After seeing her work for a while, I finally got to meet Lauren Roth at the Drinks and Drupal party I hosted in May. I took the opportunity to ask her how one becomes a Drupal design ninja. Lauren was gracious enough to share the knowledge.
Lynn Bender: You first started with Drupal after seeing a presentation as SXSW, yes?
Lauren Roth: SXSW Interactive is a fantastic way to come upon new technologies and 2006’s was no exception. As someone with a writing background, I could understand having enthusiasm for a content management system, but the more I found out about Drupal the more I wanted to use it myself. It is now my primary development platform.
Lynn Bender: In the last year, I’ve noticed that many folks who’ve been designing sites in WordPress are starting to look at Drupal. I’m guessing that you’ve noticed this too.
Lauren Roth: WordPress is the grilled cheese sandwich to Drupal’s double-stacked club sandwich. Both have bread and cheese, but Drupal comes with lots of extra delicious parts. Both are written in PHP, use template files and CSS, and separate presentation from site logic.
Lynn Bender: Nevertheless, a common complaint I heard is that Drupal is extremely difficult to design for. What are the things that people tend to have problems with when beginning to design themes for Drupal?
I’ve had a fascination with all manner of data analysis since my days as a bookstore owner. So when I first heard news of a local web analytics group, I had more than a little interest. I asked Jennifer White, the chief instigator of Web Analytics Wednesdays Austin, to give me a little background on the group.
Lynn Bender:: Jennifer, tell me about the group.
Jennifer White: Web Analytics Wednesday is the world’s only social networking event for web analytics professionals. Eric T. Peterson, an author and a global web analytics community leader, founded Web Analytics Wednesday as a global effort to put “faces with names” and to get local members of the web analytics community networking. I started the Austin group in 2 years ago in July.
The local group focuses mainly on web analytics, but we also talk about analytics for other media such as Twitter or search, but those tie back to web analytics. For example, how does Twitter influence bounce rate (which is when a visitor comes to only one of your web pages and leaves the site immediately)?
Lynn Bender:: What about non web data — like email? Are e-mail response rates, direct mail campaign data, sales and lead information also part of web analytics?
<understatement>Four Kitchens is one of the premier Drupal consulting firms</understatement>. Fortunately, they call Austin home. In the last few months, I’ve had the opportunity to work with and get to know them. Aaron Stanush, one of Four Kitchen’s co-founders, is also a member of the Drupal.org Redesign Team. I recently coerced him into meeting me for coffee and talking about Drupal.
Lynn Bender: Following your trip to Paris to work on the upgrade and redesign of the Drupal.org, you took the lead on the redesign effort. That’s a massive site. How is the process going?
Aaron Stanush: One of the things that really helped focus the redesign effort was that we had an actual style guide to work off of. The Drupal Association hired Mark Boulton Design to rebrand the Drupal product as well as the drupal.org website. Even with a rich style guide, it’s a massive site and it takes awhile for the community to decide the best way to re-engineer the content/layout or to remove elements all together.
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If you go to any tech events around town, no doubt you’ve seen Eve Richter — coordinator for the city’s Emerging Technology Program. I recently met with Eve to get some background on the program, the city’s other tech related initiatives, the state of biotech in Austin, resources for startups, and other topics. |
Lynn Bender: Could you tell me about the City of Austin Emerging Technology Program? As part of the Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office, is the focus more on business development, implementation of new technologies, or…?
Eve Richter: The Emerging Technology program is tasked with increasing jobs and investment in the technology sectors. We do that by attracting new companies to the area (in our targeted sectors, including clean energy, digital media, wireless communications, and biotechnology, etc.), and helping existing companies to grow and flourish. Our focus is pretty much entirely on business development, except to the extent that the implementation of new technologies (or adoption of new technologies) helps our companies to thrive. So promoting the use of technologies created here is something we might do. We also focus on improving the environment for technology companies, by focusing on improving the workforce, regulatory environment, access to capital, and marketing the city as a hub for technology development.
Read the rest of the interview
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I met Jim Hillhouse back in 2002, when he showed up at one of the GeekAustin lunches. Over the last year, I’ve watched him help put Austin’s iPhone dev community on everyone’s radar. Last weekend, I ask Jim to share a bit about iPhone development, the Cocoa Coders group, and the Austin tech scene. |
Lynn Bender: It was Whurley who first told me that we had a large iPhone dev community in Austin. I got to see that first hand last year at BarCampAustin III. How long has there been a formal group iPhone dev group in Austin?
Jim Hillhouse: CocoaCoder was birthed in March 2003.
Lynn Bender: How many members in the group, and how many at the weekly meetings?
Jim Hillhouse: As of tonight, there are 116 members. On average, attendance at the weekly meetings ranges between 5 to 15 last night. Our big monthly meeting can bring in over 25 and the iPhoneDevCamps, which we host with Andrew Donoho, can bring in 40.
Lynn Bender: How long has the group been meeting at Conjunctured?
Jim Hillhouse: I was one of the investors in Conjunctured at its inception, so before the paint had even dried, making it August 1st.
Lynn Bender: Do you have the Dev Camps there as well?
Jim Hillhouse: Yes. The Conjunctured folks, Dusty, David, Cesar, and John Erik have really rolled out the red carpet for us. They have even gone the extra distance to help us find supporters and donors for iPhoneDevCamp-Austin.
Lynn Bender: Do you have a date for the next iPhone Dev Camp?
Jim Hillhouse: Andrew and I are thinking about Feb. 7th but his schedule is a bit in flux, so that may change. However, I feel pretty sure that it will be the 7th.
Lynn Bender: Tell me about some of the apps the group has been developing.
Jim Hillhouse: We have three at this time that are being pounded on. First is a simple “Hello World” app that uses the unpublished video API for the iPhone that was discovered by Erica Sadun. The next app is a Game Show app that also uses the video-out capability. And the last one is the Game Show app, but instead of displaying questions on a video screen, it does so on the contestant’s iPhone via Bonjour. That way we are trying to hit the beginner, medium and advanced levels.
Lynn Bender: So, the members are not each working on their own apps, but working in teams?
Jim Hillhouse: I would guess that between 1/4th and 1/2 of our members are working on their own apps. We’ve been pushing the group apps mentioned above to grow our membership’s brains. Apps such as Reflections, an amazing Flickr app by Jason Moore, Flying Aces by Snakehead Software, and those by other members are really impressive.
Lynn Bender: Last time we were talking, you had mentioned that someone complained about the CocoaCoder domain name. Most folks know about the iPhone and iPhone apps, tell me about Cocoa.
Jim Hillhouse: The individual was trying to make the case that CocoaCoder was too specific to attract iPhone programmers. Cocoa is the API set that Apple has for the Mac, and Cocoa Touch is the API set for the iPhone and iPod Touch. They are built around the Objective-C language. Obj-C is inspired by Small Talk.
Lynn Bender: So, you pretty much have to know C in order to write an iPhone app?
Jim Hillhouse: Yes and no. But more on no. I barely knew C when I first learned Obj-C.
Lynn Bender: Had you been coding for the Mac environment before?
Jim Hillhouse: Really as just a hobbyist. I got into Mac programming as an undergrad in aerospace engineering. But I never learned to do anything more basic than throw up a window and type some text or multiply some numbers. Mac before OS X was really hard to program for.
Lynn Bender: using the Toolbox?
Jim Hillhouse: Stop it…you’re bringing back some very bad and repressed memories. But yes, the Toolbox, ResEdit, Pascal (that was ok). Then Apple moved everyone over to C++ but life still wasn’t much better.
Lynn Bender: heheh, ResEdit.
Jim Hillhouse: Love it, hate it
Lynn Bender: Ok, back to Cocoa. Let’s say I’m a C programmer, and I want to get into iPhone programming. What is the difference between Cocoa and Obj-C.
