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How to find ideas for talks? 5 tested ways

Dec 09, 2016

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When asked about what’s stopping them from joining technical events as speakers, most software crafters mention both external and internal barriers. Among them, “lack of extensive speaking experience” and “I can’t identify a specific topic to talk on” are recurrent.

If this is your case as well, here are 5 tested way from our team to get your ideas in order.

#1. Think of your best area of expertise and identify what’s worth sharing with others.

#itakeunconf tip: our team of reviewers will help you improve your sessions if necessary.

#2. Get a group of friends or colleagues together. Having other people to brainstorm ideas can help a lot: you might discover ideas that you wouldn’t have thought otherwise.

#itakeunconf tip: whenever we feel blocked, we ask our colleagues opinions. This way, we know that we will advance faster and improve our work. 

#3. Identify specifically one practice or more from your area of expertise. What’s one important thing you are mastering and believe other practitioners should know? Why?

#itakeunconf tip: when applying to call for speakers, ask for feedback from the event team on your ideas. 

#4. Present your session in a dedicated meetup, with a smaller audience. This way you will gather feedback and discover some new perspective to approach the session.

#itakeunconf tip: no matter the city, there are countless active meetup groups in the technology field. For example, if interested in agile, lean and software craftsmanship, get involved in AgileWorks monthly meetup.

#5. What’s the most exciting thing you are currently working on? Write down what’s your current drive and why. What example can you make out of it and others would find it useful?

[ctt template=”12″ link=”Q5Hdc” via=”no” ]#itakeunconf tip: our team of reviewers will help you improve your sessions if necessary.[/ctt]

 

Show us your coding skills and experiments. You have time until December 15th to apply at Call for Speakers! 

 

Announcements

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock: Maintaining Your Code Clint Eastwood Style 

Dec 01, 2016

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock is the object design pioneer who invented the set of design practices known as Responsibility-Driven Design (RDD), the first behavioral approach to object design. She is the lead author of two software design books and design columnist for IEEE Software. By accident, she started the x-Driven Design meme (TDD, DDD, BDD…). Although best known for software design, she is has a passion simply expressing complex requirements and effectively communicating software architecture.

Rebecca shared with the audience how to maintain your code in the keynote address from the first edition of I T.A.K.E Unconference. Watch below her remarks!

 

Code. Craft. Learn. Share. Repeat. Call for Speakers for I T.A.K.E Unconference, 5th edition, is open! Apply here.

Tips

Get inspired: 5 TED talks to start with

Nov 11, 2016

We’ve just opened the Call for Speakers for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017. While preparing for next edition, we debated (again 🙂 ) what makes a talk memorable and thought-provoking.

In this context, here are 5 TED talks we’d like to share for your inspiration.

#1. Carol Dweck: The power of believing that you can improve

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

 

 

#2 Elon Musk – The Mind Behind Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity 

Entrepreneur Elon Musk is a man with many plans. The founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX sits down with TED curator Chris Anderson to share details about his visionary projects, which include a mass-marketed electric car, a solar energy leasing company and a fully reusable rocket.

 

#3. Linus Torvalds – The mind behind Linux

Linus Torvalds transformed technology twice — first with the Linux kernel, which helps power the Internet, and again with Git, the source code management system used by developers worldwide. In a rare interview with TED Curator Chris Anderson, Torvalds discusses with remarkable openness the personality traits that prompted his unique philosophy of work, engineering and life. “I am not a visionary, I’m an engineer,” Torvalds says. “I’m perfectly happy with all the people who are walking around and just staring at the clouds … but I’m looking at the ground, and I want to fix the pothole that’s right in front of me before I fall in.”

 

#4. Kevin Kelly – How technology evolves?

Tech enthusiast Kevin Kelly asks “What does technology want?” and discovers that its movement toward ubiquity and complexity is much like the evolution of life.

#5. Julian Treasure – How to speak so that people want to listen

Have you ever felt like you’re talking, but nobody is listening? Here’s Julian Treasure to help you fix that. As the sound expert demonstrates some useful vocal exercises and shares tips on how to speak with empathy, he offers his vision for a sonorous world of listening and understanding.

 

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Ready to inspire and challenge yourself the software minds?

Apply to Call for Speakers for I T.A.K.E Unconference 2017!

Announcements

I T.A.K.E Unconference news: pre-registration open!

