JD on EP

Is there anyone with enough pull able to actually stick up for Flash? I don;t buy into his arguments either, but clients read this sort of thing and then it's bad for the rest of us. Perhaps if there was a dedicated team at Adobe who could be actively promoting Flash, the product mind start gaining ground with clients through some positive press. I'm actually suprised at how little Adobe does to rectify these common issues people bring up and lets be honest, we've been hearing this same old song for a while.

The unfortunate reality is that no matter how many marketing persons you put on this to promote the Flash platform, you will have people who will take advantage of the fast, broad deployment of the Internet to spread their own take on the world. (boy, that was a long sentence).

As was stated, the rebuttals and truths are out there, but this person chose to blatantly ignore all that and claim the sky is falling anyway, despite anything you might have heard to the contrary. In my training classes, I now pass out a handout rebutting many of the anti-flash claims made by IT staff so that my students can actually fight the battle with good ammunition.

John,

He needs to realize that rather than predicting the demise of Flash (or worse in some way thinking that he is helping to bring this about) he needs to embrace the technology that it is.

Does that mean that it works like XHTML and CSS with browser support. No, not currently. Does that make it worse? No, its just another tool, another way to convey information.

"Digiguru", I agree that even inaccurate conversation can have real effects. That's why I believe that ideas must compete -- we've got to recognize and address objections, despite this often being a slow and messy process.

I'm not sure of an "Adobe Truth Squad", though... I've been in plenty of situations where people dismissed my information simply because of my identity. Lots of us are stakeholders in this area, though. These days I try more to accumulate the resources (like that "cliches" entry), so that any of us can make a strong case, should we individually choose to do so.

Paul had a great bit of info there, about actively educating students in the field about the myths they may run up against in the world.

Two caveats in this whole area, though:

o It's hard to mindread motivations. Whenever anyone goes on at such length on such a subject, I take it as evidence that they care greatly about something. I've got to respect that underlying motivator, even though we may currently differ about some details. I believe critics are actually our allies... even though it may sometimes take a little work to reveal that.... ;-)

o We've also got to watch out for dismissing critics without using their ideas. In this particular case many of the arguments are well-worn, but the mere continuance of such arguments shows that Adobe still has work to do in getting the realities out there. Even if a critic never turns into a direct ally, they're still providing useful information in showing what viewpoints are possible.

We've got a great ecosystem here, people with varied interests and goals, all pulling towards a similar destination of better communicational infrastructure for everyone. It may be tedious, but I believe such strong ecosystems will eventually prevail.

(Thanks for the comments... shows me that this stuff does matter to more than just me, thanks. :)

jd