Jim Hillhouse: Cocoa is written in Obj-C. So learning Obj-C is the first step and an easy, actually very easy, step for a C programmer. We are talking a day, max. The Cocoa API’s will take a bit longer. An Apple programmer friend once said that 3-6 months was the usual time to master Cocoa.
Lynn Bender: You mentioned that the group was trying to appeal to folks at all levels. One of the good things about user groups is that they provide a way for folks together to work to hone their skills in a common area. But it’s often difficult if someone is just getting started and needs basic instruction. Does the group have any basic classes or outreach planned — especially since Austin has been such a Mac town for so long.
Jim Hillhouse: I agree. I know that in those settings I have always walked away having learned a lot. As we get our new CocoaCoder site onboard, we will have groups that people can sign-up for that are for Beginners on up. We will soon have our Subversion repository up for members’ use and well as for groups. And we are going to get into instructional videos with text notes and code by March. I am shooting to see that this is a cradle to success group. That’s one of the reasons we went from monthly to weekly meetings, so that people had more face time and chances to fix issues and ask questions.
Lynn Bender: It seems we’ve known each other about 5 years now. How long have you lived in Austin?
Jim Hillhouse: I first came to Austin in the Summer of 1985 for a Summer job that sadly ended early Summer. But fell in love with this then-laid back little town; at the time, I was living in New Orleans, the murder capitol of the US. I moved to Austin in January 1987 to finish my bachelors in history at UT. Apparently I liked it so much at UT that I continued on with an engineering and master’s in engineering degrees. This town has been a life-saver for me and I really love it deeply.
Lynn Bender: It seems many of us came and decided not to leave — even when it meant turning down opportunities elsewhere. During the 2001-2004 period, many of my friends in tech had to leave Austin, for Houston, Dallas, or some similar place — just so they could continue to grow in their career. It looks like were facing such a period again. What do you think is the missing ingredient here?
Jim Hillhouse: Houston and Dallas have size in their favor. There are enough regular businesses needing tech services, whether that is software, IT, hardware, etc. that techies can make it there in a tough economy. I think the real missing ingredient in Austin is UT and the investment community. We have one out of three pulling their weight, that is we have an incredibly creative and capable technology crowd, but no feeder and breeder (UT), just as SFBA has Stanford and Berkeley, nor do we have a VC community pushing like Kleiner Perkins (iPhone Fund…wow).
Lynn Bender: Any suggestions for folks finding themselves faced with the tough choice of staying or leaving?
Jim Hillhouse: It’s a tough thing to face… I would first say, join things like Conjunctured, CocoaCoder, the GeekAustin SQL group and others. CocoaCoder gets 2-3 job notices each month and we’ve lost members to Apple and other companies, I’m glad to say. But the groups need to get together, form an alliance, if you like, and work with and on the local politicians and UT. For example, Stanford and Berkeley both now have iPhone and Mac specific development courses as part of their CS program. UT? NOT!
We need our local VC community to innovate, not just copy what the VC’s in the Bay Area were doing 5-10 years ago. A local iPhone Fund, a network fund, and so on.
If UT got into the game of incentivising students on new platforms and to be entrepreneurs, Austin would explode.
Lynn Bender: Are you going to SXSWi?
Jim Hillhouse: Yes, SXSW is an always for me. Been going to the Interactive off-and-on since it’s very beginning. In fact, my start-up at the time presenting at the first Interactive.
Lynn Bender: Which talks and speakers are you looking forward to this year?
Jim Hillhouse: I’ve read 1 of Lawrence Lessig’s books, so definitely want to catch him.
Lynn Bender: Heh, I’ll be catching that one too. You better get there early.
Financial support for this interview provided by Smart Bear Software.
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Tom Serres bootstrapped Piryx with his partners Naveed Lalani and Brian Upton — launching the company with $1k made while waiting tables 3 years ago as a college sophomore. |
Flash forward to today, and Piryx already been seed funded, and is currently in talks to close their first series A investment round. Although we’d been communicating online for a while, I finally meet Tom for coffee at Blu a few weeks ago. Tom told me the incredible story of Piryx, and agreed to be our co-host for the GeekAustin E-nauguration Party.
Lynn Bender: Tom, tell me about Piryx.
Tom Serres: First off, Piryx is a non-partisan suite of web tools, offered in a self serve environment. Think Google or Facebook, but designed around the political process. The idea is to offer a portal that empowers citizen candidates, political entities, and social activists with a combination of web tools and social media services to affect change in public policy.
Lynn Bender: What are the specific tools?
Tom Serres: The tools are built around our four pillar strategy – the four basic needs of any political entrepreneur.
1) Government Compliance - Every political entity has to be in compliance with law.
2) Fundraising - Every political entity has to generate revenue, just like a business needs to generate revenue to cover expenses.
3) Constituent management - Every political entity has to manage people, just like any business would manage its customers.
4) Virtual Identity Management - Every political entity has to manage the virtual representation of oneself. Aka, Facebook Fan Page, Website CMS, YouTube, Twitter…in this case these virtual outlets are like television channels on a cable network. You have to distribute the appropriate messages to the right networks.
Read the rest of the interview
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When I found out that Product Camp Austin Winter 09 was on the calendar, I immediately sent a note to the organizer, Paul Young, asking for the details. Take the day off for this event. This is going to be a good one. |
Lynn Bender: The first Product Camp Austin was a huge success. You had a good crowd, and folks came away raving about how useful the event was. Given the word of mouth, I expect that you are going to have a bigger crowd for Product Camp Austin Winter 09. Will the venue be larger? Do you anticipate having to cap attendance?
Paul Young: We had a great time with the first ProductCamp. Over 130 people signed up and about 90 came back in June. We do expect a larger crowd for ProductCamp Winter, and are planning on about 150 people from Austin’s marketing and product management community showing up! We were able to work with the University of Texas and get a great venue at the College of Communications, in the TV production studios - we’ll have plenty of room for everyone and don’t expect to have to cap participation.
Lynn: What things did you learn the first event that you will implement or change for PCA 2?
Paul: We learned a lot about the logistics of running a barcamp-like event for marketing people. 99% of the people that came to ProductCamp the first time had never had an experience like we provided, so it was new and fresh for everyone - that meant we made up a lot of what we did on-the-fly. Now we know where we need help in planning, volunteering, marketing, and so on. Thankfully, this time I had a very strong team step up to help with the planning and execution.
The first PCA was spread by word-of-mouth and a few blogs. After seeing how much our ProductCampers used social networking, this time we are heavily promoting on Facebook, Twitter, via our great sponsors, as well as word-of-mouth.
The biggest lesson learned was what worked and what didn’t work for our participants. Because ProductCamp attracts smart, driven people in marketing and product management, there was a strong apetite for discussion and debate over slideware and presentations. So this time we are going to skew the sessions more strongly in favor of encouraging that kind of interaction. Since ProductCamp is completely participant driven, this is a great way for people to step up and be part of the PCA process - and we’ve seen a lot of validation, as of today there are about 80 people registered for PCA Winter with very little marketing.
Lynn: While the session topics at the first Product Camp Austin covered the spectrum of product management, they remained pretty much within the domain of product management. Even the sessions on usability and public relations were PM centric. Did you have to exercise any executive authority to reign the topics in?
Paul: Early on, I made the decision not to influence the sessions offered or chosen. Part of this was pragmatic - we needed sessions - and part of this was dogmatic - the spirit of ProductCamp is bottoms-up, not top-down driven. Product managers also made up the majority of the participants at the first PCA, so they offered sessions relevant to their peers. One suprise was that ProductCamp attracted such a diverse crowd outside of product management - we had marketers, operations, developers, lawyers, consultants, startup generalists, and so on.
I believe that at PCA Winter we will get a more diverse set of sessions catering to a wider audience. ProductCamp is committed to its core of marketing and product management, but we welcome anyone, and anyone is welcome to offer a session. However it is always up to the participants to choose which sessions they attend. For PCA Winter, Colleen Heubaum from Winnow Consulting has stepped up as our “Sessions Leader.” She is focused on recruiting sessions and making them successful. She also has some great ideas we gathered from last time for some new kinds of sessions beyond the presentation/discussion and roundtable formats we used in June.
