Interviews Conversations on Craft

Video description: Interview with Jez Humble at GOTO Conference 2014 on devops culture at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Explore the world of log aggregation and data collection through FluentD, a powerful tool discussed by Kiyoto Tamura, a lead maintainer, at RailsConf 2014. FluentD, written in Ruby, serves as a lightweight and extensible log aggregator used by major companies like SlideShare and Nintendo. In this video, we summarize Tamura's insights into FluentD, covering its features, origin, community involvement, and how it's making a significant impact in the realm of log management. Key Points: Introduction to FluentD: Understand what a log aggregator and collector is and how FluentD, with its extensible plugin architecture, efficiently handles various log types from Apache Engine, NGinx, Syslogs, and Application Logs. Origin and Community: Learn how Tamura's involvement began at Treasure Data, the creators of FluentD, and the journey from its closed origins to becoming an open-source success. Discover the diverse community, boasting 50 regular contributors and a user base spanning the globe. Getting Started: Explore how individuals interested in log aggregation can engage with FluentD, including guidance on navigating the GitHub repository, visiting the official website, and installing FluentD for immediate exploration in Ruby. Accessibility and Ease of Use: Discover how FluentD, despite being system software, is designed to be approachable for developers new to Ruby. It's a valuable learning opportunity for those interested in writing plugins, thanks to its concise codebase and an active community mailing list for support. Conclusion: Uncover the recommendation to dive into the source code to understand FluentD's functionality due to its simplicity, despite potential improvements in code documentation. FluentD offers a great opportunity for developers, log management enthusiasts, and those interested in efficient log aggregation and data collection. Join us in exploring this powerful tool and delve deeper into its functionality and community support. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more insightful content on log management and tech tools!

Video description: http://gotocon.com/chicago-2015/presentation/Level%20Up%20Your%20Automated%20Tests

Video description: Interview with Rebecca Parsons at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Attila Szegedi at GOTO Conference 2015 on Nashorn and JavaScript runtime design on the JVM. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: http://gotocon.com/chicago-2015/speaker/Anita+Sengupta She's helped put stuff on Mars and that's still pretty rad.

Video description: Interview with Vyacheslav Egorov at GOTO Conference 2015 on benchmarking JavaScript performance across runtimes. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Max De Marzi at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Matthew Brender at GOTO Conference 2015 on navigating unstructured data and distributed data architecture. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Mads Torgersen at GOTO Conference 2015 on the future of C# language features. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Kyle Kingsbury at GOTO Conference 2015 on database consistency, failure modes, and Jepsen-style testing. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Justin Meyer at GOTO Conference 2015 on building single-page applications the right way. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Jerry Cattell at GOTO Conference 2015 on Chicago DevOps community organizing and culture. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Jay Fields at GOTO Conference 2015 on unselfish testing and effective engineering feedback loops. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Greg Baugues at GOTO Conference 2015 on creative engineering demos using APIs and automation. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Gil Tene at GOTO Conference 2015 on faster Java objects and JVM performance engineering. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Dmitri at GOTO Conference 2015 on Apache Ignite and distributed in-memory data systems. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Dean Wampler is a technology surfer, always riding the lip of the curve. Dean is a frequent speaker on AOP, Functional Programming with Scala, and Big Data as well as a user-group founder and author. Most recently he’s started the Chicago-Area Scala Enthusiasts (CASE) group. If you’re interested in Scala you need to checkout “Programming Scala” by Dean Wampler & Alex Payne.

Video description: Really good guy that helped support my early Patreon with a donation that enabled me to purchase a Final Cut Pro license. Which I did purchase and used for some of the later videos, you might notice a change in the later interviews versus earlier work. Really appreciated his early support getting UGtastic into GOTO conference for interviews. I would have quit doing the interviews sooner if it wasn't for him but ultimately it got to be too much and I did have to stop. Files got lost, sites went down, domains expired, and it has been painful trying to dig back up the old videos and templates. I'm posting these raw interview videos because they are long overdue and either will never be finished or just lost forever. Better to just publish than be forgotten. Thanks Dave for your support, it really meant a lot to me.

