Disappointed.
I sent an email to the Adobe India Community Champions mailing list about the direction of Adobe’s evangelism efforts in India, the email was originally intended for the 10 or so Community Champions, but since people from Adobe have started reacting in public without reacting on the list first, I feel its better to post my thoughts in public as well.
Here is how Adobe evangelist Harish Sivaramakrish chose to react to my thoughts on twitter, I feel that its unfortunate that this is Adobe’s reaction to genuine critique …
I believe that Adobe’s various community programs like the User Group Program, Community Champions program etc are meant to obtain genuine feedback and its sad to receive such a personally attacking reaction when you speak your mind.
I have not asked other members of the list for their permission to post their parts of the thread in public .. so I am only posting my thoughts and not the whole thread but there were at least 4 other champions who agreed with me on many of my points but not everything ..
Here’s the email I sent on Thursday …
I am disappointed by the consistent failure of Adobe India to support community, user groups, community mailing lists, community events, community leaders etc.
I just got an email about Adobe devsummit … yes the same event that gives flex builder to everyone who attends and draws the maximum audience of all Flex related events throughout the year.
Last year in August when I first heard of the same event … I had written to the Adobe evangelism team .. congratulating them on organizing a large scale event that would draw audiences from outside our regular community … I also suggested that they should include community speakers in the event to add to their existing content … I personally offered to present a talk on Advanced concepts in AIR (AIR was completely not present in that agenda). My intention at the time was to help improve the quality of the content that would be presented at the event .. because well I was and still am tired of the “Intro” like talks we hear at all Adobe events in India … you cannot blame Adobe for this because these talks are presented by evangelists and not by developers who use Flex to build real stuff … hence I suggested Adobe should include community experts who have more experience in the trenches than Adobe evangelists.
The reply I got to that email last year stated that it was too late for what I was proposing and they would include community in future events .. yet, here we are a year down the line with an email about the same event in my Inbox and no prior communication to the community that I know off.
I’ve attended Adobe events outside of India and community takes center stage at those events …. I was at the AIR Bus tour in Washington DC in 2007 and at the venue the local DC Flex user group had been given a special pod (the only pod there) to promote their group … adobe presenters advertised the group after their presentations and encouraged people to join …. I have attended several Adobe events in India … none of them mentioned the local user group.
I attended MAX in Chicago and there as well I saw special focus on community and user groups … if devsummit is the main event in India .. why doesn’t that include community in any form?While Adobe India events continue to be boring marketing gimmicks (there I said it) .. primarily I feel because they don’t include community … its not just about the events …
1. Adobe India members are not active on flex-india or any user group mailing list … they just use flex-india as an advertisement medium. Local Indian Flex team members do not contribute to any local mailing lists, while I constantly see them active on flexcoders, flex sdk list and other international forums
2. Indian Flex team members are not active on the local user groups (the evangelists are) .. but why don’t I see the Flex engineers at out BangaloreFx meetings which happens in their own building?
3. Adobe evangelist go out and give presentations to several companies every day … I don’t think any of them mention the local Flex User Group or Flex India .. where all these new adopters could get help and gain knowledge.
I could go on …
In short I feel while Adobe on the whole does a great job of including community … Adobe India has been completely ignoring it.
I’m disappointed.
Himanshu Modi from Tekno Point agreed with some of my points but suggested that we as community champions should step up organize things on our own … here’s my reaction his thoughts …
Hi Himanshu,
Thank you for replying.
I see your point, .. but the events we organize as community champions is a whole other discussion .. yes we should do that and many of us have been … RIA Connect, initRIA, User Group Tours/Meetings etc.My point here is different … I’m disappointed because none of Adobe India’s existing efforts seem to include community … its as if they organize/plan everything forgetting that there is an active community out there that can help … I’m not requesting any new events here … I’m questioning why community is not included in exiting efforts … we see Adobe world wide do this beautifully everyday .. community is included at a very early stage .. take MAX for example or the launch of Adobe Groups.
I receive info about an event in San Fransisco 2 months in advance … in contrast .. I receive info about an event in Bangalore 18 days before the event along with public announcement with obviously no room for suggestion and no inclusion of community whatsoever even though I had suggested that last year
All Adobe India events have tech talks only from Adobe speakers .. why don’t they take advantage of expertise in the community?Also, why don’t I see adobe india .. support/promote/contribute to existing efforts of the community … user groups, mailing lists etc … did anyone from Adobe India help you promote RIA Connect?