Nov 08, 2016

Ready, steady, go – I T.A.K.E Unconference, 5th edition will take place in the rising tech city of Bucharest, 11-12 May, 2017! 

Code. Craft. Learn. Share. Repeat.

The growing community of top-notch software crafters is raising the bar in the tech industry. The speakers and participants are challenging the current practices, making experiments and trying new techniques.

The intense, dynamic program is including multiple tracks of practical, hands-on sessions, strong case studies, and personal experiences, delivered in an attractive manner.

While we are working on selecting the best proposals from 15 countries, here’s what you can do to save your seat at the best price:

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Wondering what to expect from 2017 edition? This is just a preview:

 

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Announcements

I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 – IInd day videos & slides

May 22, 2016

And…it’s a wrap: 2 days of intense & complex program, almost 300 participants, +30 sessions & +30 speakers. During the 2nd day of the event, 16 speakers from 11 countries shared their knowledge on Microservices, Autotesting & Design, Quality Practices, Architecture & Technical Leadership.

Watch the videos from the event here. Find below the presentations from day 2. The slides from day 1 are here.

 

Continous  Deployment

Andrey Adamovich – Patterns for infrastructure as a code

Tugberk Ugurlu – Zero Downtime Deployment Golden Rules & Docker Changes the Way You Develop and Release Your Scalable Solutions

Thierry de Pauw – Continuous Delivery is more than just Tooling_Its a Culture

Thomas Sundberg – Definition of Done – Working software in production

 

Autotesting & Design

Thomas Sundberg – How deep are your tests

Franziska Sauerwein Introduction to Outside in Test Driven Development (London School)

Alexandra Marin – Error-proof your mobile app

Ricardo Mendez – Flexibility Through Immutability

 

Quality Practices

Houssam Fakih – Never Develop Alone – always with a partner

Andrey Adamovich – Visualising Codebases

 

Architecture

Milen Dyankov – Microservices and Modularity

Clement Bouillier, Jean Hellou, Florent Pellet & Emilien Pecoul – Workshop around CQRS & Event sourcing 

 

Technical Leadership

Hugo Messer – How to successfully manage remote teams

Flavius Stef – Is management dead

 

A few thoughts  from the participants

  • Very glad I attended, well worth the trip from UK 
  • It was a very well organised event. I really enjoyed it, the speakers have been inspiring and well prepared 🙂 
  • It was a pleasant learning environment – I hope you will continue to bring high-quality speakers in the event

 

 

 

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Announcements

I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 – Ist day videos & slides

May 19, 2016

The first day of I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 was a great success: 18 speakers from 8 different countries shared insights and latest trends on 5 different stages.

Live coding sessions, the talks & workshops received an excellent feedback. Also, everyone got involved during the Open Space, Lightning Talks, Product Development Track & Kata Lounge. In the evening, the event continued informally at Dinner & Coding with a stranger.

You can watch the videos from the event here. Find below the slides from day one. Slides from day 2 are here.

 

Developer’s Life

Franziska SauwerwinRaising the Bar 

Houssam Fakih & Borris Gonnot – Metrics for Good Developers

Claudia Rosu – Developer experience to Testing

Alastair Smith – Express Yourself!

Monica Obogeanu – How We Use BDD to Keep our Developers Smiling

 

Software Design

Ionut G. StanLet’s write a Parser!

 

Microservices

Tim Perry – Microservice Pipeline Architecture

Yegor Bugayenko – Microservices as Chat Bots

Cristiana Voicu & Cristian Andrei – Openstack in the Enterprise and you get your money from it

Condoiu Iuliana – Microservices-what tools do we use

 

Continous Deployment

Philipp Krenn – Automate all things AWS with Ansible

 

DevOps 

Phillipp Krenn – Painfree object-document mapping with Elasticresearch 

 

 

Autotesting & Design

Nicolas Frankel – Mutation Testing to the rescue of your tests

Alastair Smith – Test-Driving Your Database

Andreas Leidig & Robin Danzinger – Who is testing the mocks

 

A few thoughts from the participants

  • First of all, I want to congratulate you for the organisation (…)  You can be proud of your work. I spent an amazing time and the return on the invested time is 5/5
  • Open talks were excellent for networking and ideas exchange
  • The Product Development track was a useful and pleasant experience

 

 

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Announcements

Code and win a cool gadget: Programming Contest

May 16, 2016

I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 is right ahead of us: almost 300 software crafters from Europe will challenge, change & improve the world of software craftsmanship.

