MinneBar 10 Session Schedule

A recent WSJ article titled "Minnesota’s New Cool Image as ‘the North" has stoked the discussions around declaring a new “North” region of the US and the Twin Cities serving as its "capital". While this discussion is fascinating in and of itself, how would this change specifically affect the local startup community?

Join Carson Kipfer (Co-Founder & Chief Evangelist @ SportNgin), Eric Dayton (Co-Founder of The Bachelor Farmer & Askov Finlayson), and Ryan Broshar (Founder & Managing Partner @ Matchstick Ventures) as we discuss the effects of moving out of the shadow of Chicago and the Midwest and into a the new "North" frontier.

Programmers-- are you sick of passing around state?

How much time do you spend maintaining state variables, tracking state variable values across multiple threads and asynchronous callbacks, and painstakingly caring for state variables until you accidentally feed one after midnight and it turns into a gremlin?

In many languages, it seems like our job as programmers is becoming more about passing state around than it is about writing business logic. Much of this is due to the added complexity caused by asynchronous callbacks.

Reactive to the Rescue

There is another option. It is new paradigm called "reactive programming."

Reactive programming treats data variables as flows or streams of events over time. These event streams can be combined, filtered, mapped, and manipulated in many ways.

Reactive programming borrows ideas from functional languages like Haskell and Scala. However, the difficulty of writing programs with reactive extensions is greatly reduced because programs are still allowed to use easy concepts of "imperative" languages like variables, looping, and side effects.

Programming with streams requires far fewer state variables, offers thread safety benefits, and does not suffer from "callback hell."

Who Uses This?

There are plenty of lesser-known companies who use reactive extensions. But there are more than a few household names as well.

"Netflix is a big believer in the Rx model, because Rx has made it much easier for us to build complex asynchronous programs. RxJava is effective on the server for us and it spreads deeper into our code the more we use it."

"Reactive Extensions is a set of libraries that makes asynchronous programming a lot easier. If asynchronous spaghetti code were a disease, Rx is the cure.”

"Using Rx and ReactiveUI, we've written a fast, nearly 100% asynchronous, responsive application, while still having 100% deterministic, reliable unit tests. The desktop developers at GitHub loved Rx so much that the Mac team created their own version and are now using it on the Mac to obtain similar benefits." What We'll Cover

We will start by discussing Java 8 streams. This will provide a quick introduction to the concepts.

Then we'll dive into Netflix's library providing reactive extensions to Java, RxJava. RxJava can do everything Java 8 streams can do, but do it asynchronously.

Finally, we'll explore Elm, a functional reactive programming language for the web that offers both two-way data binding similar to AngularJS and some truly unique features-- hot-swapping of running code and a time-traveling debugger. Elm's unusual features allow a programmer to make and observe program changes while the live program is running.

Will I Benefit?

You should understand the concepts of programming in at least one language. Reactive extensions exist for more than a dozen languages, including the following list. These extensions offer a real paradigm shift for authoring asynchronous code, handling errors, and managing state.

• Java: RxJava
• JavaScript: RxJS
• C#: Rx.NET
• C#(Unity): UniRx
• Scala: RxScala
• Clojure: RxClojure
• C++: RxCpp
• Ruby: Rx.rb
• Python: RxPY
• Groovy: RxGroovy
• JRuby: RxJRuby
• Kotlin: RxKotlin
• Cocoa: ReactiveCocoa

True functional reactive programming (FRP) languages like Elm provide a real WOW factor for those who have never witnessed a time-traveling debugger in use. As a programmer, it would be hard to walk away from this session without learning something interesting.

I gave an Android-specific version of this talk in front of over 100 developers at AnDevCon 2014 in San Francisco and 96% of attendees gave positive reviews. Several tweeted that this talk was one of their favorites at the convention.

Learn more at ReactiveX.

What is this whole DevOps thing you've heard about? It somehow involves developers and sysadmins, but what is this mythical beast and how do you ride it?

This session will show you what DevOps is all about from a conceptual and technological level, and dig into the benefits to you, your team, and your company.

It serves as a (hopefully interesting) 101-level survey of the content you can expect at DevOpsDays Minneapolis in July.

If you've attended any DevOpsDays events in the past or already practice DevOps, please join to share your perspective on how it works for you and learn what others are doing.

is the title missing a coma? is your sleepy hollow? morning would be easier if you slept better. a crash course in the lullabasics of sleep hygiene, falling asleep quickly, sleeping soundly and waking rested.

What makes a Lab-Style Team? Join UX Designers, Researchers, and Prototypers Rob Stenzinger and Arthur Beisang for a talk about life, change, tools, and techniques involved being a member of a Lab-Style team at Target.

The container hoopla has swept the technology industry in the past year. But, it’s still the early days for containers. Containers are core to what Google does. Google spins up more than two billion containers a week - it knows how to manage containers at scale.

Now Google is looking to take the lead in this growing market. Google was the first big vendor out with a container product with their announcements at Google Cloud Platform Live in November 2014. Since then, the dust continues to stir.

Come and learn how containers are helping us to move toward a future of widespread Platform-as-a-Service. This presentation will address the following questions:

• What are containers?
• Why is this so important to Google’s Cloud Platform strategy?
• Why didn’t this happen earlier?
• How will containers change the way I develop and deploy applications?
• I develop on AppEngine: Aren’t I already developing in containers?
• What are other Platform-as-a-Service platforms doing?

According to LinkedIn’s insights team, approximately 6,550 people with game development skills have migrated from Minnesota in the past two years. This is a whopping -5% net loss of all individuals in our region with tech expertise making game development the #3 skill to leave our region.

We all know that there are few career opportunities for budding game creators here in Minnesota but what should be done to support the growth of this industry? What key players should be involved in these conversations?

This session will be an interactive discussion. Come prepared to share your thoughts, ideas, and potential action items.