Lynn:The success of this first event shows that there is a huge demand for product management knowledge. Other than events like these, where can individuals go to specifically learn about product management? Are there degree programs? What did folks do before product camp Austin?
Paul: Product Management is still relatively new as a discipline for most companies. Technology and Biotech have adopted PM the most quickly, and there are vendors who support growing PM and Product Marketing (PMM). One of the oldest is a ProductCamp sponsor, Pragmatic Marketing. They offer an extensive training program for product managers, and have a certification program as well. Austin is also home to the Austin PMM forum, a user group for product management and marketing that helps ProductCamp with publicity and participants. Finally, people who are interested in product management have lots of blog options to read, and several are based in Austin, such as Scott Sehlhorst’s Tyner Blain, Roger Cauvin, and my own Product Beautiful.
Lynn:: Barcamp was loosely based on foocamp, which was a designed to be a small somewhat intimate event.. How closely do you follow the original barcamp model? It seems like many *camp type events are actually a hybrid of a barcamp and a traditional conference? Do you think that there is an upper attendance limit beyond which the barcamp model doesn’t scale?
Paul: The great thing about *camps is that they are very flexible. If you ask 10 people to describe them you’ll probably get 10 different answers. Rather than focus on trying to replicate the exact or “right” experience from barcamp, we’ve tried to create a unique event in ProductCamp that works for our participants. We borrowed heavily from barcamp’s central ideas such as “allow the event to self-organize,” “impose as little structure as possible,” “no ‘attendees’ only ‘participants,’” “discussion and debate = good,” and so on. Some things worked well, other areas we are improving for this round.
I’m honestly not sure what an original barcamper or foocamper would have to say about ProductCamp - they might be horrified that their concept had been adopted/co-opted by the darkside a.k.a. marketing. Or maybe they would think it was cool - either way, 100% of the ProductCampers from the first event said that they got value and would come again in our post-camp survey, so I’m very happy with the direction we’ve chosen.
There may be an upper limit on participants, but we’re nowhere near hitting it in my opinion. Other barcamps have had hundreds or thousands of participants and we’re nowhere near those kinds of numbers. The key will be retaining the spirit of the event, and that means small sessions with good debate, smart people, and relevant topics.
Lynn:: What kind of sponsorship opportunities will you have for PCA2?
Paul: We have several sponsorship options available for ProductCamp. This was one key lesson learned from the first event, we’ve split our levels of sponsorship available to create options at all levels.
When you think about an event with the quality and credibility of ProductCamp, it’s pretty astounding that we’re going to host 150+ people for a day, feed them, give them some goodies, amazing networking, super-relevant topics and discussion, at an event that is free to them - all for less than $10K total. Our sponsors love ProductCamp because everyone who comes does so because they really want to be there. No one participates to check a box or burn up budget - everyone is engaged and excited.
ProductCamp Winter has six sponsors already, and more are welcome. Potential sponsors can contact our budget and sponsorship lead, Bertrand Hazard for more info.
Lynn: What else do GeekAustin readers to know about PCA2?
Paul:: Yes.
* Anyone can register for ProductCamp - and anyone can offer a session.
* ProductCamp isn’t just for Austinites - last time we had participants from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas as well!
* All the talking points about ProductCamp being an opportunity to teach, learn, and network are true, but the #1 thing I want people to know about PCA is that it is fun. People don’t get out of bed at 8 AM on a Saturday for an optional event that they aren’t excited about. That excitement is infectious and when you come you will be a ProductCamp convert too :)
* I have a story up detailing the ProductCamp experience.
Lynn: Paul, thanks for the time. I’ll be there, but hope to run into you sooner.
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For the last few years, I have seen a tremendous growth of interest in User Experience, or as it is more commonly called UX. Unfortunately, there were few opportunities for local UX pros to gather to discuss their craft. Last last week, Tori Breitling, of Launchpad Coworking, announced the formation of a local UX reading group. I suspect that this is going to be the beginning of all kinds of good stuff. |
Lynn Bender: I was excited to see your formation of a local UX book club. Where did you get the idea?
Tori Breitling: i saw Steve Baty from Sydney twitter about forming the uxbookclub, and encouraging other interested folks to start groups in their own area.
Lynn: There seems to be a huge amount of interest in UX in Austin. It this the case everywhere, or in select cities, or..?
Tori: From what i can tell, the UX community is getting more and more connected… i’d attribute a lot of it to the effort of Interaction Design Organization (IXDA.org) (linkedin group).
Lynn: Does IXDA have chapters? I know that there are many Austinites in the IXDA.
Tori: Theoretically, yes. In practice, for Austin, not so much.
Lynn: From the initial response on http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=austin it looks like you will have quite a local group. In fact, I plan on following along. Will you have face to face meetings?
Tori: of course! I was a bit surprised at the response, but i also have noticed that there’s a pent up demand for UX activities in austin. At the few UX events in the last year or so the numbers attending were huge - 60 or more. i really want to see the Austin UX community be more active, and the book club seemed a manageable place to start.
Lynn: I usually think of a book group as comprising 5-15 people. Any ideas yet how to format the group to accommodate the large number of folks who are interested?
Tori: I’ll have to see what happens. I think the numbers in the book club group is indicative of the fact that it’s the only UX activity in Austin being offered. If there were other events, my guess is that the book club numbers would normalize and many would opt for other types of UX events. I am worried about huge groups - and as of yet, don’t have any ideas how to manage it other that splitting up into smaller groups. My plan now is to see how many of those people interested really end up participating.
Lynn: With larger numbers, venue becomes a consideration. Will you be accepting offers of corporate sponsorship to help facilitate the meetings?
Tori: Sure! Actually, I’d love to see some local UX shops like Adaptive get involved, like HUGE in NYC does.
Lynn: Other than the page at uxbookclub.org, is there an online forum/group for the local community? Like a Google group?
Tori: There’s the uxbookclub local page, the uxbookclub Google group, and the Austin UX community Google group.
Lynn: Thanks for the time. I look forward to seeing you at the first meeting.
The 1st meeting of the Austin UX bookclub will be mid-January, exact location and time TBD. For more details, follow these links:
http://uxbookclub.org/doku.php?id=austin
http://groups.google.com/group/austin-ux-book-club
http://groups.google.com/group/austin-ux-community
http://twitter.com/atxuxbookclub
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Intro: Every company in the tech space that I’ve worked for has had a QA dept. However, it wasn’t until I worked with Troy Waldrep at Pervasive that I heard about code review. The next time I heard about it was from Jason Cohen (blog), founder of Smart Bear Software, whose company offers a tool called Code Collaborator. Recently, I’ve been increasingly interested in software quality and process. So, I decided to ask Jason to talk to me about code review, and its role in the software lifecycle. |
Lynn Bender: I recently asked a head developer at a software company if his team had a formal code review process. He immediately got defensive and replied: “yes”. When I asked him to elaborate, he began to explain their QA process. So to begin, what is code review?
Jason Cohen: Everyone’s had to write a page of prose for school or work. Have you ever done it without making any mistakes? I’m not just talking typos — what about points that could have been clearer, paragraphs that didn’t make sense, missing segues, etc..
Bender: As a matter of fact, I pretty much always pass my important business communications by a colleague to read before sending out. It’s amazing what I miss.
Cohen: Of course you can’t do it, which is why most everything in the publishing industry is reviewed by editors. It’s not because writers are careless or incompetent. It’s because with any sort of creative knowledge work we’re “too close” to our work to see the problems. It’s normal and unavoidable.
So if no one — not even top-notch professional writers — can write a page without needing an editor, why do we expect software developers to write code alone?
That’s all a code review is: reviewing someone’s work.
