Over 10,000 creative minds energized the San Diego Convention Center during the Adobe MAX 2016 conference in San Diego on November 2-4. This year, I was offered the opportunity to attend the creativity conference along with the Chamber’s Graphic Designer Chad Spinks. This was my first creativity conference, and I left feeling inspired, motivated, and gained new insight into the creative process.

So what is Adobe MAX? Let me start by telling you what is not. Adobe MAX is not a trade show. It’s a community; a place where people get together to discuss, share and connect around creativity and design. This year the Adobe team showcased breakthroughs in Creative Cloud Innovation in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), design, photography, virtual reality, 3D compositing and more. The vast majority of attendees are graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers. But I would recommend it to anyone that has a passion for innovation.   

“Our believe is that everyone has a story to tell. We’ve always had the magic, making that more accessible to people and enabling them to use the power of our tools in a user-friendly way is our goal,” said Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s President and CEO. “We get motivated by the fact of having tens of millions of people able to tell stories with the adoption of Creative Cloud in countries all around the world.”

Keynote speakers included filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, Lynsey Addario who has worked for the New York Times, and who shared an emotional testimony walking the audience through the feelings of being kidnapped while covering the civil war in Libya. Fashion Designer Zac Posen and Experiential Sculptor Janet Echelman also shared stories about their creative process and how they’ve succeeded in their respective fields. Everyone loved the MAX Bash, an epic party with two band performances including the Alabama Shakes and The Mowgli’s.

Attending a conference isn’t just about career development; it’s about networking, meeting experts and influencers, it’s about learning outside of the office; and specially about fostering greater focus for the work that you do. I’m thankful that the Carlsbad Chamber champions its employees by sending them to conferences and training. Mark your calendars, next year’s conference is scheduled for Oct.16-20 at The Venetian in Las Vegas.

For more information on the conference, click here.