“Free” and “open source” software forms the core building blocks of major business platforms and software distributions everywhere. Open source software is available under a range of licenses that give you freedom to obtain, use and distribute the software in your own programs; but with this freedom come some conditions, ranging from simple attribution for some licenses to providing source code and patent licenses in others. Some of these conditions might be incompatible with your business model, and making a mistake can cause problems when you bring your software to market or if your business is acquired. This session will discuss foundational issues about the world of open source, including:

• What is open source software? Why is it so important?
• Understanding open source licenses in the context of real life issues
• Basic development process guidelines for using open source software

Armed with this information, you will be better able to make intelligent choices and decisions about how to take advantage of the benefits and manage the risks presented by open source software.

We've all heard the statistics about diversity in technology. It's easy to be a part of the problem and focus only on that, rather than working towards actionable solutions. But Brittani and Sara are solution seekers.

Weaving in their personal stories (and a little humor) with diverse perspectives, Brittani as a young Latina and Sara as a single parent and former teen parent, both women will share actions they have taken to be a part of the solution for keeping young students engaged and excited about technology.

This session will include:

-How Brittani bridges the Digital Divide through her work with Geek Squad Academy -How Sara approaches life as a single parent with a demanding career in technology -Both women sharing lessons learned (yes, even the not-pretty fall flat on your face lessons), challenges faced and solutions they've used as women in technology -Recommendations for employers, educators, parents, and professionals for continuing the engagement for young students -How we can all be role models for our next generation

About Brittani: Brittani is the Field Lieutenant for Geek Squad currently under Special Assignment with Best Buy Community Relations. She has worked 6 years for Best Buy in a variety of areas from retail cashier to best buy mobile and running in store Geek Squad Precinct as Senior CIA, all of these have allowed her to shape the idea of understanding these great brands. She travels the US representing Geek Squad and Community Relations via the Geek Squad Academy Program bring 21st century technology to teens in underserved cities, schools and nonprofit programs. Her passion is to continue to help build Best Buy’s relationship with community and employees throughout the US. Brittani serves as Co-Chair for Best Buy's LatIN Employee Network. Outside of the office she spends her time with her family and her dog. She enjoys golf among other sports. Twitter: @BrittaniNUribe

About Sara: Sara holds two positions, one of which is Mama to her 11 year old daughter Anakka. Professionally, Sara is the manager of the Associate Facing Web Operations team. Her role is to manage day to day oversight and activities related to Associate Facing Web Operations including production support, technical web duties and initiatives in support of maintaining highly scalable associate facing web applications and services for BestBuy.com. In 2014 she launched the Twin Cities Geekettes chapter and helped with the re-launch of the Best Buy Women's Employee Network. Outside of work she can be found on the volleyball court, dance floor, at live music shows, exploring Minnesota and enjoying adventures with her daughter. Twitter: @saraheitkampmn

Getting the tech press to write about your startup can drive huge amounts of traffic and give you instant credibility. The challenge is in getting the press to care enough to write about your startup in the first place.

Come learn about pitching to the press and our successful launch of Astropad. Learn about our launch strategy and some tips and tricks which drove over 200k visitors to our site in only a few weeks.

Come learn about:

• How to pitch tech writers
• What sites you should be pitching to
• Coordinating your project launch
• Using embargoes and exclusives to your advantage
• How your launch strategy starts on day one
• Resources for learning about PR

If you're looking to launch a project, stop on by and hear what worked for us.

Certainly any algorithm that's been peer-reviewed multiple times must not have any obvious errors, right?

What about algorithms by leaders in the field, which come with proofs of correctness, and form the basis for tons of later research? Nothing of that stature could be flawed, could it?

But those are purely academic concerns, with no practical impact. It surely couldn't be the case that something as basic as a sorting algorithm, which was implemented multiple times and tested, fails to operate correctly?

In fact, I'll show examples of all three of these. Let's have a conversation about the ways in which algorithms fail--- and the ways to increase confidence that your algorithms and designs are correct.

Using the new Open Data apis published by the city of Minneapolis, plus RxJava/RxAndroid, Retrofit and Google Play Services, we'll explore how to build a truly useful Android application.

Startups are hard.

Most founders surround themselves with advisors and mentors for pretty much everything related to their business (SEO, Fundraising, Marketing, Business Models, Sales, etc.). But, very few get the emotional, mental, and personal support they need.

I have been employee, advisor, co-founder, or CEO of a dozen startups. Some failed miserably. Some had a decent base hit. Others are still going strong. I've seen and experienced first hand how hard this can be.

I am also married to a Marriage and Family Therapist who realized that a lot of the work she does with her couples and families can be applied to co-founders and early stage teams. She has now shifted most of her work to the executive coaching side, and I am applying everything I have learned from her to my advising and mentoring relationships.

I'd love to share what we've learned, and lead a discussion about the types of things to watch out for, as well as some very practical habits and practices we can implement in our schedules to make sure we're getting the full support that we need to succeed.

In this session, you will learn some tools and tricks to help you manage your ever-growing number of passwords. We'll walk through a password management tool such as 1Password and Dashlane and learn how to generate, store, and share strong passwords. If you follow the steps outlined in this session, you will never write down another password and you will never use your first dog's name or birthdate in your password again.

You'll learn how to:

• Protect your online accounts by converting all your logins to use strong passwords such as rG%]9uk8f7&nfCb2@reRh8Z&NTp4x.
• Log in to any web account without actually knowing the username and password.
• Securely share a login with another person. Never email passwords in plain text again.
• Synchronize your encrypted password database through the cloud to multiple devices such as a smartphone or multiple computers.
• Securely store all types of information such as credit cards, bank accounts, social security numbers, addresses, coordinates to buried treasure, etc
• Burn that notebook that has all your passwords.

Being a web freelancer ain't always peaches and cream. Let's face it, sometimes you say "yes" to things that you cannot do. Soooo you need to find someone else to do the work - a friend, a colleague, oooooh....someone on the other side of the planet that you have never met.

