Information on a company’s official web site is vitally important, but far too many companies simply fill product pages with a bunch of meaningless marketing jargon instead of practical, useful details about the product. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve gone to a web site about a product and can’t even figure out what in the hell the product does from reading the site.
Adobe is better than most about this – they seem to always at least provide a paragraph or two that actually describes the product – but they still fall into the marketing-speak trap more often than they should.
Third-party independent sites are useful, but I rely on them as a second resource if the company’s site fails me.
As you know, I do also attend conferences, but I use them to learn products that I already own, not find out about products I may be thinking about getting.
I’d love to attend in-person seminars, but they rarely work in my schedule and are usually cost-prohibitive.
Information about a product on the company’s web site is the first place I look for new information. But many times, it’s such marketing speak, I can’t figure out what it means to me (is it worth the upgrade for my workflow this time or not?).
I evaluate things other people say about the product–on their sites or blogs. I’ve watched some Lynda.com and Adobe.tv videos, but I prefer to read (so I can skip around) or see it in person (so I can ask questions). I have friends that like videos though.
Personally, I think there’s nothing like seeing it in person. Especially when the session is demonstrated by a really knowledgeable and exciting presenter. I’ve been to several conferences over the years and I’ve seen some dry presenters that really didn’t excite me about the product (though I obviously still learned about some new features).
I got a chance to see you evangelists present at MAX in Chicago a couple years ago. Wow! You guys were amazing. I really wanted to go this year but couldn’t for financial reasons. Seeing CS4 demonstrated by you, the long-haired guy (can’t think of his name) and the Italian guy would have been great. I’m still trying to figure out if the upgrade is worth it for me. I’ll have a look at what you posted but sure wish I could see you guys at another conference — or better yet, it would be great if you guys came to my area!
For CS3, we went through the all the tutorial videos on the CS3 video workshop. It was fanastic.
The introduction of AdobeTV is a disaster. It’s difficult to use, slow, very buggy, semi-functional and badly organised.