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Keynote Speakers
Developing at the Pace of Business
Michael Cloran, CEO, Interactions
Interactions is a business that has been enabled by recent technology development. In this keynote address, Michael will demo Interactions’ voice hybrid solution, will talk about the technology hurdles the company had to overcome, and the current technology and business challenges it faces today. To compete today, technology needs to be built on a solid foundation that enables rapid development of new features. In addition, development teams need to not only deliver on existing platforms and solving today’s problems, they need to be innovating along the way to remain competitive. Understanding development principles that allow for high-quality rapid development, the ability to communicate risks and tradeoffs to the business, and figuring out how to continually innovate while doing it is what will be required to develop at the pace of today’s business.
As founder of Interactions, Michael’s vision and leadership help drive the strategic direction of the company and its service. After starting his career at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in 1990, Michael went on to become an independent consultant to Boehringer Mannheim, IBM, Aerotraining, Quant Trading and, eventually Accenture itself. In 1995 he co-founded EnterAct, a successful Chicagoland Internet service provider. EnterAct was sold in 1999 to 21st Century Telecom Group where Michael simultaneously assumed the roles of President, Business Services Group (EnterAct) and VP of Sales and Service. When 21st Century was bought by RCN, Michael assumed the role of Senior Vice President for Product Management and Development at RCN in Princeton, NJ. Realizing the great untapped technical and process improvement possibilities in these customer service intensive businesses led to the key insights behind the radical approach of the Interactions service.
“Watch The Fine Video” is the new “RTFM”
Why automated screencasting will not only impress your friends, but fundamentally change your attitude towards testing and documentation.
Jason Huggins
Now almost 30 years old, the modern software industry was born with the release of the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. By comparison, when the American film industry reached its 30th birthday in the late 1920s, “talkies” were the next big thing, signaling the end of the silent movie era. The addition of sound to film instantly changed how filmmakers communicated with their audiences. For the software industry, screencasts—video demonstrations streamed over the web—are changing how software developers communicate with current and potential clients, customers, and key project stakeholders.
In his talk, Jason will explore why scripted, automated video screencasts are much more effective than text-based documentation for demonstrating new software features and for tracking team progress in an agile development environment. He’ll also show how similar techniques are already widespread in the film industry for tracking film production progress. Jason will also demonstrate his latest project, combining screencast video production techniques with test automation tools, such as Selenium, to repurpose traditional user interface test scripts into useful up-to-date project documentation that is both fun to watch and fun to create.