Come to this session prepared to talk about the challenges (and successes) you're having related to hiring others to do your work in your web business.

Things your fellow freelancers might want to hear from you about:

• How do you price outsourced work?
• How do you hold others accountable?
• How much do you pay people to do the work?
• Is oDesk.com going to kill your ability to make a living wage?
• How do you keep track of things that need to get done?

What's frustrating you about your outsourcing business right now? Maybe others have had the same obstacle and overcome it.

Your contribution will make or break this session, so don't be bashful!

WARNING: A group hug MAY occur near the end of this session. (We're not saying we'll instigate one, but we wouldn't stop one either).

PS - Aspiring web freelancers and aspiring outsourcers are totally invited.

2013 Fiery Inferno

Friends,

I received a very unusual encrypted dark web video transmission this morning. On the other end was this dude who looked exactly like me, but was bald and had a pointy goatee.

He started going on about how he was from our dystopian mirror dimension, and how his planet was dying, and how I was the only one that could BLAH BLAH BLAH I sort of tuned him out after a while.

I was like, "LOOK, this is the most elaborate 419 scam I've ever encountered, so props on that. But I can't just go trusting every mirror dimension dystopian twin that wanders along, ya know?"

"So how about this," I suggested. "This Saturday is Minnebar. Following mirror dimension logic, you should have a Minnebar too. Do you?"

"We do...."

"And it runs simultaneous to OUR Minnebar?"

"Yes..."

"Perfect. Set up a twitter account, and tweet out session announcements from dystopian Minnebar as they are happening. THEN I will know you are really from our mirror dimension."

"We don't have time for this, our planet is..."

"LA LA LA I can't hear you, setup the twitter account already."

"Fine, it's done."

https://twitter.com/MirrorBar

@MirrorBar

Follow that twitter account this Saturday for administrative session reminders from MIRROR BAR.

############## NOTE TO ORGANIZER FRIENDS ##############

1. This is not a joke, don't delete this session (And really, how dare you!)
2. I don't need a room so please don't schedule me one
3. If I could get a monitor with a twitter feed that would be AMAZING, but it's asking a lot I know/especially this late. All the tweets will be #minnebar anyway.

I've spent most of my career managing developers, from informal peer-to-peer leadership, to big corporate structure. In recent years I am most often approached by non-technical entrepreneurs attempting to start a technology company, with no experience or skill in working with those of us who are the "difficult to deal with" nerds and geeks.

Scott is CEO of QONQR, a bootstrapped mobile gaming company in Minneapolis and adjunct professor at St Mary's University in the Information Technology Management program. This session will be a 50 minute summary of the master's class Scott teaches on "Managing Technology Teams". We'll focus on the negative stereotypes, communication issues, trust concerns, and the challenge of ambiguity. The goal is not to teach entrepreneurs how to best manage your technical team, but expose the dynamics of working with technical teams that may be new to non-technical managers, or software developers not accustomed to working with new tech managers.

The Constrained Application Protocol is a new protocol from the IETF that is specifically designed for the Internet of Things. It is designed to use much less data and allow interesting asynchronous communication all while being simple enough to be handled by an 8-bit microcontroller.

This talk will be technical deep-dive into the protocol starting with the basics. It might be helpful if you have a cursory understanding of the relationship between IP, UDP, TCP, and HTTP, although I will be giving a 2 minute overview near the beginning of the presentation. By the end I hope that you will have a solid understanding of how the protocol is different from its closest competitors and why (I think) it is the right protocol for the Internet of Things.

Come see my overly complicated demo where I try to make a WiFi devkit communicate with scripts built into my slides. (And laugh at me when it inevitably fails.)

It happens to the best of us. It's been a part of each one of my startups, and my guess is that it happens to us all in various degrees. The goal here is to be cathartic, to help us realize that its real, that it happens to each of us, and how we can cope well until we swing out of the roughest parts.

I'll be sharing a great deal from my personal experiences with depression, startups, tech, highs/lows, and some insights from the journey. This isn't a talk from someone on the other side (if that exists) but someone who is very much changing the world from where I am. I believe you can do the same.

My hope for this talk is that we can understand we're not alone, find encouragement, and get a few tools to help along the way.

Extended Bio
I earned a business/psychology degree (called service management), and my masters was in divinity (with a course load in counseling/psychology/systems). I've also worked with many people over the years in various stages of life (parents, students, hospice, homeless). I'm not a psychologist (I run a software company) and would gladly recommend people if needed.

You launched your startup, but trade and business journalists aren't paying attention. Why not? Have you created and nurtured the right relationships? Are you sharing the right messages? Have you offered an exclusive?

Get the insider tips and strategies you need to effectively tell your startup story to journalists and other key opinion leaders. We will discuss:

• Developing your communication strategy
• Creating a compelling story for local, regional and national news media
• Obtaining published news coverage
• Communicating with investors/potential investors
• Crafting thought leading content for social media channels

In this session we'll cover...
- Where are we today? (Further than you think)
- How did we get here? (Thanks Google!)
- What does it mean for future industries? (Epic disruption)
- What can we do about it in MN?

The Como Conservatory asked Bust Out Solutions to build an interactive iPad kiosk for visitors to make a virtual bonsai. The trees are algorithmically generated, so every one is unique. You might have seen us demo the finished app at MinneDemo a few years back, but this time, for MinneBar, I’ll share the secret recipe and show how we actually built it!

The goal was to engage and educate visitors (and keep the kids busy for 10 minutes). This posed an interesting kind of problem very different from traditional mathematical modeling: we needed a software model of a tree which was not necessarily predictively accurate, but perceptually and emotionally engaging. What makes a tree seem like a tree? What makes a shrub different from a mature tree? What makes a tree exciting enough that a kid doesn’t walk away from it?

This type of programming & mathematical modeling — the kind where the goal is not scientific, but aesthetic — is of widespread and rapidly growing importance. It’s the work video game designers have done for decades, but it’s increasingly pervasive throughout the world of human-computer interaction. It’s what shot the iPhone from “they’ll never take a bite out of Nokia” to … well, now.

