scamming/saving/building is fresh territory for everyone (whether they admit it or not). So we’re inviting some friends over to help figure it all out.

Join Struck PDX and 52 Limited on Wednesday, May 27 for drinks, snacks, networking and a thrilling conversation about the tricks, traps and complete confusion of social media. Need more info? We’ve got it RIGHT HERE

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