Note that, as in writing, often the errors are things the author would have seen had the author been reviewing someone else’s code. It’s the “you’re too close” problem most of the time, not the “you’re incompetent” problem.
Bender: This would seem to have a larger scope than that of QA — encompassing programming style and method.
Cohen: People often think of code review as a process to “find bugs.” Although this is an important result — the one management is perhaps most interested in — there’s many other purposes. Finding maintainability issues (e.g. documentation, organization, architecture) saves time for the next developer and prevents bugs in the future. Sharing knowledge about programming in general and about gotchas in the code base helps everyone write better code. Overseeing new hires means noobs can get their hands in the code as fast as possible while ensuring they don’t break anything.
Bender: Can you tell me a bit about what the code review process looks like, and how does it fit into the overall dev process?
Cohen: There are many types of code review, all of which are useful and have trade offs. At one extreme you have the over-the-shoulder walk-through, performed whenever the author is uncomfortable about their work. On the other extreme is the Formal Inspection where participants must be trained, a seven-phase process requires four separate meetings, and reviews take two man-days to complete.
Typically the less formal processes have a better chance of succeeding, unless you’re a CMMI-Level-5 DoD contractor or some such and your employees don’t mind (or are used to) paper-pushing.
Code review comes after the code is written but before QA. Some like doing code reviews before code is even checked into version control, so “checked-in” also means “reviewed.” Others say that causes too much developer down-time waiting for the review and therefore prefer reviewing just after check-in. There’s no right answer to that one.
Bender: Is there much difference in how one would implement code review for an agile team?
Cohen: No. I don’t think e.g. Scrum means you don’t need to design, architect, review code, or do QA, it just means you need to do it in a compressed time-frame.
The exception might be pair-programming, which you could argue is an in-depth, continuous code review situation. In fact, I sometime argue that other code review techniques get you some (not all!) of the benefit of pair-programming at a small fraction of the time, and is therefore a better time/result trade-off for people who don’t want to go all the way.
Bender: Where is the optimal place for code review in the life cycle of a project?
Cohen: Clearly at the end of the lifecycle, during “feature freeze,” code review makes a lot of sense. By definition you’re trying to be extra careful about every check-in. In fact, in past companies we used to self-impose code review during those times.
However it’s just as useful earlier in the cycle. If you only review at the end, mistakes made long ago might be too embedded for change. Sort of the same problem as waterfall development!
If you’re religious with unit tests and constant refactoring, then it may not make sense to code review early on because it’s so safe to change later. In practice, few development groups are zealous enough for later major restructuring to truly be safe and fast.
Bender: With so many startups in Austin, we’ve had the opportunity to watch many software shops go from one or two people to a group of ten or twenty developers. At some point, most of these groups implement a bug tracking process, and half will have a formal QA process. However, I am surprised how few actually implement code review as part of the dev process. Has this been your experience as well? When is the right stage to begin a code review process? And for companies that already have a few hundred thousand lines of code, where do they begin?
Cohen: You’re right that code reviews are often the last quality process to be introduced, perhaps because it’s so social.
If a team is not already doing code reviews, I would strongly suggest reviewing only a little bit of the code. For example, have optional reviews, done just when the author is unsure, or just on a stable code branch, or just on the 10 files voted “scariest to change.” Stuff that everyone would agree is worth some extra effort. Going from zero review to reviewing everything is too much of a change to do at once.
If you have a large code-base, you could pick out files you know are trouble and review them first. Or, just do incremental reviews — reviewing each check-in — and find the problems as you go. If you do this you’ll naturally notice problems around the code being changed — even in code that wasn’t relevant to that check-in — and you can fix it then.
Bender: Your company, Smart Bear, is widely known for it’s code review tool called Code Collaborator. Can you tell me a bit how it facilitates the code review process?
Cohen: The most important part of the review — human beings thinking critically about code — is something no tool can help with! However there’s also lots of mundane aspects of code review where a tool can help, and that’s what Code Collaborator tries to do.
First, Code Collaborator integrates with version control so with a single click you can do things like “create a review with all the files I’ve modified but not yet checked in.” It can grab the files along with the content as it appears in version control and make diffs.
Second, Code Collaborator displays diffs together with chat in a web browser. The chat is live (or works like a newsgroup if you’re separated by lots of timezones), and is threaded by the line of code. This saves you from tedious notes like “on line 723 of //depot/project/foo/bar…” and emails with quote-carets all over the place as you try to make sense of everyone talking.
Third, Code Collaborator automatically collects metrics like time spent in review, number of lines of code, and number of defects found, so managers get the reports, audit trails, and numbers they need while developers don’t have to lift a finger. No forms, no stopwatches, no meetings, no rubrics.
Bender: I sometimes get this comment from developer friends: Because the dev environment in most startups tends to be fast paced, implementing processes like code review are often viewed as a “frill”. How would a developer best make a case for implementing code review?
Cohen: If you’re in an early stage of development, you might not be able to make the case! Early on, just getting something out the door is more important than bugs.
At some point though, your company turns the corner and keeping customers happy and having a solid platform becomes more important than the number of features you can spit out per quarter. It’s at this time — when you start talking about static code analysis, QA departments, integration tests, etc — when code review should be part of the discussion.
I think the best argument is a combination of common sense and measurement. The common sense part is the author/editor argument I gave earlier. It just doesn’t make sense that anyone could write perfect code in a vacuum, and it’s just as obvious that another pair of eyes could help. Just as spell-checkers are useful but not a substitute for a personal review, static code analysis is useful but not sufficient.
The other side is measurement. Code review is something you can prove has value! Just measure the number and type of defect you’re finding and the amount of time you’re spending in review. Then just divide and see if it’s worth it! The usual number is that you find AND FIX a defect every 10-15 minutes. So ask yourself, can you do that with QA? Shouldn’t you at least try to do it with review?
Bender: That’s a strong case. Jason, thanks for taking the time.
You can read more of Jason Cohen’s writing on software at his blog: A Smart Bear.
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I just found out from Darren Peterson about the first meetup of Joomla users in Austin. I’ve been hearing about Joomla quite a bit recently — mostly as an alternative to Drupal. I decided to contact Darren and get the details on the meeting as well as a status on Joomla. |
Lynn Bender: Have you been using Joomla long?
Darren Peterson: Not long at all. I stumbled on Joomla about three years ago when a client asked me to customize his Mambo site. I wasn’t familiar with what Mambo was, so I started researching it and found that Joomla had essentially taken its place in the open source CMS world.
Bender: For a local person building a Drupal-based site, there seem to be a lot of local developers with experience in Drupal. What about Joomla?
Peterson: Austin has a great base of talented Joomla developers. There are more Joomla users than there are developers and I’ve found that most Joomla developers are also Drupal savvy. Over the past few years, I’ve attended several Joomla conferences in different cities around the US and have met hundreds of developers and I’d have to say that Austin and Central Texas have some of the best.
Bender:What are some of the local austin websites that are currently using Joomla? What about nationally-known high profile sites?
Peterson: There are so many, its hard to distringuish a Joomla site from other types of sites. You can’t tell just by looking because it is possible to customize every aspect of the framework. Three years ago I developed Twin Liquors (www.twinliquors.com) on Joomla, as well as many other local business sites. On a national level Joomla.org has listed that the United Nations (http://www.unric.org) , MTV Networks Quizilla (www.quizilla.com) , L.A. Weekly (www.laweekly.com) , Harvard University (gsas.harvard.edu) sites have all been developed on Joomla.
Bender:Can you tell me a bit about the licensing model? How does it stack up against other CMS software — like Plone or Drupal?
Peterson: Joomla, Drupal, and Plone are free, open, and available to anyone under the GPL license. I am not has familiar with Plone’s licensing, but Joomla and Drupal both permit users to customize, and contribute code as well as resell the software as long as you allow the purchaser to to modify and redistribute it as well.
