A couple years ago, I wrote a post that was very popular with conference organizers called “10 Conference Talks I’d Love to Give“. This was great for both myself and organizers because if they were looking for a specific talk that no one had submitted, this offered a wide selection.
With that in mind, I’ve updated that list for 2018 with talks we’d like to give to conferences, meetups and even clients. These encompass the topics that we help clients with at Alpha Particle and that we see as growing in importance in 2018 and beyond.
Do you run a conference where one of these talks would fit into your schedule? Or maybe you’re looking to start a lunch-and-learn session at your company. Reach out (keanan@alphaparticle.com) and let’s talk about how we could make one of these sessions work.
The Web is Mobile First: What are your options besides an app?
The web has been transitioning to more and more mobile-heavy use for years. Now the “mobile-first” web is finally here and any company not providing a mobile experience is lacking in their offering. But, going the route of developing a full mobile app isn’t the only way to take part in this mobile web. In this talk we’ll look at progressive web apps, responsive websites, and hybrid apps as options to take your business to your mobile customers.
How Voice Interfaces will Transform Marketing in 2018
The next generation of devices is here, and they’re all voice enabled. With the rise of technologies like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana, businesses need to think about how to structure their offerings to be compatible with these interfaces. This talk will explore how voice search is influencing SEO and customer acquisition as well as how to adapt to give customers a viable voice-interface option to interact with your services.
Selling DevOps To Non-Technical Management
DevOps principles are great but can be tough to introduce to a legacy development process. Our team was once called into a project that had taken 5 years with nothing to show for it. The project now needed to launch in 6 months. We had to make huge changes under management that was used to a more traditional workflow. This transformation allowed us to fit in the new timeline and exceed expectations. This talk will be a look at how we introduced a build system, updated version control practices and changed communication standards at a company with a decade old toolset and mindset. We’ll also examine how a fragile server provisioning and rigid deploys were transitioned to a more fluid DevOps model. Together, these changes resulted in greater development velocity and a much smoother process from ticket to deploy.
Hiring the Developer Your Team Needs
Hiring is hard, especially when looking for developers to build out a team.You may not need the absolute transcendent developers, but you need whoever you hire to compliment your existing team. To this end, it’s important to know what kind of developer you’re hiring and how your candidates fit into the various developer “tropes”. Do you need a senior developer who can lead the project? Can you leverage your existing talent in mentor roles by hiring more junior developers to build out the team? We’ll look at how to keep the structure of your team in mind when hiring and at where to find developers outside the usual hiring channels. No “rockstar” job descriptions allowed.
What is The Cloud?
Cloud technologies and environments have become the defacto standard for deploying new applications. All these different technologies can be confusing. In this talk, we’ll look at some of the most popular use cases for cloud technology, how to transition existing apps and web products to the cloud and how all the different pieces can fit together to reduce costs and time to market for new features and infrastructure changes.
It Takes a Village: From Intern to Lead Developer
Many of the newest employees in the tech industry (myself included) begin at the intern level. To accommodate the various transitions this journey entails, it’s important to find mentors, both internal and external to the organization. This talk examines my journey from intern to lead developer at a digital agency for those looking to make this journey and how to be the resource your junior coworkers most need for those that are already there.
Unlocking a Faster Development Workflow with Automation
Ever feel like you’re performing the same tasks again and again? Usually, these are things like manually deploying code, running the same repetitive commands in the command line, or writing the same snippets of code over and over in your editor. In this talk, we’ll look at automating deploys, creating shortcuts in the command line for commonly used commands, and even making your code editor smart enough to auto-complete some of your code for you. Come learn how to better use the tools you already have to become a faster and more productive developer!
The Accidental Lead Developer
When I began my career as a developer, I was focused on the little things: how an algorithm works, the exact syntax for the language you’re writing in, why an answer on Stackoverflow broke my code, and all the other roadblocks along the way. As I advanced in my career and little things like syntax and common errors stopped getting in my way as often, I could be more focused on what my code was actually doing. Then suddenly, I found myself working on a project that was a little different. There were two developers more junior than me on the project team, I was working with the client’s technology team, and there was no senior developer assigned to my project. I had accidentally become the Lead Developer.
Many tech leads come into the role not on purpose but by being the best fit for the role on a certain project. In this talk, I’ll tell the story of how I became a tech lead out of necessity and how you can avoid some of my mistakes.
Open Source for Non-Developers
Open source software is taking the world by storm and by now, most of us use at least one open source tool every day. But, joining that community of people who use and contribute to open source tools can seem daunting. It doesn’t have to be! In this talk, we’ll dive into what open source software really is, how tools like Github make collaborating on software easy, and walk through an example of how you can contribute to the tools you use every day, without writing a line of code!
Don’t Let the Command Line Scare You
Early in your development career, you might run across an answer on StackOverflow that gives you some commands to run in the command line. Or you might just have ssh access to a server without FTP to fall back on. Working in the command line doesn’t have to be scary and often, it can help you be a more efficient and effective developer.
In this talk, we’ll explore the basics of getting around the command line and some common situations you’ll run into. These will include deploying your site, navigating a remote server, and speeding up your local development workflow!
If you’re interested in adding any of these into your curriculum as either a conference or Meetup organizer or looking to bring some new knowledge to your team, use the contact form below to get in touch and let’s talk soon!