Video description: Interview with Dave Duggal at GOTO Conference 2015 on distributed process systems and data-driven architecture. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Corey Haines at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Chad Fowler at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Bob Pollin at GOTO Conference 2015 on devops for kids and local developer community outreach. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Alexandra Masterson at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: The Reactive Framework (Rx) is a programming model for dealing with asynchronous data streams, specifically in the context of distributed computing. It was developed by Erik Meijer while he was working at Microsoft and has since become an open-source project. Rx provides a set of libraries and tools for composing asynchronous and event-based programs using observable sequences and LINQ-style query operators. It is designed to allow developers to easily build responsive and resilient systems that can handle high volumes of data and handle failures gracefully. Rx is implemented in a number of programming languages, including C#, Java, and JavaScript, and has been widely adopted in the software industry.

Video description: Rich Hickey is the creator of the Clojure programming language, a dialect of Lisp that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). He released Clojure to the Lisp mailing list and it gained popularity through word of mouth and online communities. Hickey believes that the fact that Clojure runs on the stable and well-established JVM has contributed to its success, as it allows users to try something new while still maintaining a connection to the technologies they are familiar with. Hickey also discusses the importance of simplicity and concision in programming languages and the role of language design in enabling programmers to solve problems more effectively.

Video description: Interview with Tim Bray at GOTO Conference 2014 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Ryan Gerry at GOTO Conference 2014 on community building and user-group organizing. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Richard Lee at GOTO Conference 2014 on contributor to openstack at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Michael T Nygard at GOTO Conference 2014 on five years of devops at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Max De Marzi at GOTO Conference 2014 on community building and user-group organizing. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with John Jarosz & Coleman Collins at GOTO Conference 2014 on building ecosystems at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Fred Guime at GOTO Conference 2014 on community building and user-group organizing. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Fred George at GOTO Conference 2014 on programmer anarchy at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Emily Rosengren at GOTO Conference 2014 on user groups and thoughtworks at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Courtney Hemphill at GOTO Conference 2014 on mixing lean & agile development at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Cindy Sprague at GOTO Conference 2014 on lead organizer with goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Camille Fournier at GOTO Conference 2014 on rewriting software at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Alex Rutkowski & Joel Friedman at GOTO Conference 2014 on remote pairing at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Aino Vonge Corry at GOTO Conference 2014 on speaker introducer at goto chicago 2014. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Adrian Cockcroft gave a keynote speech at GOTO Chicago 2014. In his talk, he discussed the importance of speed in innovation and how disruptions in industries often occur when an incumbent company makes assumptions about certain things being expensive or hard to do, only for a disrupter to come along and take advantage of those things becoming cheap and easy. Cockcroft used examples such as open source software and solid state disk storage to illustrate his points. He also talked about the shift in the software industry from traditional enterprise companies to end users being the source of the best, most reliable software.

Video description: Interview with Russ Olsen at GOTO Conference 2014 on Ruby and Rails practice. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Justin Collins at RailsConf 2014 on Brakeman and Rails security. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Bill Scott leads the UI Engineering at PayPal and was before with NetFlix and Yahoo. He is also the author of O’Reilly book Designing Web Interfaces whose animal is the Cock-of-the-rock thus allowing us to rediscover that we’re both still 12 years old. Bill chats about the ongoing work inside…

Video description: Interview with Coraline Ada Ehmke at RailsConf 2014 on Artis and engineering leadership. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Farrah Bostic at RailsConf 2014 on The Difference Engine and keynote perspective. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Evan Light at RailsConf 2014 on DCamp and developer community building. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Evan Phoenix at RailsConf 2014 on Rubinius, Puma App Server, and Ruby VM design. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Richard Schneeman at RailsConf 2014 on Heroku, open source, and Rails operations. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Yehuda Katz and Tom Dale at RailsConf 2014 on Ember.js and frontend architecture. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Ola Bini at GOTO Conference 2013 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Alexander Dymo at RailsConf 2014 on Ruby performance. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Carlos Antonio da Silva at RailsConf 2014 on Rails core maintenance. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Obie Fernandez at RailsConf 2014 on The Rails Way and consulting practice. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Aaron Patterson at RailsConf 2014 on Rails core and keynote perspective. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Anita Sengupta at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Charles Nutter at GOTO Conference 2015 on conference speaking and presentation skills. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Gary Bernhardt at Software Craftsmanship North America (SCNA) on talk design, software communication, community dynamics, and sustaining creative work in public.