Bender:I’ve heard that, unlike with Drupal, most of the modules are are not free. What’s the scoop on this?
Peterson: Some of the modules have commercial licenses attached to them. Some users don’t like this, but I think it’s a great thing. You get a better product, and better support when you pay for an extension. There are many developers who will never charge for their work, and I applaud them, but there are many extensions Joomla would never have if it weren’t for the development teams working hard day and night.
Bender:SEO functionality seems to be lagging behind Drupal. Are there any solutions in the works?
Peterson: The latest version of Joomla has many great SEO features. From SEF urls, individual article meta tags and titles, to turbo charged SEO extensions, the Joomla team has delivered a CMS that drives traffic.
Bender:For someone implementing a new CMS system or collaborative website, what do you consider the main advantages to Joomla?
Peterson: Ease of use, the Joomla community, the customization options, and oh yeah, the local Joomla Austin user’s group (www.joomlaaustin.org) who has their first meeting this Wednesday (http://webdesign.meetup.com/528/) .
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Managing social networks is a total pain. Fortunately for wannabe 2.0 rockstars everywhere, CEO Dewey Gaedcke and his team started Minggl, a tool for managing multiple social networks. I caught up with him downtown to ask him a few questions about it. |
Michelle Greer: Social networks are never static. We’ve all come to love or hate the new Facebook, and people adopt new Twitter clients seemingly monthly to keep up. Every week, some naive VC funds a social network of some stripe hoping it will actually get adopted. How does Minggl plan to keep up with the constantly evolving trends in the social networking sphere?
Dewey Gaedcke: Great question and this is Minggl’s sweet spot—-we believe that people want to participate in many communities and will frequently move between them. We’re not a site, or a tool, or a community—we’ve built a “relationship layer” that is embeded in the browser so we can facilitate all the social things you do, transparently between communities. You get to “do social” based on how you know someone and how much you care, instead of ‘where’ they hang-out, or which tools they use. If you think about it, “social” is relationship centric, not tool or venue centric, so the only sensible thing to do is to carry the relationship model with you, in the same way your brain does it. The only point of personal connection between Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace (for you, from a technology perspective) is your browser, so we modify the browser to bring relational/productive benefits to you, everywhere you go on the web. From a technical perspective (if that’s what you are asking), Minggl is an API abstraction layer—this means we have ZERO site-specific code in the product…..Minggl support for Facebook (for example) is defined by a little XML file that Minggl knows how to interpret and run. If we want to add support for Plaxo, we just have to create this little text file and ww don’t change the core program at all. It’s very elegant ;-)
Greer: Minggl allows users to filter statuses from the people you follow based on keywords. What are some applications for this sort of functionality?
Gaedcke: Out of the 400 “friends” you have online, very solid research shows that you can only be truly “friends” with about 150 of them. Of that 150, only about 40 are meaningful (you really care) in your life. And of those 40, it’s likely that only a few publish information that aligns with your goals and interests. Do you have time to read the daily menu consumed by 250 distant strangers??? If you do, then use minggl without filters (in this mode, our mStream feature works just like the news aggregators) and read everything. If you don’t, then Minggl will show you information from the people you care about first and not waste your time with the rest….or at least save it for when you aren’t so busy.
Greer: Twitter seems to be the social network of choice for many prominent people in the social networking sphere. Any plans to expand the Twitter section of Minggl to include the “replies” and “archives” sections?
Gaedcke: We already support replies and retweets. Archive will be coming in the next few months. But micro-blogging is only a fractional part of the social dimension—-we believe that people care most about the person and about the message, not whether it goes over phone, email, sms or pony express. So you will see Minggl shifting the focus from “where you hang” and “what you use” (to communicate) and making it about who, what and why—-the real essence of social
Greer: What is your platform built in? Should we expect to see Minggl FailWhales?
Gaedcke: Minggl is built on a massively scalable architecture. The app server alone is written in three (Java) tiers, including a clustered cacheing layer. The DB layer is partitioned, load balanced, multi-master and replication aware. You may see Minggl hickup because someone pulled the wrong plug, or a bug slipped through QA, but it won’t be for scalability reasons….that I can guarantee.
Greer: What is it like working with the Twitter API?
Gaedcke: Twitter API is great….it’s clean, simple and works (when their infrastructure is up)
Greer: I hate managing social networks and like that Minggl integrates them into one sidebar. Do you need more developers so as to appease my need for easier and easier tools to manage social networks? If so, how should they get in touch with you?
Gaedcke: We will be hiring experienced Java and Javascript developers aggressively beginning in the middle of November. They can begin experimenting with our API to build social apps that deal with the ENTIRE friend list (instead of just a slice). Experienced techs can send their resume to jobs@minggl.com (best wait till mid-November). They should also play with the product, and get involved recommending features and reporting bugs at: http://getsatisfaction.com/minggl
Greer: Minggl allows you to tag people with certain keywords. Did I get a “cool” tag and if so, when the hell are we going wakeboarding?
Gaedcke: you received a “genius” tag and this means that minggl will randomly inject pictures of Einstein and Tila Tequila onto your various online identities.
To see how Minggl can save you some social networking headaches, download Minggl here. If you have some ideas for the product, get satisfaction by letting their team know here.
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Following our launch party for Semantic Web Austin, I’ve been wanting to do a follow up interview with the group’s founder, Juan Sequeda. This interview was conducted by GeekAustin’s resident ontologist, Jana Thompson. - Linear |
Jana Thompson: What are the benefits you see to the business community in adopting semantic technology?
Juan Sequeda: Semantic technologies will allow data to be related. It is about serendipity and data reusability. So if the business community is interested in discovering relationships of their data and being able to reuse it, they should consider starting looking into semantic technologies. One of the main examples is data integration. The business community is interested in seeing how this new technology can finally (hopefully) solve the data integration problem. In my opinion, semantic technologies are focused on 1) creating a web of data (aka. The Semantic Web) and 2) data integration in different domains (business, life science, geospatial, pharmaceutical)
Jana: Do you think these benefits are great enough for businesses to adopt the changes?
Juan: The web is always evolving, and semantic technologies are going to be part of the next step of the Web. Therefore, if companies want to be up-to-date with this evolution, they need to get on that boat. In a way, if companies do not start to look into semantic technologies, they will be in a disadvantage, and by the time they do start working on it, it may be too late. In addition, if they are still not satisfied in their data integration solutions, semantic technologies could be something attractive that business should start looking into.
Jana: How large do you think this impact will actually be?
Juan: Right now, I don’t know. We have to wait maybe a year till the research community makes stuff that is more accessible to normal users. Hopefully in the next year we will know.
Jana: I’m imagining a scenario like the dot-com era, when everyone was convinced that everyone would be shopping online, and so there were a plethora of start-up dot coms, offering everything for sale online, that of course eventually failed for the most part.
Juan: Once several apps have been developed, this era is going to come. The research that needs to be done is how to make this easy for the user. For example, the semantic web community is just starting to think about this. Check this: http://km.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/ws/insemtive2008/. It’s the first workshop on Incentives for the Semantic Web. So the community has realized that it does need to do something to incentivsie the world. Let’s see what happens in October at the International Semantic Web Conference.
Jana: I’ve heard, from contacts in the Bay Area, that they are skeptical of how large this impact of semantic technology will actually be on the web itself, but that the best uses of the technology are for fields such as medical information, or as you mentioned, geo-spatial data.
Juan: The Semantic web and semantic technologies is in a research era. Medicine fields and others have helped in this research process, therefore they are receiving the best and first benefits now. But most of the research is done in Europe and the Europeans do not have a commercial mind-like. Companies are skeptical of the impact, because they are not knowledgeable about it, and it is still not easy because it is still in a research phase. Hence, no semantic web killer app exist yet. Twine.com is a US company that is starting to expose what semantic technologies can do. Paul Allen’s company, Vulcan is investing in semantic web companies in the US and Europe.
