My, how times have changed
There was a time (not all that long ago) when everyone under the sun wasn’t using Twitter, Facebook and all of the other “new” social media tools. A time when most interaction between members of the Flash community happened in forums and mailing lists like We’re Here and Flashcoders. Well, as they always do, times have changed, technology has continued to advance and people have built new tools and found new ways to communicate with each other even faster than ever before. Gone are the days of posting to a forum and waiting days (or even weeks) for the right person to stumble across your question to help you with a solution. Now you can simply tweet your challenge, question, idea, etc and all of the people following you will be there to help you in an instant. If they can’t help, they may choose to retweet your issue or idea and within minutes you could have literally hundreds (or even thousands) of other members of the Flash Platform community reading that question or idea! Now you will be heard! Now you have a voice! Now you can be the driving force behind new ideas, differences and changes in the community… in the way other developers look at things… in the way Adobe develops the future of the Flash Platform!

Well, maybe…

By the community, for the community… or something like that
So the way I understand it is that we (the community) have a big say in the future of the Flash Platform. As a matter of fact, Ted Patrick wrote a post about it last week and I wrote a small post to help promote his information in what little bit that I might be able to. Now before I go much further, I should point out that I still feel that Ted’s post let us know a very important piece of information. It let us know that we have a voice and that we can create the change in the platform that we want and/or need. And I believe it to a certain point.

In the time since Ted wrote that post, I’ve seen (and taken part in) discussions going around about just how much of a voice we all have. Some people talked about it on Twitter while others wrote posts about it on their blogs. But my point isn’t about Ted’s post so I’ll move on now.

The community hierarchy (in my eyes)
I tend to view the structure of the Flash Platform community much like that of a city government or a corporate hierarchy except that members can’t be voted out or laid off. Allow me to explain… At the top, you have Adobe (the City Mayor or Chairman of the Board). Just under Adobe are the Adobe Employees (collectively the City Manager or C.E.O.). Under them you’ll find the “community/industry leaders” (the City Counsel or Department Heads). And finally, under the community/industry leaders are the rest of the members of the Flash Platform community (the city’s residents or company’s employees). So to lay this out somewhat visually:

-Adobe
—Adobe Employees (Evangelists, product managers, etc)
—–Community/Industry Leaders (The “big names” in the community)
——–The rest of the community (ranging from students and hobbyists to professionals that have been doing it for years)

Note: I know it’s much deeper than that so don’t get too hung up in the logistics of this structure and let it distract you.

What? I can’t hear you. You’re not awesome enough.
So exactly how loud do you have to talk (or yell) to make a difference in the community? If you have a legitimate issue or, even better, a ground breaking idea that could possibly improve some part the Flash Platform itself, how loud must you be? In my opinion, the answer to that question goes something like this: “It depends on how high you are in the community hierarchy.” And to take it one step further: the lower you are, the better your ideas need to be for anyone to even think about listening to you.

“But Jason,” you say, “that’s normal. That’s how things work. People like the industry leaders are farther up the hierarchy for a reason. They’ve worked hard for years to get there and they have proven themselves worthy.” And I totally agree with that. They have worked hard. They have proven themselves and many of us have learned an enormous amount from them. I admire them and I am grateful to them for their contribution to my own career. I also admire and fully respect most of Adobe’s evangelists. The ones I’ve met in person have seemed to be very nice, very down-to-earth individuals that are passionate about, and believe in, what they do.

However, there seem to be some in the upper crust of the hierarchy that choose to ignore those beneath them. And when I say “beneath them,” I mean that in two ways: 1. under them in my perception of the community hierarchy and 2. not good enough for them. That’s right, I’m saying it… I see some elitists in the higher rankings of the community.

The community elite
Whether it’s because they think they are better than you, or they disagree with you on topics outside of the industry (politics, etc), or they just flat out don’t care what you have to say, there are at least a few people “up top” that seem to only listen to the other people that are on top with them (or just one hierarchical step below them). An evangelist, for example, that tends to listen only to other evangelists or industry leaders while completely ignoring potential platform changing ideas that are being presented from beneath them. Or maybe an industry leader that only communicates with other industry leaders and evangelists on a regular basis, but chooses to ignore the rest of us commoners in the huddled masses. I have a few names in mind for both of those examples, but I’m not one to call them out publicly so I’ll leave it to your own personal experiences, observations and imagination to fill in those blanks.

I know that Adobe evangelists and industry leaders probably get an over-abundant amount of emails, direct messages, tweets and every other form of communication asking for help, asking for direction, presenting ideas, etc, etc, etc. I respect that, but I honestly don’t think it’s a legitimate reason to ignore those that are asking.

Dear Evangelists,
You have a great job (in my opinion) and you work for a company that many in the community could only ever dream of calling their employer. You were fortunate enough to have been presented the opportunity and to have all of your life situations lined up in such a way to let you seize that opportunity. I won’t claim to have any clue about what’s in your job description, but I think it has something to do with informing the community about the technology… about being a part of the community and most importantly, about inspiring the community. From where I stand, I see evangelists delivering with a wide range of varying success in regard to those items… especially the last one. Some of you inspire us to create new apps, try new tools, want to learn new (to us) technologies and ask you to share more knowledge with us along the way. Conversely, some of you make us wonder why we should bother asking for more of your knowledge or why we should bother presenting our ideas since they probably won’t be heard unless we are as awesome as you. You chose to take the community centric job so please choose to listen and communicate with the community (yes, even us lowly peons).

Dear Industry Leaders,
Thank you for your contributions to the community. You have busted your asses to break new ground which has paved the way for many of us and a few of you are the giants on whose shoulders many have stood. However, please try to remember some things:

• people look up to you, but you are not the be-all and end-all of everything
• you were once a student who needed to learn so don’t look down on those still learning
• you are part of a larger community (it’s not all about you)
• you are a regular person just like the rest of us
• be humbled and remember that there is always someone better
• it doesn’t matter how awesome you are, not even you can know everything there is to know
• don’t be an elitist

You put yourselves in the industry leader positions by working hard to get there. If you don’t want to deal with the rest of the community that you are “leading”, please feel free to step out of the spotlight while you continue your great work.

Dear Adobe,
Two very obvious points: 1. I love your products – they are my livelihood and they put food the mouths of my children. And 2. I don’t work for you so I don’t know how your inner corporate gears all connect and turn to bring about change and direction. That said, I’m curious about your take on community leadership. If you hire a person to be in a highly visible and community centric position (such as an evangelist) and they continually make the choice to essentially ignore the cries from the vast majority of the community, does it matter? I have to believe that there are annual employee reviews or something similar, but are general attitudes toward the people in the community taken into account? I mean these are the people that represent you, right? I would never call out for anyone to have their job taken from them, but are they kept in check at all in that sense? Maybe they should be.

Woah, Jason! Who slapped your mama, big guy?
Nobody did me wrong or hurt my feelings to make me write this up. This isn’t a rant or a whine session. Instead, it’s something I’ve been noticing for a while now. I’ve experienced it first hand and I’ve seen it happen to other people as well. It’s hard enough to be seen or heard in the community when you consider how much it has grown and how much it continues to grow. I think it’s wrong that some of the people on top would make it harder simply because of their arrogance and elitist attitudes. Maybe they really do think they are too good for the people beneath them. Maybe they choose to pretend the people beneath them aren’t there due to some kind of strange, unwarranted fear that those people will “dethrone” them or something. Or maybe it’s just something else altogether that I’ll never be able to understand because I’m just not awesome enough.

Flame on!
And now, without further ado, let the flames begin!

Link: The Future of the Flash Platform