This talk will walk through the story of how we created the virtual bonsai by bringing together graphic design, programming, and mathematics. Along the way, we will get a taste of graphics techniques from the game industry, and encounter tidbits from a surprisingly diverse array of mathematical disciplines.

P.S. Note to the math-averse: This talk will be accessible to a broad audience, and will not require knowledge of mathematics or programming. The ideas are intuitive, there will be lots of pretty pictures, and the results are fun!

P.P.S. There will be a few juicy technical details for mathematicians too.

P.P.P.S. Fractals! Fractals! Fractals!

The number of tools for JavaScript projects has exploded since Node.js created a practical solution for running JavaScript outside of a browser window. New tools exist to easily add modularity to a JavaScript front-end application codebase and use a subset of new JavaScript syntax, even in older browsers that companies still have to support today such as IE8.

In this session I'll discuss and provide examples of using build tooling to create a modern development workflow for JavaScript heavy applications.

I'll cover some notable features of ES6 JavaScript. I'll introduce the Babel project. I'll cover integrating Babel with grunt, gulp, webpack, browserify, and simple npm scripts. I'll also cover using Babel with source code, test code, eslint, and jshint.

Most of this talk will be aimed at front-end/browser JavaScript applications, however the information about Babel and ES6 is also applicable in server-side JavaScript projects. It will be impossible to go into any depth about any single tool mentioned above, the intent is to show what is possible right now with prepared, concrete examples.

We've heard the buzz, read the articles, skimmed the books. Lean, design thinking, fostering a culture of innovation—it all makes sense. And we know this. An analysis by the Design Management Institute identified design-driven companies as measured by the level of senior-level representation and commitment. They found that the design-driven companies outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 by a whopping 228%.

Count us in. But what are the tangible steps we can take to actually effect change? How can we start to make a positive difference within our own organizations?

We’ll discuss core principles, tangible steps and common hurdles that we face along the path to joining this revolution.

Common hurdles:

• We’re a start-up. We have no resources or experience with UX.
• We’re an enterprise. We have too much bureaucracy.
• We have a distributed team. How can we possibly build shared understanding?
• We’re measured by different metrics. How can we convince the leadership to get behind this?
• This is new and unfamiliar. How do we actually make it happen?

Cut through the hype for a concise understanding of what VR hardware and experiences are coming this year.

Learn The Don'ts for designing and coding terrible VR experiences, and The Do's of interactions uniquely suited to VR.

We'll give this all some context by covering some basic perceptual psychology, including some fun illusions.

By request, I'm adding a quick overview of how you can use consumer hardware today to develop Vive-like VR experiences that have free walking with hand input ...as long as you don't mind looking like Rick Moranis.

I always prefer an interactive audience, so discussions, questions, enthusiasts and skeptics are all welcome.

The technologies we use are constantly changing. As consultants, the race to keep up doesn't end. However, other more important things don't change. Drawing on millennia-old lessons, this talk is an explication of Bushido-inspired aphorisms to remind us how to walk the IT career path gracefully.

This presentation is tailored for those interested in a career as a software consultant or those who already are. However, full-time employees can also find plenty of value in this series of "reminders." This presentation isn't about how to set up an S-Corp or which CPA to use. It’s about how to stay relevant and not lose yourself. It’s about a code of conduct to strive for that benefits you and those around you. It’s something to take with you on the path from someone who has taken a similar path.

Plus, I will be aided by my pet cat.

-- Photo credit, Ian Felton, Kunming, China

When I wrote my first book on OS X Server, it was printed and shipped, and one day I saw the book randomly show up in a Barnes and Noble. And that was the only way books got published. One day, my publisher told me to start a blog, which I begrudgingly did. 3,000 posts and 12 books later, the publishing industry has completely changed. In this session we'll go through why to publish content, how to publish content, where to publish content and if you actually want to get published in print, where to do that. I only know anything about technical publishing, so of course, we'll be talking about that and not how to be the next Hermann Hesse. Although who knows...

Our region enjoys innovation ecosystems that are vibrant / robust – “and” they could be more productive. “Network Explorer” is a new tool for social network analysis that makes innovation networks visible and actionable. Exposing relevant contributors and their relationships enables strategies and tactics that broaden and deepen the innovation ecosystem to become more targeted and effective.

Collaboration across technical, functional, and organizational boundaries produces high-value innovation. Our technique identifies and supports interdisciplinary "boundary-spanners" who connect separate domains. 3M has determined that boundary-spanners develop some of their most strategically important technologies. IDEO indicates that inter-disciplinary collaboration is a fundamental principle of modern innovation.

Our proprietary, Web-based system accesses publicly available information and eliminates labor-intensive, time-consuming, and inaccurate survey methodologies. We can observe product categories, investigate historical trends, and compare an organization or region to its competitors.

We’ll demonstrate the system and visualize some innovation networks on the fly. We’ll also share some of the regional insights that we’ve obtained with “Network Explorer” as a research tool. We’re seeking discussion and additional perspective around application domains, use cases, network metrics, other fun stuff.

This is a case study on how not doing sameness by developing a 'Think Differently' go to market strategy got this Minnesota based startup $2.5 million in capital and in excess of $1 million a month in orders before it launched. You will hear the process used to create a strategy that is slated to disrupt a multi-billion dollar market and will be generating in excess of 4 million dollars a month in revenue at the end of year two with already signed orders.

If you're an entrepreneur that has a great idea you should hear this story and look at evaluating your go to market strategy. You will learn how looking at your market and how existing companies in that market are positioned, can be turned to your advantage.

Website accessibility is often treated like an mysterious "dark art", something coders add at the end of the application design cycle.

It shouldn't be.

Deep analysis of the WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards reveals 3 common mistakes that directly impact the ability to deliver an accessible website.

