Simon Horwith

Spending as much time as I have speaking before audiences, I try very hard to keep an eye on trends and attitudes within demographic groups, including university students. I have also had the opportunity in the past to represent Macromedia as a lecturer at Ivy League universities.

My general experience - when talking with computer science students about the tools, technologies, and programming languages that they are exposed to in school - is that Macromedia wasn't really doing a very good job ensuring that graduates entered the real world with knowledge of or exposure to their products. This was (sadly) particularly true for ColdFusion.

I was very happy to read Mike Potter's recent blog entry (http://blogs.adobe.com/mikepotter/2006/09/were_looking_fo.html) about a program I've never heard of: "Adobe Ambassadors." I don't know many of the details, but it's an Adobe program (I think it's a new program but I'm not sure) that creates and supports Adobe technology evangelists on university campuses.

I can't begin to describe how relieved and impressed I am at the thought of Adobe technical evangelists promoting the products, spreading technical information, and relaying student population feedback to Adobe from university campuses.

If anyone from Adobe who is involved in this program reads this editorial, I not only give you praise but also wish to extend an invitation to leverage any services I may in order to assist the program and its members.