Category Archives: Events

ArbCamp 2007 was awesome!

Today, I had the pleasure to attend ArbCamp, an Open Spaces event that was held in the Ann Arbor area (at Washtenaw Community College).  Over 100 people showed up.  This event was incredibly well organized and, as with all of the Open Spaces events I've attended to date, an amazing learning experience.  This time, I definitely talked myself into going. I wasn't sure I wanted to go … it was on a Saturday.  It's time away from my kids.  The topic of the event was "social networks and social media", so this a little outside of my area of interest as a developer, but heck.  It was an Open Spaces event.  I was confident that it would be cool and my husband encouraged me to go, that he and the kids would have a fun day without me (which they did at a cool indoor playground).

I'm SO glad that I went. As I've experienced in the past, it's hard to go to an open spaces event and NOT participate. Even when the topics are a bit outside of your interest, there's often SOMETHING that you would like to learn or experience or even contribute.  This experience was no exception.

SRT is considering providing some space for coworking (allowing people to use our space, toward the idea of building collaborations, camaraderie, and broadening communication in the Ann Arbor area).  We're running into a little pushback from our insurance company, who, to be comfortable with the idea, wants some cold hard cash. I had other questions that I wanted to ask so in spite of not having any answers, I convened (*) a session on Coworking: Opportunities and Challenges.  It was great.  I learned more about the way that people are coworking in Ann Arbor and elsewhere, and I got a lot of useful suggestions.  And the other participants learned that there is more interest in coworking in Ann Arbor than they thought.  I know about this: we've been getting inquiries.

 (* Convening a session means that you add it to the schedule and take responsibility for showing up at the prescribed time and location and get things started, then get out of the way.  And it's OK to convene a session about which you know nothing, toward the idea of getting answers!)

I went to several other sessions that others convened, including one on setting up a similar 1-day event for the ArborParent group.  That's an interesting idea. I also went to one on B2B networking, where I learned a lot of things and hopefully provided some insight to others about the local community as well. The largest session that I attended was "Social Networking 101", where the topic was nominally LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, etc., but the group moved in several directions, including the cool features of other software, about which I know NOTHING (but will likely learn).  Some examples include: Jaiku and Pownce and Yahoo! Mash (which is WAY cool, according to the 20-somethings in attendance). We also talked about privacy online and how we all balance that (there was a separate session about balancing work and personal information while blogging, but I didn't attend that one).

Late in the day,I convened a session on "Dynamics of Online Communities".  We talked about our experiences with flame wars, moderating, meeting people in real life (IRL), building trust, acknowledging the "Grand Unseen Audience" (thanks Larry!), hot topics, sock puppets (I didn't know previously that this was the term for people who create a secondary identity for the purposes of criticizing others in an online community without "endangering" their "real" online persona!).  Anyhow, it was an absolutely fascinating discussion, I thought.

Joseph Jaffe did a keynote at the end of the day (separate ticket, not necessary to pay for that to attend ArbCamp).  I didn't go.  The discussion sounded somewhat interesting but not interesting enough to me to miss dinner with my family and to encounter post Michigan football game traffic in Ann Arbor (100,000 people leaving the stadium all at the same time is definitely something to avoid!).   There was an after-event gathering at Arbor Brewing Company, which may still be going on as I type this from my kitchen table.

I hope that people continue to organize open spaces events in Ann Arbor.  I was warned by Bruce Eckel a few years ago that people often become spoiled by Open Spaces events and don't like to go back to traditional conferences.  This definitely happened in my case, and we're adding a more significant open spaces component to CodeMash this year.  As a member of the organizing committee, I would prefer to go 100% to open spaces, but we're not there yet (sigh). But today, with the speaker deadline past for CodeMash, I was at least happy to know that many of the very cool and interesting people who I met at ArbCamp will be welcome to speak at CodeMash, in the Open Spaces sessions!

 I'll stop writing now in spite of still feeling excited about my day, and encourage everyone to go to Open Spaces events, even when they only seem like they might be marginally relevant to your life.  When it comes right down to it, when you put interesting people in a room together and encourage them to TALK to one another, interesting things happen.  You, too, may be spoiled for traditional conferences.

Early Bird Deadline for Suits & Geeks is today!

If you're planning to attend our Suits & Geeks event, today is the early bird deadline.  To get the $99 rate, you must be registered today.  Tomorrow, the price goes up to $125.  I'm really hoping that people sign up well before the last minute, so that catering is easier, since the registration fee includes both a continental breakfast and lunch.