Using this analysis Optum Technologies (part of UnitedHealth Group) developed a new approach: AA11y "A-Squared 11 Y"

Its benefits are improved accessibility in less time with reduced reliance on specialists (like the presenter).

Whether it's to open your web app to a broader audience or deal with increasing legal requirements these insights should help improve your project's accessibility.

A brief introduction into nosql databases with a slightly deeper dive into Cassandra.

Sponsored by AngelPolleNation, Piranha Pool (TM) II is Minnesota's own live take on the TV series "Shark Tank." -- and our second year of doing it at MinneBar! A panel of experienced, local tech investors will, on the spot, consider investments in FishFood (TM), aka local entrepreneurs. Confirmed returning Piranhas are well-known local investors Joy Lindsay, Ed Cannon, David Dalvey and Barbara Stinnett. Details on how to apply to participate as FishFood are here: link.

Joy Lindsay has been an active member of the Minnesota venture capital community since 1998. She is President and co-founder of StarTec Investments, LLC, a private venture capital firm focused on investing in high-tech companies based in the Midwest.

In addition to her role at StarTec, Ms. Lindsay is a member of the Sofia Angel Fund, a Minnesota-based womens angel fund focused on making private equity investments in companies founded by or led by women, or whose products and services target women. She is also a member of the Gopher Angels, a group of angel investors who share screening and due diligence and is a founding member of MOJO Minnesota, an innovation co-operative working to fuel entrepreneurship and reignite Minnesotas culture of innovation. Further, she is an advisory board member to Matchstick Ventures (formerly, Confluence Capital Partners).

Ms. Lindsay is a member and past chair of the Minnesota High Tech Association board of directors, is a member of the Advisory Board at the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota, and has served as Secretary and Vice-President of the Minnesota Venture Capital Association. She is a judge for the Minnesota Cup business plan competition and serves on the Planning Committee for the Annual Minnesota Venture & Finance Conference.

Prior to founding StarTec, Ms. Lindsay was a Senior Vice President in the Westlaw division of West Publishing (now Thomson Reuters). She has a B.A. in mathematics from Carleton College and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota.

Ed Cannon is CEO of Zivix, a multi-patented fingertip-sensing technology for use in real musical instruments and peripheral devices. Ed spent the first years of his career with the Westinghouse Power Systems group before leaving and co-founding Cannon Technologies in 1987. As CEO of this start-up, he lead the team to sales in excess of $100 Million and 150 employees. Cannon Technologies was one of the first truly smart-grid companies, helping electric utilities better manage demand response, substation automation and smart meters. Cannon Technologies was acquired by Cooper Industries (NYSE: CBE) and is an integral part of their Energy Automation Solutions group today. Ed holds a BSEE from South Dakota State University and was honored by them as Distinguished Engineer 2007. He is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management.

David Dalvey is a Managing Partner of Brightstone Venture Capital since September 2000, and he has 26 years of venture stage investment experience with 16 years as a venture fund manager and 10 years as a technology investment banker. Also, Mr Dalvey has 34 collective years of corporate board director/advisor experience.

Previously, Mr Dalvey has been a general partner at Food Fund Venture Capital II, L.P. from 1992 to 1995 and also held senior investment banking management positions with R.J. Steichen and Company from 1995 to 2000 and Wessels, Arnold & Henderson from 1987 to 1992. During his career, Mr Dalvey completed 40 public common stock offerings and 90 private placements totaling over $1.75 billion in equity growth capital for technology and life science companies. He currently serves as a Director at Mobile Realty Apps, Horizon Oil Field Services, Celcuity and Blue Rock Advisors and has also served Director roles with AppTec Laboratories, Navarre Corp., Definity Health, CHF Solutions, Nature Vision, TestQuest, Agiliti, Digitiliti and ShoreLunch Recipes.

Barbara Stinnett is CEO and Managing Partner of the Timmaron Group, a consulting organization that provides guidance, experience and interim executive support to CEOs, boards of directors, private equity investors and venture capital firms. Barb is the Executive Chair of Canopy Co. Among her many business accomplishments, she served for 22 years as a senior executive with Hewlett Packard, most recently as Worldwide Vice President and General Manager for Marketing, Sales and Service.

Flipgrid reached 1 million users in its first year. In all the work we do, design comes first. We start our work with a focus on the user experience and work backwards.

You'll get a chance to hear from Flipgrid's Co-Founder and Director of Dev Ops on what it takes to break old models, inspire a development team to put design first, and how $17M can be used to bring our product to the world.

www.flipgrid.com www.vidku.com

Let's have a real conversation about the startup culture in Minnesota!

Who are the makers vs. the takers?

What are our strengths and weaknesses?

Where is the action happening?

Why are we mediocre?

How can we be better?

Do you have questions about git and GitHub?

Are you new to git or GitHub, but want to learn what all the "social coding" fuss is about? Want to "level up" your contributions to open source? Curious to learn how GitHub uses GitHub to build GitHub?

Bring your questions to this Q&A about Git and GitHub. I'm Joshua Wehner (@jaw6 on GitHub!), a developer and trainer at GitHub, I'll do my best to answer all your questions, tell stories, do a few demos, and I'll bring plenty of octocat stickers for everyone.

Minnesota’s tech community is awesome, but not very diverse. Wouldn’t it be cool if there were more women in tech? How many African American, Hmong or Latino developers do you know? How can we fix these digital divides?

Part of the answer is starting young, and making sure that girls and kids of color have the opportunity and encouragement to learn to code. You can help. Come learn what it’s like to volunteer helping young people to code.

This session highlights the Technovation Challenge and the Northside Code Clubs, two initiatives from the local nonprofit, Code Savvy. We’ll also include a quick update of local CoderDojos (including CoderDojoTC) plus other opportunities that combine kids and code.