John Koch from Adobe who has been very helpful to the Indian Community and has all my respect, acknowledged that he saw my frustration and would communicate my thoughts to all concerned .. here’s my reply to him …
Hi John,
Thank you for replying ….. I know you understand my point of view … anyone who has spent some time thinking about community, its effects and its benefits should see what I’m saying.
What’s surprising to me is that there is team at Adobe India whose job is to focus on community and yet they repeated fail to see the obvious.
I’m picking on one particular team here … I know everyone in that team … they are all great guys and gals .. but I feel I’m obligated to point out their mistakes in the interest of a common goal
I’m sorry to have put you in this position of having to communicate my strongly worded comments … I was about to put this in a blog post and let them know directly how I feel, but then I thought that saying something like that in public would put a lot of people on the defensive … and that is not what we need here. I would love to have this discussion be direct so if you just want to forward this thread to all concerned and have an all hands discussion I’m open to that.
Thank you as always for helping.
Mrinal
Anantharaman Mani who runs the Chennai Flex User Group also agreed with me on some counts but made a point that there are cultural differences between India and abroad and it is somewhat unfair to single out one team at adobe when there is less community focus in all of India Software industry … here is my reply to his thoughts …
Hi Ananth,
Thank you for replying … you’ve raised a very good point about culture … but here’s as I see it …
Adobe India is impacted by two cultures …. 1. The culture of corporate India and 2. The culture of Adobe …. you’re right most corporates in India don’t get community … but what surprises me is how Adobe India is not able to gain from its own world wide culture of nurturing communities … Adobe worldwide oozes with understanding of community … I mean big decisions a are made by including community … see the Flex SDK, see the Adobe Groups initiative, see the activity of Flex team members on mailing lists, twitter et al. … so how come Adobe India misses this and their evangelism efforts continue be one sided marketing messages … I mean that team might as well be called Adobe Marketing.
While they’re almost the same, there is a cultural difference between those two words — Marketing and Evangelism.
(In a separate email, I said …)Why I’m singling out just team is because I want this one team to change their approach … that change will greatly help improve our ecosystem … blaming the society won’t get us anywhere.
There were other valuable reactions on the thread from Abdul Qabiz and others, but I will leave it to the other contributors of the discussion if they want to make their thoughts public.
Adobe community in India is small knit and I guess I’ve stepped on a few toes here .. but I feel that the reason Adobe runs various community programs is to solicit genuine critique and feedback, so being part of the community champions program, I feel obligated to share my thoughts and that is what I am doing here, unfortunate that people are reacting the way they are.
July 19th, 2009
Well, I dont completely disagree with Mrinal and Adobe India community certainly does require more attention.
But one thing is that in India IT Industry behaves very differently so you cant put the same formulas that r working fine in other western countries n in that prospect Adobe India team is doing pretty fair.
July 19th, 2009
Mrinal, I think Harish’s response is quite unfortunate — maybe he took it personally. It don’t think it was constructive feedback from somebody who should be supporting your community
From what I’ve seen, the community program in India has some issues. What I think is important for everyone to realize is that there is so much potential — I’ve met dozens of really talented and passionate Indian developers and so much could be done.
I hope Adobe will evaluate and look at how things can be improved. There’s always things that can be improved, even if you believe things are going well. It seems there are some people within Adobe opposed to that.
As someone who will soon be moving to India and hoping to become active in the local community there, I do hope Adobe is open to change and improvement.
I tend to agree with Himanshu Modi said, maybe initially it is up to community members to show that things can be taken further.
You’ve got my full support and think its an important point you brought up.
July 19th, 2009
It’s totally alright to expect, talk, rant (so called) and discuss about any aspect about Adobe and it’s products. That’s what communities do, to make sure to get right stuff in place. A lot of things (products) are possible because of that.
Let’s keep doing what we are doing, don’t get distracted. Also don’t form a different image of company just because one personal got emotional and reacted.
-abdul
July 19th, 2009
Hi Mrinal, I agree with you on the matter. For me it seems like a personal reaction. If its an official reaction then there is a problem. Would like to see how others from Adobe India is reacting.
July 19th, 2009
[...] can check out Mrinal’s post to read what [...]
