While CNN covers presidential campaigns, news about the Flash Player election is sadly being lost. Polls are open and candidates are sitting there hoping for your vote. Write-in candidates are already lurking in the back of your mind waiting to be added to race!

“What race is this?” you ask?

Today, Flash Player has joined Flex and Blaze DS as participants in Adobe’s public bug tracking system. While it may not actually be a real campaign, it is certainly inspired by the democratic process. In addition to searching for and reporting new issues, you can vote on issue that are important to you and influence the decisions of what goes into the next Flash Player.

Adobe Flash Player Bug and Issue Management System

As a product manager, the real treat for me though is the feature request section. If there is something you want from Flash Player, be it a small enhancement or a major new feature, you can enter a request on the site. It is product management GOLD to be able to have direct numbers on what the community wants and why (if you leave comments).

My job is to understand and anticipate your challenges and the sort of work that you want to do and work within Adobe to make the best product we can to serve your needs. Right now I do this through customer visits, talking to people at conferences, monitoring trends in the industry, and doing lots of other behind-the-scenes things. Most of this type of data is qualitative and has proven to be a successful methodology through the history of Flash. However, every time I can get my hands on some quantitative data like a vote count on a feature request it means that I can do a reality check and make sure that we are really going the direction the community needs us to go.

So, do Flash Player (and me) a favor and Vote early, vote often!