• Technovation[MN] enables young women to dream up, design, code and pitch original mobile apps – a unique blend of technical and entrepreneurial challenges. This year there are 30+ teams are now gearing up to present their apps at the gala Appapalooza in the Minneapolis Convention Center on May 3. Learn how you can help Technovation[MN] and other initiatives encouraging girls and young women to code.

• The Northside Code Clubs are places for kids and teens to learn to code in a free, fun, open-ended environment, out of school at several partner sites in North Minneapolis. The program is now expanding to other targeted communities. The young coders explore Scratch, AppInventor and Web languages as well as electronics and robots. Most importantly, they enjoy becoming creators – not just users – of modern technology.

Join us to inspire a diverse, new code-savvy generation!

Lightning talks are back!

Lightning talks are short, rapid-fire talks that aren't scheduled in advance. At the session, we'll spend a few minutes gathering topics, and then presenters will go in reverse order of the amount of time they request. We'll keep going until we run out of speakers or time.

Speaker: Jennifer Simon

Jennifer has been in sales for over 20 years, networking with people has been a key factor in her success. Early on in her career she realized that helping others came naturally and in return people are willing to help her. All of her job opportunities have come from some kind of networking, she continually builds new business through her connections and is constantly helping others connect with the right people to reach their goals. Whether it’s through direct personal relationships or simply making connections on Linked In.

As she has integrated into the IT Industry, she become aware that networking does not come naturally to a lot people. This presentation will help those who want to learn some basic tips and tricks on how to meet new people.

This session will be heavy in interaction so bring a fully charged phone...

Start with a basic business idea and bring it to market as quickly as possible and empower your clients to be part of the development idea process by allowing them to request, "you know what would be nice..." Implement these ideas as part of your offerings and go from there until you have a platform designed and built from the most valuable sourcing group...your clients...(who will also pay good money for your work).

Boot building and Strapping...

In the age of web-based applications, ensuring client-server apps are configured securely is of paramount concern. With intercepting proxy tools you can easily understand how a web application works and start manually testing it. They allow its operator to act as a man-in-the-middle between a browser and the target application.

This session will briefly discuss when in the Secure Software Development Lifecycle 'dynamic analysis' security tools should be used and primarily teach how intercepting proxies can be used to improve security of these types of applications. The use of the 'Burp Suite Pro' intercepting proxy to identify security problems with web applications will be demonstrated.

Your right to privacy is under attack by the NSA and local police departments. Routinely we are subjugated to searches by the government which would make our Founding fathers turnover in their grave.

Fortunately there are simple tools to help fight this. You will learn what is encryption, how to encrypt your phone calls and text messages using Signal, and be introduced to sending email through PGP.

This is not a lecture, but a “hands on” workshop where you’ll learn what games and exercises improvisers use to sharpen their listening skills, become more spontaneous, quickly generate new ideas and improve collaboration. You will be able to use these tools on your own projects after this workshop.

Improvisation has been described as “The art of not knowing what you are going to say or do and being OK with that." Life and business don't offer a script to follow and improvisation develops skills such as solving problems with no clear solution in sight. Truly innovative or disruptive ideas don’t come easy. Improv can help you generate ideas and work. We’ll push the furniture out of the way and get you on your feet. Come prepared to join in improvisation games and exercises all the while not knowing what will happen next. And we'll have fun doing it.

In this talk, I discuss imposter syndrome, fear of failure, and how to combat them; I follow this up with a discussion on ways to cope with (inevitable) failure and benefit from it. Feel free to take a look at the slides and a rough script if you want to know more about the content.

I've given this talk at a number of meetups around town, and it's always lead to lively and insightful Q&A and audience discussion, which is always my favorite part.

How fast does your website load?

Research shows that website performance affects business-critical metrics like conversion rates and user engagement.

With the technology available today, average load times of 1 second for new users and 100 milliseconds for returning visitors are absolutely achievable.

Come to this session to learn and discuss techniques to make your websites load (virtually) instantly.

With the current state of education, is college worth it?

How do tech bootcamps change the future of education?

And finally, how do we diversify the world of technology?

Join the conversation.

Have you herd any of these phrases before?

"Try it again"
"Try refreshing the page"
"Restart the server"
"Reinstall the program"
"Reboot"
"Reinstall the operating system and then the program"
"Hmm, it must have been a fluke"

We'll talk about what you've witnessed when you hear these phrases and how immutability and persistent data structures can help. Along the way we'll learn the difference between values and identities, look at what it's like to program with persistent data structures, why we might want to do that, and discuss a little philosophy. We'll use Clojure for some examples (no previous experience necessary), but these concepts apply to any language:

JavaScript

• https://github.com/facebook/immutable-js
• https://github.com/swannodette/mori

Java

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8575723/whats-a-good-persistent-collections-framework-for-use-in-java#8575831
• http://pcollections.org/

Python

• https://github.com/halgari/clojure-py

Haskell

• http://hackage.haskell.org/package/unordered-containers

C#

• http://www.itu.dk/research/c5/

Clojure

• http://clojure.org/data_structures

Scala

• http://docs.scala-lang.org/overviews/collections/concrete-immutable-collection-classes.html

Ruby

• https://github.com/hamstergem/hamster

Creating the best possible mobile experience extends beyond the device to the services your app depends on. The unique constraints imposed by mobile devices should influence your API design. Learn how to build great mobile web services, what REST doesn't cover, and lessons from years of experience designing and refining mobile web services.

"You get paid to play games all day?" Everyone thinks the video game industry is just fun and games. I'm here to tell you it's not. It complex software development and problem solving with a twist. Not only do you have to make a solid software program, on time, on budget. You also have to make sure its fun. Building games is hard enough. Building a game that is fun and makes money is even harder.

Discover all the different positions that have to come together to make a hit video game. Learn the differences of working at AAA publisher, a developer to a startup indie studio. The highs, the lows, the late nights, where we harvest unicorn tears and lots of caffeine. Did I mention caffeine? Over my 20 years in video games I have seen it all, and lived to talk about. Please come with questions, prepared to laugh and learn why we don't get paid to play games all day.