Suits & Geeks is an open spaces event designed to get business people and technologists talking to one another in a way that leads us all to write and deliver great software that meets our customers' needs.  The content will be decided by the participants, so bring your questions and your expertise. In my experience, open space events are very interesting in that you both learn more and contribute more than you thought you would. 

Here's a link to my previous blog post about the event.

Here's a link to the registration page for the event.

Hope to see you there.
 

SRT hosting Suits & Geeks event

SRT is hosting an Open Spaces event at Automation Alley in Troy next month.  Suits & Geeks; Bridging the Business/Technology Gap, will be held on Tuesday, November 6 from 9 am-4:30 at Automation Alley headquarters.  Postcards to Automation Alley members went out today and we're already getting some interest (including one person who confessed to having grinned at the flyer). The event is open to everyone, so please join us!

From our registration page:

Suits and Geeks is designed to help bridge the communication divide between management and technologists in order to create technology solutions that drive business forward. This open spaces event will help technologists learn how to convince business managers why new hardware and software is actually good for business. Business managers will learn how to convince technologists to be more receptive to market timing and positioning.

Suits and Geeks includes a continental breakfast, sponsored by Summit Mobile Solutions, and a catered box lunch. Space for this event is limited and registration is required.

Cost of the event is $99 for attendees who pre-register by October 23, $125 for registration between October 24-November 5, and $150 at the door.

Suits and Geeks 

The Automation Alley space is well configured for an open spaces event, although one has never been held there before.  We will have several separate areas for meeting, and a space big enough for everyone to get together for a quick intro in the morning and a wrap-up in the afternoon (and for lunch, of course).  I hope that you will join us, whether you are a suit or a geek!

SRT Solutions announces Lightning Talk Fridays

Once we decided to rent the new office (instead of working out of homes, coffee shops, and borrowed conference rooms), we started to think about all of the cool things that we could do once we had our own space.  One idea, of course, was to host user group meetings.  Some of the area user groups were facing finding new space, since their previous host (the Ann Arbor ITZone) had changed focus and was now going to start charging for the use of the space.  We think that the user groups are worth supporting, and so one of the biggest criteria as we looked for space was room for events like user group meetings.

But then, as I mentioned, we started thinking about other things that we could do.  One idea was Lightning Talks. We decided to start Lightning Talk Fridays, from 3-5 twice a month. They're free, open to the public, and the topics will be chosen by the people who attend, and we've added an SRT Solutions forum to manage the schedule, and allow people to get more information about them.

Just yesterday, we decided on the Lightning Talk schedule through the end of the year.  I published it on our public events calendar.  A few hours later, one of our readers pinged me and asked where the schedule was, and how to sign up (gotta love RSS).  Turns out that she's going to be in town that day (from Ohio) and wants to do a lightning talk!  Cool!

Anyhow, so I pointed her ar the SRT Solutions Lightning Talks forum, and I'll point all of you there as well.  Please join us, starting on October 12 at 3 pm.  We'll start the first lightning talk (10 mins in duration) at 3:15, and we'll schedule them every 15 minutes until 4:45 if we have enough topics.  If you're interested in talking, please sign up.  If you're interested in attending, please come!  But either way, feel free to join the forum (you need to create an account, but it's free).

Lightning Talks Friday Forum: http://srtsolutions.com/forums/32.aspx

Schedule for October 12: http://srtsolutions.com/forums/t/1280.aspx
 

 

 

Russell Whitaker: Test Driven Development in Python: A Quick-start Approach (Review/Recap)

Russell Whitaker, a software engineer at Google came to town last Thursday, August 2, to do a tech talk for a special joint meeting of the Michigan Python User Group and Ann Arbor Computer Society.  While the topic mentioned Python, it was pretty generic and could/should be applied across all languages so I hope that people didn't stay away because Python was in the title. It sure didn't seem like people shied away from the talk; the turnout was great, probably about 60 people or so.  The meeting was held at the Google Ann Arbor office, so I don't know if some people were coming just to gawk, but I think most people were interested in the topic.

Test Driven Development is one of those blessed technologies that has been getting a lot of buzz in recent years.  What I find interesting is that everyone SEEMS to think that they know what it is and certainly some people do, but it's always refreshing to have a talk like Russell did on Thursday, where we don't assume that we're all doing it the same way. One subtlety that Russell stressed that I think is often overlooked is the emphasis on driven, that the goal is not only to test the software, but to drive development forward with the tests that you write.

