Andrew Powell

Every couple of years I have to stop and shake my head at how damn cyclical (and cynical) this business is.  Sometimes, I can't help but feel like Marty McFly and get the feeling like I've seen all this before.  Everyone is, quite rapidly, getting caught up in the notion of this high experience, mobile, touch-screen, multi-device world and how revolutionary it is.  

We've sung this song before though.  It's nothing new.  

It's kinda like "O Canada" and "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" being the same melody as "God Save The Queen".  We know it's the same tune, just different lyrics.  With that thought in mind, let's take a look back and figure out how we got to this point and where we are going in the future.

When I first started building software (Omnis 7 paid the bills), it was all about client-server computing.  You had to have moderately powered desktops and a beast of a database server to house all the data.  Most of the heavy lifting of the data and logic happened at the client.  The server was, basically, just a database, if not in reality, just a database.  This made updating the applications we built a total pain in the ass because we didn't have a really well built out infrastructure to push updates to our clients.  Hell, even Microsoft sent updates on CD.  I fondly remember waiting to see what was in that month's TechNet update, but I digress.

As server performance increased at a faster rate than desktop performance did, the shift was back towards a centralized-type system that was a lot like the mainframes of yesteryear.  Hell, the system we used was even called MetaFrame to harken back to the mentality that all the processing was centralized.  Metaframe was an absolute disaster, but that's a story for a few beers and another time.  At that point in time, you had all the power you needed on the server to run the app, but you were still talking to the database, which was the centralized server component.  That part didn't go away.  

Not too long after that, along came the rise of web-based UI's.  This moved pretty much solidified the move of all the processing to the massive servers that we had sitting in data centers (or server rooms).  This paradigm gave rise to the concept of a middle-tier that took requests from the client (web server), processed the incoming data, made requests to the database, then sent the results back to the client.  

This was a defining demarcation because at this point, we would never really have all the logic in one place anymore.  The client could render and process some of the data and the server would still do most of the business logic.  This worked well, especially with the introduction of client-side scripting methodologies, like JavaScript.

In the middle of the last decade, we saw the emergence of the Rich Internet Application (RIA), be it AJAX, Flash (and Flex), or whatever your tools of choice were (and maybe still are).  This, again, signaled a new era where we moved a lot of the processing back to the client and relegated a good majority of the middle-tier to things like security and data access.  A lot of business logic moved towards the client applications, again.  

Fast forward a year or two to the present day. Now, we are in the midst of a new multi-device paradigm where we have a legitimate business need to have both consistent experiences and business logic across multiple devices (Android, iPhone OS, Windows, Desktops, etc.).  So what do you do?  Do you spend the extra money to duplicate libraries of business logic across platforms and create a version for Cocoa, Android, .NET, and whatever other platforms on which you wish to deploy your applications?  

In a word, no. 

You do the smart thing and move that common business logic back to the server.  The native user interface serves the relatively simple purpose of providing the face of the application, taking input from the user, prepping it for the middle-tier, passing it to the middle-tier, then processing and rendering the results.  The real work: security, data access, and all important business rules and logic are deferred to the server, again.  

So here we are, again in the circle, moving the most intensive processing back to the middle-tier and leaving our device native code to render the user interfaces.  History would tell us that the next phase of this will probably be much more powerful devices that can handle the processing of complex business rules and crunching larger amounts of data.  Achieving this will require us to find a way to create logic libraries that are cross-device.  That will require a change in the current environment where either everyone, or a good number of vendors start playing nice.  If that does or doesn't happen, history tell us that something will trigger us towards this paradigm in the next two to three years.  Let's hang on and see what happens next.

(Note:  My colleague, David Tucker, has joined me in helping to author this post since we put on our Flash Camps as a collaborative effort between the two of us.)

It's come to our attention that there are a lot of people out in the community who do not know what a Flash Camp event really is all about.  If they do know, it's a pre-conceived misconception that they're things like "glorified user group meetings".  This couldn't be any further from the truth.

In our minds, a Flash Camp is, in essence, a mini conference.  In these days of tighter budgets and the premium placed on our time, we try to make these events as time conscious and price conscious as possible.  Why fly across the country to an event when we can bring something that will offer comparable content to your region?  We try to keep the presentation quality of these events high so that people will want to attend and they will feel that they're getting a good value for the money.  

Typically, a Flash Camp event will be one day, 9:00am to 5:00pm. We try to shoot for a Friday so that people can have a nice end to the week. We've talked about going to multiple days, but we want to make sure we've got this formula down pat first.  Lunch is also included in the price of admission.  If we're going to ask you to sit through a full day of content, the least we can do is feed you, right?  

During the camp, you will hear from a lot of different speakers presenting (in a typical conference presentation format - these aren't 'hands-on' sessions).  The speakers are diverse.  This means that, yes, as it is a community event, we try to pull a good mix of local speakers and nationally recognized speakers within the Flash Platform community as a whole.  This gives attendees a good motivation to attend because you will see both your peers from the local community, plus people who you know from twitter, reading blogs, etc.  

Along with a diversity of speakers, we try to maintain a diversity of content as well. In Atlanta, we did an Intro To The Flash Platform session that was really rudimentary, and almost a bit of a marketing pitch.  We have had topics as a advanced as "Custom Metadata Processors For Swiz", which is going to be way above an entry-level developer's head.  We can't make the content too basic, or too advanced, so we try to shoot for a bit of both with the hope that everyone will take something away from the event.

Cost is always the interesting element.  A lot of things go into the calculation of the cost like venue cost, catering, travel for out of town speakers, etc.  Our ultimate goal is to get enough sponsorships so that we can keep the event cost to attendees below $100.  We feel that that price point is a good place for a one day conference with top-notch content.  Some people want it to be free, but the way I see it, you can't please everyone.  Paying under $100 to have a full day of presentations from speakers that you would hear at 360Flex and Adobe Max is a bargain.