Learn DevOps automation techniques with the power of Vagrant. See a walkthrough of the GitHub-based Calavera project -- a complete Continuous Delivery pipeline on your own workstation! The project is based on Virtualbox with Vagrant and Chef scripts which build a local 6-node VM cluster:

• A simple test-driven development environment including application (using Java, junit, ant, and Tomcat)
• Local and central git instances
• Commit-driven automated build via Jenkins
• Artifactory package repository storage of final build package
• "Production" environment deployment via Artifactory & Chef

The project is free for download from GitHub. It provides a "walking skeleton" solution for various problems with tool integrations, SSH keys, permissions, and so forth that can otherwise be a hassle to work through.

Hear also the motivations behind the project, intended as a microkernel of a larger enterprise IT simulation and currently in use for instructional purposes at the University of St. Thomas. Finally, provide feedback as to how the project should evolve! (Docker? MEAN stack? Monitoring? Ticketing?)

Two things I believe more than anything that drive marketing in today's world:

1) People hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. 2) Buying is based on timing more than anything.

People are buyers when they are engaged with your company, product, or brand and the timing is right. But how do you exactly do that? What things can you do, and in what ways, to engage with people and be top of mind when the timing is right for them to turn into buyers.

We'll discuss this concept and strategies to ensure your business is top of mind for buyers.

A Case Study The Dancing CEO, the Non-sleazy Salesperson, and the Customer Buying Experience.

The hallmark of every value-driven experience is the amount and depth of genuine human connection–that bond between an individual and a brand, an experience, an organization or an idea. The power of genuine connections extends not only among peers, but also to friends, loved ones, and even within yourself. And most importantly for entrepreneurs to investors, collaborators and customers.

Through a recent case study, this session covers more than half a century of experience bringing practical solutions in innovation, collaboration and communication to market that will guarantee a genuine connection.

A small start-up is boldly challenging Fortune 500 company's notions of sales, value, and even corporate culture, and they are winning. They've raised money, ignited collaborators, and closed millions in sales. Featuring a dancing CEO, a reinvention of the salesperson and a reframing of the "sales experience", this case study is unlike any you've ever heard.

You will leave with a greater grasp of the strengths and challenges, presence or absence, and untapped potential of genuine connection in your professional and personal life.

Many entrepreneurs have lamented that there is no active accelerator program for startups in the twin cities. There are lots of meetups & networking events, but little in the way of education for aspiring entrepreneurs. Several initiatives to address this gap are underway in the community, and this MinneBar session would be a good forum to discuss them....it'll also be a chance to hear the specific details of one particular plan and offer feedback on it.

An overview of the Lean Development methodology to translate ideas and IP into successful business ventures. Converting ideas into customer solutions that generate financial and/or social value may be an art, but there's also plenty of proven science in the process.

With a little help from the infamous Ali G, we'll review and apply a variety of Lean LaunchPad techniques:
-- business model canvas
-- customer development
-- hypothesis testing
-- minimum viable product

This session will give you a set of tools and resources you can use to develop a startup (or a new product), and also give you command of the latest entrepreneurial lingo. "Pivot" anyone?

As we all know there is ton of information & options available to choose in this digital era. And do we always know are we making the right choose in terms of cost & efficiency(If you are tech/geek & keep up all the trends still you might come little short, now think about common man/women) For e.g Who is the best orthopedic surgeon in town and how to get an confirm/appointment with him now because i am in knee pain)

Consumer Application Statistics: 1. Millions(MM) of Mobile Applications(Android/iOS) 2. Companies that provide same/similar service/complementary - 25 Mobile Apps(Either Android play or iOS) or More

Would like to talk about information overload they we are dealing with every day in & out(still growing) and have proposition & love to get your awesome feedback(Shot holes or stones)

"government is essentially what we do together that we can’t do alone." - Jennifer Pahlka

Often, to effect change in your local community, you have to work with a government. As an organization focused on facilitating community change with collaborative creation, Open Twin Cities has had its far share of government partnerships and interactions in its short history. In one year alone, Open Twin Cities collaborated with Minnesota's Secretary of State, MN.IT Services, and Hennepin County on three events, and worked with the City of Minneapolis to enact an open data policy. Along the way we've learned a thing or two about working with government, creating partnerships, and collaborating.

Ever wondered what it's like to work with a government? Or just curious to hear some lessons on collaboration? Then this session is for you.

Wearable technology is quickly changing how we play and work. As 'wearables' become ubiquitous, creating remarkable mobile experiences will require more than simply releasing an incredible smartphone app. Mike will discuss what wearable tech means for the future of mobile user experience design and how organizations should think about mobile design strategy when building or expanding their digital products.

Businesses have too much logic encapsulated in Excel workbooks. This is so twentieth century. Learn how to migrate your worksheets into database tables, and leverage the Rails platform to perform calculations, sorting, and reporting. Learn how to export information into Excel workbooks to share with colleagues.

OS Platform: (primary) Windows and (optional) Mac OS

INTRO (Part I) : Intro to Rails, Databases, and why you should migrate business logic away from Excel.

Part II: How to set up Ruby and Rails on a Windows notebook.

Part III: How to leverage Rails and Gems to migrate Excel workbooks (both in the old .xls and new .xlsx formats) to database tables.

Part IV: How to perform calculations in Structured Query Language (SQL). If there is time, we will explore

Part V: How to leverage Rails to display your data in different formats.

Part IV: How to export your data as an Excel workbook, with different formatting.

StarTribune.com will be re-launched just two weeks after MinneBar with a completely new look-and-feel. But this redesign is really a complete rebuild with an entirely new publishing platform and approach. During this session we'll look under the hood at how a modern media company re-invents itself from the CDN all the way up to the shiny new design and transforms the way it delivers the news in the process.

Lloyd Cledwyn will present on Polymer. Polymer [http://polymer-project.org] is a toolset that Google is working on to promote and ease the use of webcomponents [http://webcomponents.org].