This year edition offers the convergence of a technical-centric event combined with an audience of international top-notch participants, networking opportunities & a space where new ideas spark.

Are you up to a challenge?

But wait…this is not all. We’ve prepared for you a set of challenges that will put your coding skills to test. Join the programming contest, show your coding skills in a competition with software crafters across Europe & get the chance to win one of the cool prizes we have prepared: a Samsung Galaxy S7 (offered by Mozaic Works) or a Samsung Gear Smartwatch (offered by MozaicLabs).

 

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HOW THE PROGRAMMING CONTEST WORKS?

Well, this is simple. We try to automate the process as much as possible. For the moment the instructions are as simple as:
  • Register for THE contest on May 19 (the link to register will be communicated in the morning of 19th May)
  • Solve the challenges
  • Submit the solutions until May 20, 2 pm
Really cool: you can use ANY of the following programming languages: Java, C#, PHP, C++.

WHO WILL REVIEW YOUR CODE?

The Jury is built of Software Craftsman Fellows from Europe – names soon to be announced. They will grade each challenge you took. There will be just a few challenges, and taking all of them may lead you to the highest score. So the more you solve the closer to win.
Don’t miss the Programming Contest as well as many other hands-on sessions at I T.A.K.E. Unconference, 19-20 May, Bucharest.
Announcements

Node.JS OSS

May 09, 2016
Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining  I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 19-20 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field.

 

Alexandru Badiu, Development Lead at Branded Entertainment Network, will share more in his talk at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 about maintaining a Node.JS OSS package. 
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#1. Share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow & become the professional you are today

  • I got the chance to work with technology from a very early age (think ZX Spectrum, Intel 8088) and also with assembly language. This taught me to appreciate constraints and never ignore optimization or be lazy.
  • Discovering OSS via the Allegro game library lead me to a wealth of code to analyze and learn from.
  • Getting a job in the IT department at the university while being a student there leading to four years of experimenting with whatever I wanted to.
  • Teaching at the same university.
  • Getting involved in the Drupal community, taking part in the creation of Romanian branch, organizing various camps and teaching Drupal.

 

#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016?

How to simplify your development workflow.

 

#3. What else would you like to share with participants

  • I am a very bad theremin player. The theremin was the first electronic instrument ever invented and you play it by not touching it. Check it out, it’s pretty cool.
  • I am passionate about synthesizers, old hardware and horror movies.
  • I am an amateur musician using Gameboys, Commodore 64 sound chips and other retro things. I once played music in the Gara de Nord railway, at the info panel.
  • I like to ride statues (usually of pigs) while pretending to be Bastian from the Neverending Story.

 

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Want to join Alexandru and many more software crafters from around Europe?

Join I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016!

Announcements

Docker & Zero Downtime Deployment rules

May 06, 2016
Enjoy the following series of interviews with the speakers, top-notch software crafters from across Europe, joining  I T.A.K.E Unconference, Bucharest, 19-20 May. Discover the lessons learned and what drives them to challenge the known path in their field. 

 

Tugberk Ugurlu, Software Developer at Redgate Software, will share at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016 about how docker changes the way you can work with and release your microservices & zero downtime deployment golden rules.i-take-unconference-speaker.011

#1. Share with us 5 things you did that helped you grow & become the professional you are today

  • Read and try stuff
  • Be part of the software community
  • Ask questions
  • Coding outside the work (side projects, open source contributions, etc.)
  • Learn by teaching (speaking at conferences, writing blogs posts, etc.)

 

#2. What challenges will the participants find solutions to during your session at I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016?

Both of my talks are overcoming the challenges of modern software products. Zero-downtime deployment session will empathize on the possibility of always-up systems and making continuous deployment more adoptable. There are a few things to watch out on this space and I am hoping to highlight on that by giving examples and demos on my real world experiences.

The docker session will get you a higher level on how a tool can make a difference on developing and releasing products, in this case microservices.

 

#3. What else would you like to share with participants

I like to be part of the software community. So, I produce a lot. You can follow my activity on my blog and GitHub account.

I love traveling and discovering new places. I am a huge Formula 1 fan.

 

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Want to join Tugberk and many more software crafters from around Europe?

Join I T.A.K.E Unconference 2016