July 19th, 2009
Just posted about it on my blog:-
http://www.abdulqabiz.com/blog/archives/2009/07/19/adobe-indias-support-to-community/
July 20th, 2009
I totally agree with you Mrinal, but I think this is a personal reaction not an official one. And about the kind of events that we get here in Bangalore I completely agree that things can be better than intro talks..I myself ranted about it here http://twitter.com/anupam/status/2014884839
July 20th, 2009
I understand your frustration at the state of Adobe developer communities in India. Going thru your emails, I feel I am at the point when you were starting to take this up with Adobe (though I’m not that important .. kidding!). I recently met with a few encouraging folks from Adobe and we’re soon going to host Flex NCR developers meet at Adobe Noida.
A point in the case is that developer communities of any sort are not that active in India. Hence there’s a general confusion about how to go about organizing and more importantly sustaining interest in these events.
All said and done, personal reactions are not at all welcome. Particularly when the feedback is constructive. I’ve talked to other evangelists from Adobe and they do agree Adobe could do better promoting user groups in India. They’ve been more than happy to listen and cooperate.
July 20th, 2009
@Chinmay Yes there is a cultural difference, the crux of my suggestions in the emails was that Adobe should take a bi-directional conversational approach rather than doing unidirectional marketing broadcasts … I feel that it is very much valid here in India as elsewhere
July 20th, 2009
@Peter Very good point about potential … there is enormous potential in the Indian community, I have met some extraordinarily talented people here and its in our ecosystem’s interest that this talent is groomed and harnessed
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>> “maybe initially it is up to community members to show that things can be taken further”
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While I agree, I don’t feel that the stage is quite that initial anymore … people in the community have been doing there part for some time now .. initRIA, RIA Connect, UG Meets etc. .. its about time the local adobe office realizes that there is community out there that they shouldn’t ignore.
While its not obvious from my emails … since everyone on that mailing list already knows that … Adobe had been doing a great job of organizing events .. and I and everyone else in the community appreciate that …. There is an Adobe event almost every 2-3 months … that is awesome ! … but my gripe was about them not realizing that there is an active community out there that can help improve and make their events better.
July 20th, 2009
@Abdul Well said … “That is what communities do”
July 20th, 2009
@Abdul what you said in your blogpost/email ..
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>> “I have learnt that it’s better not to expect much from the Adobe India”
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is really very unfortunate … if a long time member of the community like you feels this way about the local office … there is something seriously wrong with the way Adobe is doing things here in India … I hope they can see that and hopefully fix it.
July 20th, 2009
@saumaya, @anupam I’m sure this is a personal reaction, but a very upsetting one
July 20th, 2009
@Nishant Drop me an email, the bangalore flex user group which has been live for over 2 years now will be glad to help its newly forming counterpart in NCR
July 20th, 2009
Folks…
This shouldn’t have been turned into a market fight…
@Mrinal.. I agree you didn’t start it… But, this should have been ideally kept to mails…
It’s not good for the community to have a duel brewing between some of its key and veteran contributors…
-Uday
July 20th, 2009
@Uday I know, I’m actually guilty of blowing it up .. but then again I have the right to defend my dignity.
I’m in a better mood today .. if someone wants to call and say he made a mistake.
July 20th, 2009
@Nishant let me know when it’s going to happen in NCR, I would not only want to be there but if I can be of some help organizing it.
I always wanted to have an active user-group in North India.
July 20th, 2009
I was as angry or even more angry with Adobe India team a year go and expressed my views in a vocal way to the hierarchy in adobe India and adobe US.
Since then things have really changed and Adobe India team has made me feel engaged at every possible given opportunity. While I agree to lot of things that Mrinal has highlighted , it is important that I also bring to notice of everyone that Adobe India team does take community in India seriously and there is no issue as far as intent is concerned. Yes, there is a huge gap between expectations and what is delivered , but they are always looking for ways to reduce the gap.
I have worked very closely with the evangelism team in last few months and want to share some good things they do so that we know what is already being done and where do we need improvement.
1] Adobe Evangelism team does mention about User Groups at all events. And they do include user-group as part of their strategy. I know this because I was working with them to do an activity to promote Flex in colleges and one of the deliverable mentioned to me clearly stated to make students members of flex-india and local user group.
2] They have organized large scale flex camps where people from the community were invited to be part of and the community did participate whole heartedly.
