Where are you from?
I'm from Sydney, and currently live at Manly beach on Sydney's north shore.

Where did you grow up?
Lane Cove. Very safe, very boring, middle-class Sydney.

What are your pastimes and interests?
At the moment I eat, sleep and breathe SWiSH so I can't remember what my pastimes and interests were.

What's your favorite saying or cliché?
I really don't have one…

What's your favorite movie?
Fargo, The Matrix, Office Space, The Company of Men… and anything else that takes the piss out of evil corporate culture.

What's your favorite cocktail?
Margarita, but I'd much rather drink a good red.

When did you first get involved with flash?
In 1996 while I was working for Macromedia, I came across a program called FutureSplash written by a little company called FutureWave. I was very impressed and started nagging my boss about what a great product it was, then in early 1997 Macromedia bought the company and that was the genesis of Flash.

What is your view of the current use of flash?
Even though the Flash player is basically standard now, when you look at the number of webpages on the internet and the number which actually use Flash, you realise that it is really only a small proportion. So everyone is set-up to view Flash, but it is still mainly professional designers who are creating Flash content. We aim to change that situation.

How successful has Swish been?
SWiSH has been amazingly successful and in fact far exceeded our expectations. I started out writing SWiSH in my spare time and the best I was hoping for was that it would pay my salary and now we've got a whole team behind the product. We have thousands of users around the world in hundreds of countries from Japan to Yugoslavia and Brazil to Britain and sales don't seem to be slowing at all. You only have to take a look at the Flashkit message boards to see how popular it is

Are there many competitive products appearing?
Well they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and there do seem to be a quite a few similar products out there now. However, with the launch of SWiSH 2 I think we will move clear of the pack of copycat SWiSH products.

What features can we expect to see added to Swish?
We've just added a whole heap of new features to create SWiSH 2. It has a completely new user interface, new visual editing tools and now incorporates movie clips and buttons and vector objects, in addition to images, text animations and audio. But the next thing we are likely to turn our attention to is ActionScripting - the final frontier. Perhaps then SWiSH will be taken seriously.

Are you developing any other products?
Not at the moment, our hands are pretty full with SWiSH, but in the longer term it is something we would like to do.

Are you involved in any other interesting projects?
SWiSH is probably the most interesting project I've worked on because I have not only developed the product, but I am also heavily involved with the marketing, sales and business management side of the product, and besides I have no time for other projects right now.

Where do you see the future of flash?
To take Flash out of the domain of the professional designer and bring Flash to the masses. I reckon anyone who can make a PowerPoint presentation should be able to make Flash. Flash is just too damn hard for beginners.

What advice would you give to budding flashers?
Get SWiSH and give it a go, you'll be surprised how quickly you'll have your first Flash animation done.

What can FK01 attendees expect from you?
A free copy of SWiSH 2 in their show bag!

Any closing words?
Australia should be proud. The best Flash users site in the world is Australian-made, and the best 3rd party Flash tool is Australian-made. This will be a great conference!

If you would like further information on speaking opportunities please contact: Mark Fennell(webmaster@flashkit.com). We have conferences planned in LA, Sydney, and Europe and Asia as well, so let us know your interest!