At the end of the day, Flash Camp events are catalysts for the local user community.  Some areas, like San Francisco, have vibrant and highly active Flash / Flex communities.  In these areas, the Flash Camp event serves as a way to reconnect with people and inspire the community to more user group meeting and such.  In areas like Phoenix, where the community is not as active, the Flash Camp events serve as a way to launch the development community.  It's an opportunity to get a large number of people in the room and have the user group managers pitch the user groups and their value to potential members.  As these local communities grow and thrive, the Flash and Flex communities as a whole will grow and thrive.  They are beneficial to the whole Flash Platform ecosystem.

On May 7th, Flash Camp Seattle will be held in the Adobe offices in Seattle.  One of the sessions we are working out for that event will be a panel discussing where Flash and HTML5 will both fit within the future of the web.  It's not going to be a "bash-fest" either way, but a frank, open discussion with representatives from both sides. Tickets are going fast, and registering via this link will save you 50% off the ticket price.  

Speakers Include:

• Ryan Campbell
• Ryan Stewart
• Duane Nickull
• Carl Smith
• Jeff Croft
• Christian Saylor
• Antonio Holguin
• Nate Beck
• David Kelley

If you're an Atlanta area (or even Macon / Augusta / Chattanooga area) developer and want to learn more about how a developer sees user experience design, make sure you come to the Atlanta Flex User Group meeting tomorrow.  I will be giving my presentation:

It's guaranteed to make you laugh, cry, or angry.  I'd like to say it's entertaining, but that's just a bit more shameless self-promotion than I'm willing to do (at this time).  I think that this presentation is well suited to any type of developer (not just Flex) that wants to learn more about what exactly user experience design is.  I've heard, even Sledge Hammer! might be making an appearance.  

In the past year, I've been witness to a dramatic shift in how we deliver solutions to our clients.  I have to admit that the full impact of it has caught me a bit off-guard.  It used to be that technology blazed the trail and design was something that was tacked on later in the process, almost an afterthought (pixie dust, if you will).  The shift has been seen in that now design leads, and technology supports that design.  It's the difference between night and day when you really stop and think about it.  It's no less than a complete thought shift from how we, as a community have previously developed applications.

As we focus on the story that the client is trying to tell with their applications, this has to be this natural progression.  The story at hand is best told by the right combination of art & science.  It's not to say that technology becomes an afterthought.  It's actually quite the opposite.  If we are becoming addicted to sexy design and experiences, then technology is our enabler.  Technology is the key player that empowers these nifty designs to be the engaging experiences that they are.  

Innovation doesn't come purely from the technology being used.  This statement is hard for a lot of developers to swallow, so let's think about it just a little bit and not just glaze over it.  New interactions spur innovation.  Cutting edge designs spur innovation.  It's the place of the technology team to take up the challenge and make those interactions & design realities.  What is needed is a design team that has an intimate relationship with the technology team.  These teams have to know and trust each other so that they can continue to push the envelope of innovation together.    Design and technology absolutely cannot and will not function in an "us vs. them" mentality.  Together we innovate, divided, we imitate.

This is like any other relationship, it takes work.  It takes communication that is open and honest.  The technology team, absolutely, has to have some input into the design process.  At the same time, however, the technology team has to have faith that the design team will deliver something that will challenge them to push their skills further.  Open communication between the two teams throughout the design and development process will produce the most satisfying interpretation of the story that the client is trying to tell.  It does take a team, a fully engaged, and communicating team to turn vision into reality.

This past Friday, I gave a presentation, "UX For The Development-Minded" at RIA Unleashed.  It went really well, but I have to admit, the audience got short-changed.  I actually cut a lot of content out, about one third, because it was orginally written to be a longer form presnetation for 360|Flex.  Well, I'm happy to say that you can see the entire presentation, unabridged, at 360|Flex San Jose in March of 2010 because I just got notice that I will be giving the full presentation.  Let's call this version the "director's cut."

Go make sure you register today!

Brian put on a great event this past Friday at Bentley University.  The attendance was more than most other conferences I've been to this year.  I am wondering if these one-day events are the way that conferences should be trending.  The content was great (amazing speaker lineup) and the location was great.  

I gave an overview of some Experience Design concepts, from a developer's point-of-view.  Here are the slides, but I really feel that without the rest of the preso experience, but here they are if you want them.

My Slides

As many of you know, Universal Mind grew from the ashes of Macromedia Consulting.  At the time, there was no talk of Web 2.0, Flex, or anything like that.  We grew our business on ColdFusion.  ColdFusion is in our DNA.  It's always been a part of what we do, but lately I've heard rumblings from the community that Universal Mind has abandoned ColdFusion.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

While people have been saying that Universal Mind has left ColdFusion behind, we have been quietly building up our ColdFusion talent with some of the strongest people in the community.  Some are names you know, some are names you do not.  Chris Scott, Dan Wilson, Laura Arguello, and Dan Skaggs are just a few of the great ColdFusion developers we have working with us.  

Yes, we build RIAs.  That includes Flex, AJAX, Silverlight, and the technologies that power them, including ColdFusion and Java.  We've got some of the best Java talent around too, but that's a post for another day.  This all means that we can build not only your RIA, but the complete solution from back to front.  When it comes to building ColdFusion back-ends for your Flex application, nobody has more experience than Universal Mind.    

So despite rumors to the contrary, our ColdFusion practice is very much alive and kicking.  What do we build?  Enterprise Class Rich Internet Applications, including those powered by ColdFusion.  After all, ColdFusion is in our DNA.