Jana: Are semantic technologies going to be part of the web because of people championing the cause or because it is actually a necessary step?
Juan: People don’t realize that they have a problem. When they search in Google, they get results that work.. but they don’t know that there is more stuff out there that can be even better. people have so much social data, and have become social slaves of updating their profile everywhere. things like that… are problems that people don’t see them as problems. I believe it will be a common ground that will meet up somewhere in the middle. Where people are championing the cause, and half way through, users will realize that it is necessary.
For example, in the venture weekend that took place at UT couple months ago, came up with a better search experience for live music in austin (turn2live). Believe it or not, call it semantic web or not…. its a problem that people are realizing that they have and Google is not solving it. So problems exist, but people just live with it.
Jana: In the early days of the web, there was an explosion of new websites, due to the ease of learning HTML, from a business to a person to some crackpot talking about aliens. Even today, CSS and XHTML are not so difficult to learn that a determined person can’t learn them from W3C or other tutorials easily. If OWL becomes the norm for websites, what do you think the effects will be on the web? Do you think it is easy enough to learn that it will be readily adopted as part of the standard toolkit for web developers for businesses?
Juan: OWL is an ontology language, and one of the important principals of the Semantic Web is that data should be reused. Furthermore, ontologies need to be reused. Why would you want to reinvent the wheel? For normal programmers and designers, the use of OWL is not necessary, to a certain point. For example, if you want to add microformats and RDFa to describe your website, all you need is to learn some specific options that goes into HTML tags. These options are actually part of the FOAF (Friend Of A Friend) ontology. Therefore, nobody had to create their own ontology, they are reusing FOAF. On the other hand, the knowledge of specific W3C standards like OWL is necessary if you want to do data integration. If your database data describes a specific domain, where an ontology already exist, you may use that. But most commonly, you would want to create your own ontology. This ontology is the semantic layer that describes the content of different databases schemas that share the same domain. So it would be necessary to know OWL to get this done. My personal research work is to automate this process.
Jana: Following the same theme, do you think this will lead to an internet full of corporate-controlled websites, with sites only written by developers rather than individuals?
Juan: It may seem like this right now, because these are new technologies. RDF is less than 10 years old. OWL became a recommendation 4 years ago. SPARQL became a recommendation this year. These semantic technologies are just starting. In my opinion, the semantic web community needs to start creating easy and attractive ways for individuals to be part of the semantic web. This includes creating cool UI’s to navigate data, easy ways to create linked data, etc.
Jana: So, you are imagining technologies such as Drupal or Wordpress, that allow users to manage sites without a great deal of knowledge of the nuts and bolts of current web technologies?
Juan: Drupal and Wordpress are not technologies, they are applications. And these applications will offer stuff that will make users life easier. And they have already started. They do have RDFa and microformats!
Jana: Given all of the buzz, and my own familiarity with ontology, I am just very curious if the semantic web is truly necessary?
Juan: Check this video: http://juansequeda.blogspot.com/2008/08/predicting-next-5000-days-of-web-ted.html
Yahoo, Reuters, New York Times.. they are all doing semantic web stuff. The web is evolving that way. Is it THE solution? I don;t know. Nobody can solve all problems and save the universe. Right now we give stuff to the web (web 2.0.. user content generation) next generation is that the web will give stuff to us.
Jana: Will it be worth it to most people to go away from the web in its current form, with keyword searches on sites like Google, to a richer and more interconnected internet with potentially better search technology?
Juan: Semantic Web and semantic technologies is not only about making a better search engine. It may be that adding semantic technologies to current search engines won’t better search results. But what it will do is allow serendipity. It will allow users to discover relationships, things they didn’t know that existed. Search engines like Google will connect users with documents. The Semantic Web will connect users with data. That is what it is all about: a web of data.
Jana: For our more technical readers, I have a few additional questions: If no standardization comes about for mapping relational databases to domain ontologies, how do you see that as influencing the decisions about adoption of semantic technology by businesses? After all, the success of technology often lives or dies on its ease of adoption.
Juan: It would mean that several different solutions will be offered. It will become a business race to see who can offer the best solution.
Jana: Do you have any specific thoughts on a potential solution for the two initiatives of RDB2RDF - any rough ideas that you care to share on sketching out a solution beyond what you discussed in the Nodalities article?
Juan: I presented two aspects: Database and Ontology mapping and Direct Mapping. Both solutions are needed. The case where you have a company that can invest in a person who can be specialized in semantic technologies, who know OWL and knows the mapping languages. That company can make specific mappings. But you also may have the case that you want a simple automated system because you can’t invest in creating personalized mappings.
Juan: I really liked your questions. I understand that is may all sound a bit evangelist (which is what I proclaim what I do)… but its nice to actually get the correct words and reality out of me.
Jana: Juan, Thanks so much for taking the time.
For more info on the Semantic Web in Austin:
Juan’s SemanticWebAustin blog
SemanticWebAustin on LinkedIn
SemanticWebAustin onFaceBook
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I asked Paul Young, one of the organizers of ProductCamp Austin, to give us a wrap up of the event, and details on his future plans for ProductCamp Austin. I am sorry that I missed this. Based on everyone’s comments, I am certainly not going to miss the next one. |
Lynn Bender: Everyone has been raving about ProductCamp Austin. How many and what types of people were in attendence?
Paul Young: We had about 80-90 people come to ProductCamp Austin! The audience was very diverse, we had Product Managers, Product Marketing Managers, Usability PhD’s, Agile development experts, legal eagles, people entering product management from sales and development, and even a few programmers.
Bender: Can you give me some of the highlights?
Young: The PCA sessions were as diverse as the audience. John Milburn and I gave a session about Product Management in a startup, which was standing room only. Ben Phenix gave a session on usability that drew rave reviews on twitter and in the hallways. Joseph Lopez and Dustin Younse gave a presentation about the ACTlab at UT that won 2nd place for best session, and Charlie Ray led a raucous session about the political minefields of product management - he won “Best Overall Session!”
The participants were highly engaged in every part of PCA, starting in the morning with driving the schedule. We asked the participants to put post it notes under the sessions they most wanted to attend which were posted on the wall in the back of the main room. With little to no instruction, everyone got it, and in under 30 minutes we had a schedule for the day. The sessions were all highly interactive with great discussion and truth telling. The fact that anyone who got up at 8AM on a Saturday to come to ProductCamp really WANTED to be there made a big difference in the quality of the sessions and the event as a whole.
Bender: Based on the success of the first PCA, will you be planning another? What will you want to do differently in the second one?
Young: We will absolutely do another PCA. The consensus of the participants was that we could easily support a bi-annual model, so look for the next PCA in the Fall/Winter timeframe. Planning starts….right now! (Join the Google Group PCA-Planning to help: http://groups.google.com/group/pca-planning)
As for what we’d do differently, everyone agreed that the interactivity was what made PCA special. We’ll be more overt to the session leaders next time that they should expect and encourage discussion over slideware (myself included). Also, we barely had enough proposed sessions this time to run 3 simultaneous tracks, meaning that with the number of participants we had, the rooms were packed! We need more sessions next time, and I have a feeling that now that people have gone through the experience, that they will be more willing to pony up a session.
I was pulled aside many times during the day by people talking about what session they wanted to offer next time, and wanting to get involved in planning the next PCA. I believe that the turnout for this event showed that there is a strong appetite in the Austin and Texas Product Management and Marketing community for this type of interaction, because you just don’t get the chance to have these conversations very much with your peers during your day job. PCA Fall/Winter 2008 will be bigger, better, and badder in every way!
Bender: Where can people go to get more info on the recent ProductCampAustin and get on the invite list for the next one?
Young: The great news is that if you couldn’t make ProductCamp Austin, we have a lot of online resources to give you a taste of what you missed!