3] They re trying to make events more interesting and RIATHON is a great example and it gave exposure to a lot of members from the flex community.
4] The evangelism team presented flash platform at the Great Indian Developer Summit in a manner in which no other company including Microsoft did. The entire evangelism team was present on all days doing sessions , demonstrating apps , answering questions. Also there were folks from the product team.
5] Even today as I write this mail , the evangelism team is in NIT -Suratkal to do a session on Flex for students.
6] The evangelism team has conducted Meetings on flash platform to educate people from other technology like Java and PHP in India in an effort to make them a part of the ecosystem. I got a call from them for recommending people I know from other technology for attending the meeting.
7] With regard to topics in an event , I think every product has a livecycle and probably flex has not reached the stage where advanced topics are included in sessions aimed at creating awareness about the product. The agenda is shared well in advance and if a developer feels that the topics are very basic , they can choose to avoid the same. Advanced topics should be addressed in User group meetings and it is fantastic platform to discuss the same.
However there are issues , and as I see it ,
1] Adobe community is clearly looking for higher levels of engagement and become part of over all strategy.
2] India is a large country and even 10 times the current evangelism team is not enough to reach out to the potential talent. There is a need for a process where Evangelism team can leverge the talent which is spread across India and community leaders can use their talent to spread the message and expand the ecosystem.
3] There are serious communication gaps where the information about event is not given out to everyone
4] There is no site dedicated for community to know what the evangelism team is upto and how community can contribute.
5] The evangelism team should become part of the Community Champions list.
Also I think we as a community need to Introspect.
#We are expecting Adobe India to handle our community like they handle the community in US. I think these are 2 distinct communities with different DNA. While this does not mean that what Adobe India is doing is fine , But at the same time , we should not set wrong expectations.
# Are user groups in India as happening as they are in US ? Are user groups in India doing enough ? We need to constantly raise the bar at our user group meetings and do a lot more than just mailing list. I think Mrinal did raise the bar by organizing initRIA which was a very successful all community event. Why there is no such initiative anywhere else ?
I do not intend to take sides here. Only trying to put things in a fair perspective and bringing the discussion back to the core problem of how can the engagment levels of community go up in India.
July 21st, 2009
Why one has to take it personal when there is a construction criticism is made? @Mrinal: Forget this and move on.
July 21st, 2009
Hi Mrinal ,
May be it seems too personally but I think Evangelist represent Adobe………..
July 23rd, 2009
[...] relation to what happened this weekend I met up with Ramesh Srinivasaraghavan from the evangelism team at Adobe India. While we did not [...]
July 23rd, 2009
I met up with Ramesh from the evangelism team at Adobe India, here’s a more constructive update http://weblog.mrinalwadhwa.com/2009/07/23/tribes/
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Mrinal
July 28th, 2009
I think there is something to discuss Mrinal, but I also think Adobe need some time to respond to your comments.
The knee-jerk response on Twitter from that evangelist won’t go unnoticed – I’m sure of it
August 17th, 2009
I got into the flex and flash bandwagon only last year and attended couple of user group sessions and even the Adobe Dev Summit last year. Unfortunately the way the whole event was organized was a big disappointment.
First, the presentations where meant for beginners and may be intermediate levels (Though I was just starting out in Flex / Flash I was already aware of most of the stuff these guys had to present)
Second, the only community thingi was the demo of flash applications at the end of the second day.
There where no forums no wireless, nothing. And you are right, no publications of online forums. In fact they never even shared the presentations later on online. A complete disheveled show.
Oh well the only good thing that came out of the whole two days was the developers cd which did not work on mac
Anyways the license was helpful but then I find Flex Builder completely useless as we were living on Eclipse Ganymede.
I guess I can go on, but then a costly lesson learned. Don’t get involved with Adobe India
I am not surprised by the reactions you are getting. What can you expect from people with 2-4 years of total industry experience who think they are smarter then rest of us poor developers.
August 20th, 2009
Hi Mrinal,
Its really sad to know all of this.How one can react in this way in public and even its not a personal matter.Its really sad .But like always we appreciate your efforts towards your contribution to Flex technology.Keep it up bro
December 26th, 2009
Unbelievably unprofessional! If this “evangelist” guy is still employed by Adobe, it says a lot about Adobe India’s outlook to developer community.