Video description: Anna Lear is a Community Manager with Stack Exchange. We chat a bit about how she … Continue reading

Video description: Interview with Anthony Zinni & Jon Buda & Shay Howe on developer community and conference conversations. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Hadi is a developer evangelist with JetBrains and has observed and spoken with a lot of developers in the wild over the years. One of the things he’s observed is the stereotype of the anti-social geek isn’t too far from the truth for a large part of our profession. Hadi proposes that we need to encourage openness, communication, humility, and awareness of the global picture beyond our own jobs.

Video description: Interview with James Edward Gray II on developer community and conference conversations. This recording captures practical lessons and perspective for software teams and technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Sandro Mancuso at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include software craftsmanship, Agile methods, testing practice.

Video description: Interview with Sarah Gray at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on conference speaking and presentation skills. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Interview with Micah Martin at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include software craftsmanship.

Video description: Interview with Stuart Halloway at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on clojure and functional programming. Themes include Clojure, Ruby, Python.

Video description: Interview with Amitai Schlair at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on open source and project maintenance. Themes include Ruby, open source, software craftsmanship.

Video description: Interview with Chet Hendrickson & Ron Jefferies at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include Agile methods.

Video description: Dave Thomas was in town and took the time to speak with me about the GOTO conference and provide insight into the work he’s doing world wide to build broad spectrum technical communities.

Video description: Interview with Adewale Oshineye at Software Craftsmanship North America (SCNA) on developer advocacy, documenting and sharing learning, and finding the right communities where technical contribution adds value.

Video description: Interview with Angelique Martin at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Stephen Anderson at Software Craftsmanship North America 2013 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Rails.

Video description: Governments are slowly becoming more technologically aware and accessible. An early leader in the Open Government movement, Daniel X. O’Neil explains how we got to where we are and how he plans on putting data into the hands of the people.

Video description: Interview with Ashe Dryden on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Mike Stringer on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Michael and I chat about building a technical event that is open enough for even non-techies to come out and have a good time. Kalamazoo X is a “soft-skills” conference targeted at developers. We discuss what types of speakers he looks for for Kalamazoo X and how he works with them to fit the framework of the conference. By keeping talks time down to a short 20 minutes the attention and energy level is better and can be kept up across multiple speakers. The duration helps avoid the drop in atten

Video description: I bumped into Sam at SCNA 2012 and had a nice but short conversation about tech culture in Iran and what the tech community scene looks like. Iran is a country that is frequently focused on in US news for political reasons. Getting to talk with Sam was a great reminder that despite all the rhetoric by our governments; there are people who are interested in the same things as me and other programmers around the world.

Video description: Interview with Aaron Holbrook about launching the McHenry County WordPress Meetup, growing local WordPress community participation, and practical guidance for beginners.

Video description: Interview with Joel Clermont on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Charles Oliver Nutter on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Ruby, open source, Clojure.

Video description: Interview with Arthur Kay on web development and frontend practice. Themes include JavaScript, web development.

Video description: Interview with James Edward Grey III on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Ruby, Rails.

Video description: Interview with Avdi Grimm on podcasting and community media. Themes include open source, Ruby, technical media.

Video description: Interview with Andrea Magnorsky on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include technical media, .NET.

Video description: Interview with Justin Searls at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby, testing practice, JavaScript.

Video description: Interview with Colin Jones at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on developer education and learning. Themes include Clojure, open source.

Video description: Interview with Carl Erickson at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on web development and frontend practice. Themes include web development.

Video description: Interview with Brian Marick at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include Agile methods, testing practice.

Video description: Interview with Brad Wilkening at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include open source.

Video description: Interview with Zach Dennis at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Rails, testing practice.

Video description: Interview with Tim Murphy at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Interview with Sarah Allen & Desi McAdam at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Rails, Ruby, open source.

Video description: Interview with Sandro Mancuso at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on software craftsmanship and practice. Themes include software craftsmanship, Clojure, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Mark Simpson at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include testing practice, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Culley Smith at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include testing practice, Agile methods, Rails.

Video description: Interview with Cory Foy at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby, Rails, software craftsmanship.

Video description: Interview with Robert Martin at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Patrick Welsh shares the concept of network weaving and how the idea of connecting multiple social groups can have really amazing results.

Video description: Interview with Jen Meyers at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on developer education and learning. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Leon is just one of those guys who has a good time programming and wants you to know that it’s okay for you to have a good time too.

Video description: Interview with Mike Clement at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby, software craftsmanship.