* First check out the official PCA wiki page: http://barcamp.org/ProductCampAustin
* Also look at the sessions page, which we are updating over the next few days with the presentation and session notes: http://barcamp.org/ProductCampAustinSessions
* Look at pictures from PCA: http://www.flickr.com/groups/pcaustin/pool/
To get on the list for the next ProductCamp Austin, join the Google Group ProductCampAustin at http://groups.google.com/group/productcampaustin
Bender: Anything else you would like me to pass onto the GeekAustin readers?
Young: There was a great quote during the Startup Product Management session I facilitated, that (paraphrased), “Startups on the West Coast are hipster-based, but startups in Austin are geek-based.” That summed up the day for me - it was a great mashup of corporate, startup, geek, academic, and marketing personalities, which really made it fun. I’d like to invite everyone to join the group, and we’ll see you at the next ProductCamp!
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Every time I have lunch with Caroline Valentine, I end up with enough information for several GeekAustin stories. This week, Caroline was gracious enough to respond to questions commonly asked among my older friends in the IT sector. |
Lynn Bender: Hardly a week passes that I don’t read a report about how tech employers are looking to keep older IT workers on the payroll longer and how older IT workers are in high demand. However, at every GeekAustin party, I meet several older folks who have been unable to find an opportunity for an extended period; but I also meet folks in their 50s and 60s who seem to be doing quite well for themselves. I have however noticed that those doing well normally fall into two categories: management or consulting. Is this because I’m only seeing the more social types who go to events?
Caroline Valentine: I would suspect it is not so much that “just the more social types attend”, but that those in management and consulting need to attend events to connect with possible employees and for new gigs. So, there is more of a motivation to attend.
Bender: What if someone is not the consultant type? How can someone manage their career so that they will continue to be marketable and desirable?
Valentine: Make sure that your skills are marketable and desirable. So what does that mean? This does not mean necessarily that you need to run out and learn the newest language or tool regardless if you like to work with it. Just do your research and be aware of how valuable and current your skills are, how in demand they are, how much competition do you have for jobs, and what industries and businesses are possible employers. Then decide if you need to learn new skills. Additionally, just like every other department within a company, IT workers need to understand the company’s business, market, customers, and stability of industry.
Bender: For older IT workers who prefer to be part of a company, is there any size or type of company they should be looking for? What type of environment?
Valentine: Companies of all sizes want to hire the best for as least as possible – some prefer experienced over junior level employees and some do not. In my experience, size does not seem to be the determining factor on the age of the employees. As for the environment, it all depends on senior management; the company culture really begins with them and filters down. Look for a company that values employees – all employees.
Bender: It’s quite common for older IT workers to end up working for someone half their age. What sorts of problems commonly arise? Any tips or advice you can offer?
Valentine: The main problem that can arise is a common one in any employment situation, whether or not there is an age difference. Its communication!!! The ability to communicate effectively is an issue for many people.
There are many studies and reports on the differences between generations – and how to deal with issues. The following link contains some good tools for dealing with the specific issue of younger manager, older employee. http://www.womenforhire.com/advice/generational_diversity/workplace_generations
Bender: How can older IT workers overcome the common perception that they don’t have the energy or commitment of younger workers?
Valentine: I am not seeing that perception so much anymore in the many clients we represent nor am I hearing that at HR conferences and meetings. The days of working employees hard with lots of overtime in exchange for stock options and the carrot of big money are pretty much gone. Younger employees are not willing to work those hours anymore either. Actually, the perception tends to be the opposite – managers tend to think younger workers are more lazy and interested in personal hobbies, friends and time off. Of course, each person should be viewed as an individual. Mass generalizations are never the way to view people. At Valentine & Associates, we work together with management and employees to address these incorrect perceptions and generalizations based on age, gender, race, religion, etc. If the generalizations are leading to hiring decisions, it is discrimination and it is wrong.
Bender: Quite a few of my older friends in tech have gone to finish their bachelors because they believe that their 20 years + experience doesn’t compete with a four year degree once the resume hits the HR office. Is that an accurate perception?
Valentine: It all depends on the specific hiring manager’s requirements and the supply of interested candidates. Greater supply equals more stringent screening. The desired skills or credentials become required the greater the supply of candidates.
Bender: There is sometimes the perception that an older IT worker will want a significantly higher salary. How widespread is this perception? What is the best way to deal with it?
Valentine: Very wide spread - experience commanding a greater salary has been the common practice for generations! The best way to deal with it is to communicate your salary requirements up front.
Bender: Any additional advice?
Valentine: Enjoy what you do. Otherwise, what is the point? If you are not enjoying it, change it. Be a lifelong learner, the more you know, the more you can control your career choices and seek out the opportunities that will bring you enjoyment.
Caroline Valentine is president of Valentine and Associates. She can be reached at www.valentineandassociates.com
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It’s near impossible to be involved in Austin’s tech community and not hear Steven Doc List’s name come up. At any given time, he seems to be engaged in half a dozen projects — most recently the Agile Open Space Austin and the Green Technology Alliance. I was extremely happy that he was able to make time to answer my questions. Rather than try to summarize everything he’s involved in, I’ll refer you to Doc’s Linked In profile, and his websites: www.AnotherThought.com, www.StevenList.com, and Austin.ClassesInTown.com |
Lynn Bender: It seems that Open Space Technology has been around for more than a decade. However, I’ve only heard it mentioned in the last few years — most frequently during conversations among Agile advocates. Can you tell me a bit about OST and how it was implemented at Agile Open Space Austin?
Steven “Doc” List: I’ve had the same experience. Harrison Owen first codified the concepts in 1989, followed by the book “Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide“. So how is it that you and I have not heard of it prior to the last few years? My belief is that it’s because it has been building toward a tipping point. It is so totally counter to the way that Western business has run meetings and events, that it makes organizers and managers nervous. Truly. We live in a command and control culture, where the manager/leader/organizer expects to decide who and what and where and when. Schedules, project plans, organization, staff, materials…
Consider the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge), which is the codified approach to command and control. Get all the details, write them down, estimate them, schedule them, compare reality to the plan, stick to the plan. How different could Open Space Technology be?
So let me get back to answering your questions and addressing your observations.
Why have you heard about OST mostly amongst Agile advocates? Because both are intrinsically self-organizing, self-managing, iterative, and anti-command-and-control. Agilists embrace it because it mirrors their approach to what they do, and how they think, in many ways.
What is OST? It is a very simple methodology for holding meetings/events that puts the power into the hands of the participants, based on their passion and responsibility. The simple version is this: arrive, create the agenda, convene sessions, discuss issues, write some notes. The facilitator explains how it will work and guides the participants through creating the agenda. After that, the event is mostly in the hands of the participants.
At the Agile Austin Open Space, we met on Friday evening to create the agenda. The majority of the participants had never been to an Open Space before, so it was interesting to watch the acceleration. First, a few folks who had been to Open Spaces before offered topics. Then a few of the bolder “newbies” started to step up. For a while, it looked as though we would have lots of empty space in the agenda (six rooms, six time slots, for a total of thirty-six possible sessions). And then the tide started rolling in. We easily filled the agenda, with a couple of extra topics thrown in.
Once the topics were on the wall, the participants began to negotiate mergers (”these two topics seem pretty close”), changes to schedule (”I have a conflict at this time - can we switch slots?”), and anything else that needed handling. I, as the facilitator, mostly stood back and let them go at it. There was one moment when someone looked to me to tell them what to do. Scott Bellware said “we don’t need Doc - let’s just get this done.” And they did.
On Saturday, we began with Daily News - announcements, logistical details, and an opportunity for anyone to negotiate a change to the agenda. And then people went to whichever sessions they wanted. Conveners could organize their sessions any way they wanted, or not at all. One popular mechanism is the Fishbowl.
Saturday ended with a short meeting, announcements about what would be happening on Sunday, and a few minutes for anyone to share or ask questions.
