Just a quick note to let people know I have resigned as an Adobe Community Expert for ColdFusion. There will be no Q&A session. 🙂
Comments
This wouldn’t have anything to do with Adrock blasting you in his recent blog post, would it?
If this is about Adam Lehman, that guy is a complete disaster. An evangelist is supposed to bring people into the community, not drive them away!
If I can paraphrase a t-shirt I once saw:
“You can take the man out of ‘Community Experts’, but you can’t take the ‘Community Expert’ out of the man.”
Yeesh – well I hope you’ll still blog. You were always in the top 5 blogs I read. I hope this doesn’t affect your mach-ii work either. I agree with Ben, and hope you stick with it. Communities are always going to have some bad apples / bad scenarios.
gl – noname.
“Hear Hear” to Ben Nadel’s comment. Thanks for all the wonderful work you do for the community.
Sorry to hear it. I “third” Ben’s comment!
When will companies, product managers, and employees stop complaining about how they desperately need more “marketing” (time, budget, resources, etc) and realize that customer-(and especially “community”) relations IS MARKETING!?
Oh no! This is a tragedy.
I think its important for people to not draw a conclusion that Matt left solely based on Adam’s comments. That is just not fair to either individual. I’m fairly certain both have a high amount of respect for one another. Matt has been and still is a CFML Community Expert. He just doesn’t have a title from Adobe anymore. I wouldn’t expect his contributions or passion to wane in anyway.
i’ll admit that when i first read this, i jumped to all sorts of conclusions. but after having read some of matt’s comments on various blogs, my feeling is just that he doesn’t care for the direction that he believes adobe is taking cf. that’s his call to make. i admire the fact that he’s standing by his convictions and doing what he feels is right. whether or not i agree with it (or anyone else agrees with it), gotta give credit for a person doing what they feel is right.
thumbs up, matt.
Matt, I have always and will continue to admire you as a community leader, with or without a title that has BlueDragon or Adobe in it. I implore you to continue making actions that are _unifying_ for our community.
Agreed w/ Adam that this is not likely to be only in response to Adam Lehman’s conduct of late. But to echo an earlier sentiment, the guy was an unfortunate choice to fill Ben’s shoes and does, no matter how much he might claim otherwise, represent Adobe in all public forms, including his blog. And he should step down if he can’t find a balance. Even his blog’s byline ‘Fear of or aversion to ignorance, especially PHP and open sores fanboys who think they know everything’ is condescending and hostile and pretty uncharacteristic of someone who is supposed to be evangelizing anything.
First CHUG falls out of the public space…now Matt…mmmm. I smell a new X Files movie coming out.
Matt,
Adam Lehman is a jackass who is an embarassment to Adobe and the entire CF community, and has no business in that job. If he’s the only reason you quit, then you should reconsider. You’ve made too many great contributions to be treated so badly, especially by an immature brat like him.
What’s with all the anonymous critics of Adam? THAT’S immature, not to mention cowardly. If you have a problem, take it to him. Or to his boss. You know who he is! Just at least sign your name and take responsibility for your own words.
I don’t think Matt resigned because of any single snarky attack, I’m guessing he did because he (like, oh, I don’t know, the rest of the fucking computer industry) is recognizing the value of OSS projects and is hoping to make an impact that way, and not as some paid shill.
Anonymous (like many of the other comments I suspect) because I don’t want to see my name used as target practice by another paid adobe astroturfer.
Well no anon-ment for me. Firstly I had not worked with Matt before and now I do, sort of, I am humbled to do so. He has fielded all sorts of OpenBD questions and comments admirably, dedicating a lot of time to that. My take on Ben Forta is that he championed ColdFusion with force and dignity. I started with CF before his first book and then read and never stopped learning, wack after wack. Matt’s resignation is a blow to the un-dark side of CF and it’s future, in my opinion.
I’m sorry to hear this. Hopefully you’ll continue to be involved in the ColdFusion community.
Definitely a major loss to the Adobe Community Expert program.
@Those-who-shall-not-be-named
I think Matt deserves a little more credit than assuming a small disagreement between him and I motivated his resignation. Matt is many things… driven, passionate, brilliant… but not petty.
I was very sad to see Matt’s resignation, but know he will continue to be deeply involved in the community. After some reflexion, including past discussions I have had with Matt and despite my initial comment on Adam’s blog, I know this is probably part of a larger effort by Matt to re-focus his efforts on a few key projects.
@Adam: I am happy to see your comment. Matt has been a tremendous community leader and brilliant mind in the CF world and it pleases me to see you honor him as such.
Adam Lehman’s behaviors is just embarassing
I am a little late to this party, as I am just catching up on my blog reading.
@Matt – My heart sank a little when I read your post. Does this mean I won’t see you at next year’s cf.Objective? You were a beacon in the CF community and you will be sorely missed. I wish you the best!
AND I don’t mean to stand in front of any bullets that might be heading in Adam’s direction, but I would like to say this: Adam is a smart ass. Anyone that knows him knows this fact. I think if you re-read what he has posted and imagine a smirk rather than a scowl, it might put things in perspective.
Healthy debate of issues is just that…healthy!! I think that Matt and Adam both know that and I rather doubt that is driving Matt’s decision…
@Chris–I’m definitely not going away. I will be spreading outside the CFML community a bit next year by attending and presenting at some different conferences, but I definitely won’t miss cf.Objective()!
Not much else will really change–I’ll still be blogging, working on Mach-II, working on OpenBD, and evangelizing CFML to whoever will listen. 😉
Matt Woodward's Blog 