Video description: Interview with Matt Polito at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Adewale Oshineye at Software Craftsmanship North America (SCNA) on apprenticeships, mentorship, and how user-group communities accelerate learning through shared practice and experimentation.

Video description: Interview with Gary Bernhardt at Software Craftsmanship North America (SCNA) on talk design, software communication, community dynamics, and sustaining creative work in public.

Video description: Interview with Mike Jansen at Software Craftsmanship North America 2012 on developer education and learning. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Tim Ottinger chats about how he co-authored the Agile in a Flash set of flashcards.The Agile in a Flash cards were born from the idea that people are smarter than we think and can be taught the core concepts in a concentrated format. Distill the ideas into key axioms and let people go from there.

Video description: Interview with Aaron Bedra on the Clojure Koans project, teaching approaches for learning Clojure, and his broader education work in the Clojure community.

Video description: Interview with Igor Polevoy on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Ruby, Rails, web development.

Video description: Melissa Castello is a trained, professional interviewer who’s worked interviewing people in the professional poker and horse racing circuits. She’s gotten a chance to travel all over and hone her interviewing skills in sometimes high-pressure situations.

Video description: Interview with JC Grubbs at ChicagoWebConf 2012 on web development and frontend practice. Themes include JavaScript.

Video description: Interview with Kumar McMillian at ChicagoWebConf 2012 on open source and project maintenance. Themes include open source, web development.

Video description: Jonathan Baltz runs the Chicago Heroku and Chicago Force.com Developers user-groups. We discuss the differences and similarities between the types of people who gravitate to the two different meetings.

Video description: Interview with Joe Hirn at ChicagoWebConf 2012 on developer education and learning. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Interview with Aaron Kalin at Chicago Web Conf on moderating technical panels, balancing moderator and panelist roles, and techniques for guiding productive audience discussion.

Video description: Interview with Andy Lester at ChicagoWebConf 2012 on open source and project maintenance. Themes include open source, testing practice, web development.

Video description: Interview with Martin Atkins at ChicagoWebConf 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Corey Haines on clojure and functional programming. Themes include Clojure, testing practice, Ruby.

Video description: Paul Baker co-organizes the Open Government Chicago(-land) user group. He’s been an active organizer for government data projects and lead the Chicago Lobbyist project that was not only a beautiful site but brought a great deal of transparency to how money is allocated by lobbyist’s in Chicago.

Video description: Interview with Sean Massa & Todd Larsen on web development and frontend practice. Themes include JavaScript, .NET, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Mike Busch on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Angelique Martin on software craftsmanship and practice. Themes include software craftsmanship, Agile methods, Extreme Programming.

Video description: While most tech conference speakers tend to present on purely technical content, Steve Klabnik likes to take a more thoughtful approach to the software industry. Steve presented on Literate Code at WindyCityRails 2011 and in 2012 presented Development and Philosophy. I think it’s very worthwhile to spend at least a bit of time thinking *about* our industry as it relates to us personally and to society at large is a very good thing.

Video description: Noel Rappin has a long history speaking and teaching even before he joined the TDD community. Noel has co-authored books for Python, Ruby+Rails and now he’s focusing on teaching testing concepts in JavaScript through the “Master Space and Time With JavaScript” series.

Video description: Evan Light created the very cool Ruby DCamp “unconference” that takes techies out from their urban confines and get’s them out to code & collaborate in the great wilderness outside of D.C.

Video description: Interview with Eric MacAdie at WindyCityRails 2012 on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Ruby, testing practice, Rails.

Video description: Interview with Stephen Anderson at WindyCityRails 2012 on ruby and rails practice. Themes include Rails, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Jim Remsik at WindyCityRails 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Ginny Hendry started as a member of ChicagoRuby and before she knew it she was running Ruby Hackfests and now she’s helping facilitate Railsbridge Womens Outreach workshops.

Video description: Not everyone who is involved in running a technical user-conference is a programmer. Adam Grandy is the “A-V Guy” for the WindyCityRails conference. While most of us are watching the conference for entertainment and education, Adam is carefully watching every second of the conference to keep the speaker in focus and make sure that all the valuable information that’s being shared is captured in high-quality, professional-level video. Adam is one of those unsung people that puts in a great deal of

Video description: Interview with Movie on 9-6-12 at 1.05 PM at WindyCityRails 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Interview with Benjamin Oakes at WindyCityRails 2012 on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Brian Liles at WindyCityRails 2012 on conference speaking and presentation skills. Themes include Rails, Ruby, testing practice.