Sunday began with Daily News again, this time outside in the parking lot. Attendance was a bit slow at first, but it got rolling. Not surprisingly, some of the sessions both on Saturday and Sunday “didn’t make” - no one showed up. So the conveners went to other sessions. This is one of those self-organizing things that express either the importance of the topic, or the conflict between interesting topics. And no one gets their feelings hurt.
Sunday ended with the Closing Circle, in which a Talking Stick is passed around and each person gets a minute or so to share. I find this to be one of the most rewarding parts of the process, as each person expresses appreciation, surprise (”it really works!”), insights, and more. I love the Closing Circle.
We created proceedings of the event by using the wiki that Eric Anderson had set up for the event, and having conveners go in to create a page for their session. It’s still up at http://openspace.agileaustin.org - click on the Agenda and Proceedings link. Other than reminding them, I didn’t have to do anything, and now there’s a persistent record.
Bender: So what are the key aspects or guiding principles of OST?
Doc: Harrison Owen says that the ideas came from African and American Indian tribal ceremony (circles, talking sticks, respect, passion), and the fact that he saw the most valuable discussions at events he attended over the years happen at the coffee breaks. In many ways, OST is about loosely organized coffee breaks!
There are four principles:
- Whoever comes is the right people
- Whatever occurs is the only thing that could have
- Whenever it starts is the right time
- When it’s over, it’s over
I like to add a corollary to the fourth principle:
- When it’s NOT over, it’s not over - if a conversation isn’t done, there’s nothing stopping you from continuing that conversation.
There’s the One Law - the Law of Two Feet: if you find that you are not learning or contributing the way you’d like, where you are, use your two feet and go somewhere else. Join another session. Sit in the hall. Have a conversation with someone at the coffee bar.
And one guiding thought: Be Prepared to Be Surprised.
At every Open Space I’ve facilitated, I’ve heard the same comment in various ways: I had no idea what to expect, and I got a LOT more out of this than I could ever have expected.
Bender: Open Space Meetings sound very close to another recent meeting format: BarCamp. Both provide methods for the meeting to “self-organize”. Both appear to be participant driven. What distinguishes the two?
Doc: BarCamp actually borrows from OST. As folks around technical and other communities have become exposed to parts of Open Space, they have embraced and adopted them.
The difference - as I’m aware of them - is that BarCamp is oriented towards possibly unrelated sessions within a broad topic, and the sessions are frequently hands-on learning sessions. Open Spaces are more oriented towards addressing problems and challenges.
While OST can be used for anything, it shines when there are strong emotions and opinions, problems to solve, and a group of people who bring passion and a sense of responsibility. It has been used to address geographical community issues (zoning, resources, libraries, and so on), corporate bodies (board meetings, company strategy, departmental issues), social/technical community issues (ALT.NET, Microsoft MVP), and so on.
Bender: What sort of problems arise when organizing an Open Space Conference? Is it more difficult to attract big names? Is it even important to attract big names?
Doc: The problems are pretty much the same as with any other event: getting volunteers to actually do stuff, getting the word out, and arranging resources.
As to attracting big names, the questions are two: Why would I care? and What’s the problem?
In the Open Spaces I’ve facilitated, we’ve had participation from and sponsorship from the likes of Microsoft, ThoughtWorks, Version One, Rally, and Adecco. Attendees have included Scott Guthrie (Microsoft), Scott Hanselman (Microsoft), Martin Fowler (ThoughtWorks), Ayenda Rahien (from Israel), Ian Culling (CTO of Version One), and other “names” in the Agile and .NET communities. The list is much longer - these are just a few well known names that come to mind. So clearly we’re not having trouble attracting “big names”.
But why would I care? The participants get out of it what they put into it. They participate in conversations, they share and learn, and they create their own experience. So while it’s sometimes cool to have folks like those I mentioned, it’s not essential to the success and value of an event.
Where there is resistance to participating or sponsoring, that resistance may come from the fact that there are some who are confused or put off by the idea of OST. They don’t get how it will work. They’re used to presenting and organizing, in a traditional sense, and being in control of their own time and space. In OST, the participants are in control.
Still, there’s a lot of flexibility. At least year’s inaugural ALT.NET Open Space, here in Austin in October, Scott Guthrie offered to present the new Microsoft MVC framework. Note that it’s “offered” - it was not predetermined before the event - he offered when the agenda was being created. Most of the participants opted to have just one session at that time so they could all be there and not miss out on anything good. And even though Scott’s session was mostly presentation, it was much more interactive and free-wheeling than it would have been at a “traditional” event.
Getting back to your question, though, the biggest problem is overcoming resistance and ignorance about OST and how/whether it works. By crafting the invitation with care, this can be addressed. Michael Herman, a well known practitioner, has an excellent PDF on crafting the invitation and all of the logistics leading up to the event (http://www.michaelherman.com/openspacetechnology/publications/downloads/inviting_guide.pdf).
Fortunately, the tipping point is in sight, as more and more people are becoming aware of OST and how exciting it is.
Bender: So why would an organization, particularly a corporate organization, choose to use OST to run an event?
Because it works. It’s been done literally thousands of times and has produced remarkable results. There are lots of examples, and finding information about Open Space Technology is easy.
In some ways, it’s akin to the choice between waterfall and agile.
Waterfall has proven itself to fail over and over again. Agile is proving itself to succeed.
The same is true of “traditional” versus OST. OST works. The participants are engaged, and bring passion and a sense of responsibility (yes, those are key concepts).
If you want your organization to succeed, whether it’s over the long haul with a clear strategy, or addressing a specific problem/challenge/issue, doesn’t it make sense that the results are likely to be more effective if the members/employees/participants have an emotional stake in the process and results?
Bender: The best BarCamps I have been to have been in the 100-200 person range. Are there scalability issues that are unique to the OST format?
Doc: I freely admit that I don’t know. The largest event I’ve facilitated so far has been about 150 people, and it worked beautifully.
The largest that I’ve heard about was facilitated by Harrison Owen and Michael Pannwitz (of Germany, creator of the Open Space World Map - http://www.openspaceworldmap.org/). It was an event in Germany with a bit over 2,000 psychiatrists! They put up two circus tents in a field, connected by a tunnel. They held the opening circle with everyone sitting on pads on the floor in several (like five or more) concentric circles. There were around 240 separate topics discussed. One of the most interesting things was that both Harrison and Michael conducted openings simultaneously, one in English and one in German. Not translations of each other’s words, but simultaneous openings as they walked around the circle on opposite sides. Amazing! I’ve seen photos and read the write-up.
So I really don’t know whether there are scalability issues.
I know that I’m not ready to try it with more than 200 - 300 people.
Yet.
Bender: Any plans yet for follow up Agile Austin Open Space?
Doc: You’d have to ask the folks at Agile Austin. I think that, given the results they saw, it’s likely that this will become a regular event. The participants were excited, and want to continue the discussions that began here. And it’s worth noting that not all of the attendees were from Austin - we had folks from as close as San Antonio and College Station, and as far away as Virginia and Maryland and Atlanta.
There will certainly be at least one more Open Space in Austin this year, organized by Scott Bellware. Scott was the primary organizer of the ALT.NET Open Space last year, and is responsible for me becoming an Open Space facilitator.
I believe that ADNUG is also considering holding an Open Space in Austin, but maybe not until next year.
Outside of Austin, I know of another ALT.NET event being planned for Calgary in August, and Microsoft has invited me to facilitate another Open Space for them in the Fall in Redmond.
One event that I’m hoping to attend is the World Open Space on Open Space in July in San Francisco. Practitioners from around the world will be gathering to discuss OST in an Open Space. How cool will THAT be?
So it’s rolling and gaining momentum. I expect we’ll continue to see more Open Space events as more people become aware of it and familiar with it. I do my little bit whenever I can. In fact, when folks invite me to connect on LinkedIn, I send them a nice thank you email with a link to the Open Space page on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology). Guerilla marketing at its finest, eh?
Bender: Any last remarks?
Doc: Yeah.
I love Open Space.