Russell is a natural speaker.  He did an engaging talk, and even recruited an audience member (Jay Wren) to pair program with him. That was a little stroke of genius as well, in my opinion.  For those people who haven't had exposure to pair programming, I think that the demonstration was particularly effective.  It's important to see how interactive the process is, that it's not one person banging on the keyboard with another back-seat driving.  And, they did their ping-pong programming while sitting on bean bags, which was entertaining as well.

One comment I got after the talk was that part of the purpose of the talk seemed like a recruiting plug to attract Googlers. As one of the people who was in close communication with the organizers of Thursday's event from the beginning, I can really say that wasn't the objective.  The stated objective from the Google organizers was a technical talk, not a recruiting event.  So, I think that two things are in play here.  One, Googlers like where they work, and it really does come across when they talk.  And two, see my previous post. I really do think/hope that they may be checking out the local tech community to see if they can attract talent to staff an engineering office.  I 'm confident that they can. Google just needs to see it.  As an employer in the area, I will admit that it makes me a bit nervous, but raising the bar for creating good places to work is a GOOD thing, for all of us.

Russell's photos are at http://tinyurl.com/ywznsw

Winston Tsang (local Rubyist) also took photos: http://tinyurl.com/2mrh2x, including a few good ones of Russell and Jay pair-programming.

I'm always curious about how people find out about events, and so I asked.  Python user group was the biggest, AACS, AAJUG, Ruby group, and a2b3 were good conduits as well.  Others heard by word of mouth (including a few who read my blog, thanks guys).

Ruby, Java, and Castle! Oh my!

It's the first full week of the month, so lots o' user group meetings going on. 

There's a Ruby User Group meeting in Ann Arbor tonight, Monday August 6.  It's from 7:00-8:30 pm on the University of Michigan campus, 1670 CSE. Details at their website: http://rubymi.org

Tomorrow (Tuesday, August 7) is the second Google tech talk in Ann Arbor, this one for the Ann Arbor Java User Group.  It's being held at Google Ann Arbor, 201 S. Division (Floor 5), from 6-9 pm.  Registration (required) and more info at http://www.aajug.org/.  I'll definitely be there, since the talk is on enterprise level clustering solutions. 

Don't burn out before Wednesday (August 8).  Jay Wren (who I'm thrilled to say is the most recent addition to the SRT Solutions consultants!) is talking at the Ann Arbor Dot Net Developer Group, on Inversion of Control and Dependency Injection, using Castle's Windsor IoC.  That meeting is being held at Ann Arbor SPARK, 330 E. Liberty (Lower Level), from 6-8:30 or so.  More info at http://www.aadnd.org.

 

 

 

Google Tech Talk for Ann Arbor Java User Group on Tuesday, August 7 

Registration is now open for the 2nd Google Tech Talk in Ann Arbor. If you missed out on registering for the Python User Group/AACS Tech Talk, then register early for this one.
Google Ann Arbor is excited to host a special tech talk event in tandem with the Ann Arbor Java User Group. Join us for food, drinks, and a technical talk with Ashok Banerjee, Engineering Manager at Google.

When:
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
6:00 - 9:00 PM

Where:
Google Ann Arbor
201 S. Division St., Fl. 5
Ann Arbor, MI

About the talk:
End to End Clustering

Ashok will discuss enterprise-level clustering solutions for
production systems. He will explain how at each level one can avoid a single point of failure. He will explore the mechanics, tips and traps, and ramifications for performance and throughput at each level.

He will discuss clustering at the following tiers: Global Load
Balancing, Site Level Load, Balancing, Web Server Plugins, SSL Accelerators, J2EE™ Application Clustering, Caching
HA Database, SAN/Veritas Volume Manager.

He will also focus on some protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, RMI, Protocol Tunneling etc.

About the speaker:
Ashok Banerjee, Engineering Manager at Google, works on the Google Billing Server. Prior to Google, Ashok designed and implemented Clustering (Load Balancing and Failover) on the Oracle Application Server and worked on the internals of the WebLogic Server. His interests include distributed computing, distributed transactions,
high performance messaging and persistence. 

NOTE: Seating is limited, so registration is required for this FREE event.

http://services.google.com/events/annarbor_techtalk07_2 

SRT calendar link

Since we don't have the calendar on the site right now, I thought I would post a link.  This calendar contains information about events in the area (and some outside of the area) that we think software developers might be interested in.