Video description: Interview with Ryan Singer at WindyCityRails 2012 on Ruby and Rails practice. Themes include Rails, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Kevin Zolkiewiecz at WindyCityRails 2012 on ruby and rails practice. Themes include Rails, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Milan Dobrota and Jen Lindner on Tribune Tech's community engagement, including hosting local meetups and connecting Tribune engineering with Chicago user groups.

Video description: Justin Love is very active in the Chicago Ruby & JavaScript communities. He’s also starting up a “Demo Days” group out in the far suburbs of Chicago to help with aspiring entrepreneurs learn how to pitch their ideas.

Video description: I needed a place holder for a video so might as well take it as a moment to properly pronounce "UGtastic" once and for all.

Video description: After a couple months of fighting schedules Ethan, Ryan and myself were able to sit down and chat about the work they're doing on Gathers.us and the ChicagoDB. This video is actually the second as we had a technical difficulty with the first recording. I really appreciate that we were able to finally get this interview recorded! Oh, and they did end up getting some chicken.

Video description: I stopped by the Chicago Software Craftsmanship meeting and got a chance to chat with Steve Kim and Jim Suchy. Steve and Jim run the Chicago Software Craftsmanship group at the 8th Light office in downtown Chicago. This interview is a little bit chaotic because we did the interview as people were beginning to file in for the meeting.

Video description: Geekfest was considered the heart of Obtiva and since the acquisition by Groupon it has grown from a small group of developers to what feels almost like a weekly mini-conference. Dave Hoover chats with me about the origin and growth of Geekfest.

Video description: Interview with John & Shay & Tony with the Refresh Chicago community on refresh chicago. Themes include web development.

Video description: Dave Thomas was in town and took the time to speak with me about GOTO conference and provide insight into the work he's doing world wide to build broad spectrum technical communities.

Video description: Brian Ray (@brianray) took the time to sit down before the April 2012 ChiPy (pronounced Chippy) and chat about the Chicago Python community.

Video description: Scott Seely runs a .NET users' group up in Grayslake, IL. He's also extremely active in the Chicago-land Microsoft Developer community that Microsoft recognized him as a Regional Director. He explains why he founded LCNUG and what exactly is a "Regional Director".

Video description: Pat Paasch and Clark Sell founded angleBracket, a hands-on web-tech focused hackfest type users' group up in the Far Northern Suburbs of Chicago. I attended a meeting and then recorded the interview at a post-meeting get-together at a local bar. Not the best sound quality but the meeting was a lot of fun and provided a great opportunity to spend a little time pairing and hacking on a variety of things in a relatively short time.

Video description: Interview with Charler Baker at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on denver community. Themes include Ruby, Agile methods, web development.

Video description: Interview with Bobby Johnson at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on south sound .net. Themes include testing practice.

Video description: Interview with Zach Shaw at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on boston sc. Themes include software craftsmanship.

Video description: Interview with London Software Craftsmanship at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on community building and user-group organizing. Themes include software craftsmanship, Ruby, technical leadership.

Video description: Interview with Max Lancaster at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on dc alt.net. Themes include JavaScript, technical leadership, Rails.

Video description: Interview with Michael Norton at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on cleveland & pittsburgh community. Themes include Agile methods, Ruby.

Video description: Interview with Ray Hightower at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on chicagoruby. Themes include Ruby, Rails.

Video description: Interview with Drew Shefman at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on houston adobe user group. The conversation captures practical lessons shared at the event.

Video description: Interview with Ross at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on south bend software craftsmanship. Themes include Ruby, software craftsmanship, Python.

Video description: Interview with Dustin Updyke at Software Craftsmanship North America 2011 on pittsburgh sc. Themes include Ruby, software craftsmanship.

Video description: My first interview for Ugtastic is with Sergio Pereira who runs the Chicago Alt.NET group. Chicago Alt.NET holds a special place in my heart as it's the first user-group I attended and the first user-group I ever spoke at. Sergio shares his feelings on providing a platform for developers who may not otherwise have an opportunity to get up and share their experience and passions via Chicago Alt.NET. This was my first interview so comments and tips are welcome. Sergio is a great sport and I really appreciate him taking the time to sit down and chat about Chicago Alt.NET.