Why was the Project Charm announcement and beta blog removed from Adobe's website?

[Brian Stevenson]

It was scrubbed yesterday with zero communication to current Captivate customers and interested beta participants.

Is it dead? Delayed? What?  Literally, just say something.

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

Sorry my memory is flawed. You are right. It was free when the Adobe team broke away from being associated with DevLearn. I'm confident these conferences are expensive to run. Considering they are also including the certification for free this year, they probably have to break at least even.

[craig_kasnoff]

And I am not implying the Adobe Learning Summit isn't worth the $249 or $499, I'm just saying that came as a suprise to me since I only started with Adobe Captivate in 2019 when I was certified in Las Vegas and that conference was free. I wasn't aware of the previous fees. 

Adobe does charge for most (all) their other Summits or Conferences so this is not new. And there is value in paying for these conferences. However, I  actually thought Adobe was doing the Learning Summit for "free" as it seemed to be primarily directed towards teachers. I thought Adobe was just tying to help teachers out financially considering how many teachers barely have the resouces to provide materials for their classrooms let alone afford a learning conference in Las Vegas. 

But then I also noticed (and attended) the "free" online Adobe Education Summit which did provide a lot of important information to teachers for free. So that was cool. But in that conference -which was geared towards teachers-  Adobe was really pushing Adobe Express and their key product. So that was interesting.

And so with that in mind I guess I am just a little confused as to who is the target market is for Adobe Captivate and the Adobe Learning Summit. I would assume at that pricing, and for the cost of getting to and staying in Las Vegas, it must be aimed more at consultants; or those in the business world rather than teachers. But then that's confusing since Adobe Captivate Prime is focused on, and marketed to teachers and academic institutions. 

I am soooooo confused. I guess I shouldn't have stopped at an MEd in Learning Design and technologies and should have went on to my PhD. Then I'd probably understand all of this better.

Hopefully there is still time : )

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

Having been a participant and attendee of the Adobe Learning Summit and the Adobe eLearning Conference in Washington DC since about 2016, I would say that Adobe is targeting teachers as a secondary audience. Their primary audience for these events is current and potential Adobe Captivate users and Adobe Learning Manager users. Adobe has asked me to teach sessions on Adobe Captivate, and they have invited customers like Dominos Pizza to conduct sessions on implementing the LMS solution.

I don't believe the Adobe Learning products only focus on the academic world. However, that could be your perception if you come from academia, as their efforts to get you involved would concentrate on your needs and not the needs of corporate organizations.

My advice is to look at the three-day agenda for the Adobe Learning Summit and see if the sessions appeal to you. If they don't, save your money and look again next year. That said, compare this cost to the cost of similar conferences. For Example, DevLearn, also in Las Vegas, is $1895 for unlimited access to sessions between October 26th and the 28th. I'm speaking at that conference as well. What I like about the Adobe Learning Summit is that almost everyone is an Adobe Captivate user or interested in becoming an Adobe Captivate user. At DevLearn, other authoring tools are represented, so I never know how many I will be teaching.

[craig_kasnoff]

All good points Paul. Thanks for taking the time for such thoughtful responses. 

[craig_kasnoff]

I didn't know they were including the certification for free, so that is cool. However, when I first read the announcement I notices for the 2022 Learning Seminar it said "Free Access to Adobe Certified Professional."

Now I thought that was interesting (and pretty cool) and thought that it meant they were letting those individuals who were already Adobe Captivate Certified into the Learning Summit free (keep in mind I only knew about "free" Adobe Learning Summits). However, I want to know if they were saying that if a person was "Adobe Certified" it was free. Or did it mean that if someone was Adobe Captivate Certified it was free? Or what exactly did it mean.

So I wrote Adobe an e-mail to ask what it meant (e-mail below). But of course, I did not hear back from anyone. I wrote that e-mail over a week ago.

Now it looks as if they have cleaned up the language a little to say "FREE access to Adobe Certified Professional: Adobe Captivate curriculum and exam worth $499"

So without question, getting the Captivate Certification does add value to the price of admission. Not to those already Adobe Captivate Certified (unless they want to get re-certified), but certainly to those who are looking to get Captivate Certified. 

But that does lead me to one other thought: I'm still trying to figure out why someone would want to get Captivate Certified in the 2019 version when the "Charming" version is soon due to be released. I mean how much of the 2019 version of Captivate will still be left in the Charming version, and therefore what value will having a 2019 Captivate Certificate have once the Charming version is released?

Granted Adobe says you can get Charming certified if you get 2019 certifed in 2022 (I think it extends to 2022), but that means you have to go through the process of not only studying for the 2019 version, but will then have to study for, and take another test for, the Charming version. And without ANY information about the Charming version, there is not way to tell how much value there actually is in getting certified in the 2019 version. 

Just saying.

And here is the e-mail I sent to Adobe that has not been responded to:

Dear Psreekan@Adobe.com

Does the statement "FREE access to Adobe Certified Professional" advertised in the Adobe Learning Summit Announcement mean that those individuals who are currently Adobe Certified Professionals can attend the Adobe Learning Summit "FREE?"

It is what it says on the announcement. I just want to make sure it is what it means. 

Also, can you also tell me why the Learning Summit -which has always been free- now costs $499?

That's a pretty large price increase over the last few years. In fact, is it higher than the rising cost of food and gas.

Just curious.

Craig...

[Paul Wilson CTDP]

I don't recognize that email address. I'd recommend anything to do with eLearning I would just email captivatehelp@adobe.com. This address is monitored by many people, whereas that other email address could be for someone on personal leave or just plain busy.

[Brandon Menneke]

Is there any update if this project is still alive? Looking at sofwares for eLearning and Storyline and Lectora are absolutely terrible for being stuck in the past and only supporting windows machines.

[RodWard]

Yes, Project Charm is ongoing and updates were recently shown to the Community at an Adobe conference.  However, there is still no release date for the app.  Captivate 2019 (11.8) is still the latest version you can use.

[Brandon Menneke]

I saw they had the annoumcent earlier this fall but then saw reports that Charm was scrubbed from the Adobe site. Is this validation of still in development coming from Adobe/Adobe staff? Just want to give some backing behind this as we are in the process of making a decision soon.

[andrewg76970232]

Adobe announced this WAY too early. I mean come on - it was 3 1/2 years ago now. 

I started using Articulate Storyline 12 months back, and honestly - it's just better software than the current version of captivate. Plus they have a team that actually respond to requests and communicate with their users. In stark contrast - the communication of the captivate team has always been extremely poor, and within eLearning circles they are known for this. I honestly feel they have damaged their reputation. 

I still use captivate for clients that simply won't move to storyline. For everyone else - I have recommended making the switch.