Webcomponents are a major improvement that come with HTML5 standards. This talk will discuss the background of webcomponents, give some examples of where they are useful and provide some concrete places for you to get started with WebComponents on your own. Depending on time there are hands on labs that you can experience building a simple app and implementing webcomonents.

This session will be an overview of how to build an article of clothing that displays tweets, along with a system to moderate those tweets. It will cover the Spark Core, a touch of C++, Node/Express and wearable design.

There is nothing more wondrous in software than a dancing bear. Well, maybe an evil dancing bear. In this workshop, learn to express your schadenfreude through the design of software. Learn the glorious irony in the creation of pain stations: a paradise lost complete with repetitive treadmills of grinding.

Alternatively, if you enjoy babygoats on trampolines and other "happy things, this session will provide a model for learn to design invoke play, and sustain it through interaction and feedback, and if you are evil, then take it away. We learn three aspects of discount design methods as simplified user testing, narrowed prototypes, and heuristic flow models for delivering software for impact and persuasion.

Create live action simulation, with insights on the difference between imitation and emulation, and when they are most useful. Use ethnographic methods for conducting contextual analysis, learn about data-informed models; create documentation like procedural workflows and hierarchical flow charts for the creation of your very own WAAD (work activity affinity diagram) fro creating needs, requirements and design

This is and interactive talk NOT a lecture. Tired of working at a big company? Want to start your own small team, studio or startup? Managing smaller teams, budgets and timelines are much different than when you had levels of management or a large company behind you. You will need to take a completely different approach when creating your own team. you need to be be prepared to manage communicate and interact with your studio team.

• Seal Team 6 vs the Fab 5
• Right people, Right role
• Who’s in charge?
• Who is your cheerleader?
• We don’t need a stinking producer (Yes you do)
• Communication is even more important for a smaller team
• You will need a better firing policy than hiring policy
• Onsite/Offsite?

This talk is NOT about how to get funding. This is after you have the funds and starting to build the team. Find a lawyer, an accountant and a benefit person for other items you will need. This is about building and managing a successful team.

Intended audience & prerequisites: Anyone who is starting a new small team or would like to improve how the team interacts.

Session takeaways: Attendees will have a better understanding how to build a small team, manage them, communicate with them and create your own norms.

Product development, be it hardware or software, usually begins with a definition of product requirements. Best case, those requirements are informed by a hefty amount of market research and a preliminary engineering/development assessment. Worst case (and most commonly), the requirements is a list of "wouldn't it be cool if...s" that are based on a competitive product, which continue to change in the midst of developing your product.

In this session we'll talk about...
What makes a good product so good (they do one thing really well)
How to identify the feature that can make your product successful (your user testing may not reveal it)
How to manage feature creep along the way (grow a pair)

How do you create a new type of musical instrument using the right sensors, arduinos and some clever ergonomic engineering?
I invented a way to play bass and guitar, at the same time,
using the same 4 fingers and thumb you normally use to play guitar,
on a regular old electric guitar.
(with a bunch of software and hardware and sensors)

Learn about analog to digital sampling, physical computing, MIDI, arduino, physical design, prototyping and more!
I will talk about the design issues, coding challenges, going from idea to POC to prototype to pilot.
Design of the pedal:

Various parts

boards for the POC (too big to actually fit in the pedal)

POC that will evolve into the Prototype of the pedal (the tiny blue board is a Arduino Nano that will be the brains of the pedal.

take a listen/look at:
the guitar stomp pedal with the OLED display:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa9AMa5YzFA
initial POC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7l4vXMsPbo
improved the software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6dz0rJP8cY

MNvest is a new way to fund Minnesota companies. Currently in front of the legislature, the system would permit equity crowdfunding, or the ability to raise small amounts of capital from many people online. MNvest is intended to provide wider, cheaper, and faster access to seed funding for entrepreneurs and growing businesses. Over the course of this session we will discuss the proposed system and identify opportunities for Issuers, Portals, and Investors. In the meantime, please learn more and sign the petition at MNvest.org.

This session will provide an update on the continuing development of the minnestar events and organization and our efforts to insure that great events like Minnebar and Minnedemo continue to catalyze the Twin Cities technical, design and startup communities. Half of this session will provide an update on these goals and the other half will serve as a forum to hear from the community.

More and more people are listening to podcasts, and more and more people are beginning to create them. While it's easy to get started, there's many aspects to consider beyond just get a mic and talk into it.

Recently, Ian Bannerman and I launched a podcast on software testing called Testing Bias. We found the process to be much more involved than we initially thought, as well as being more rewarding. In this session, we'll share what we learned and how we progressed to the point of getting episodes launched.

Have you read about DevOps and wished there was a way to get that started at your company? Don't wait for a DevOps champion. Quietly introduce the changes yourself.

In this session, we'll discuss the experiences of a single DBA who subtly introduced DevOps concepts in his workplace. We'll look at why one would do this, what it can accomplish, and the approaches that succeeded and failed. Next, we'll look at specific examples of changes implemented working with different departments, the tools used, and the benefits.

How can the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region better support innovative people in the technology community? We think that's a question the entire region should be asking by handing the mic to those very people and making their challenges everyone's challenges. Because we'll all benefit from shared prosperity.

Our regional economy is capable of producing tens of thousands of new jobs by 2020 that we don't have the talent to fill. At the heart of this looming workforce gap is tech talent. It's leading to a lot of exciting efforts to develop talent at all points of the human capital pipeline. But then we also need to do a much better job retaining those people and attracting other talented tech professionals from around the world.

We won't be able to do that if this isn't a place where people are able to thrive. We need innovative people to step forward and tell the rest of the community—be it companies, policy makers, educators, neighbors, whomever—what needs to happen to ensure tech professionals can reach their full potential here.

A growing assortment of partners across all of our sectors are increasingly committed to supporting innovative people. But they don't have the solutions. They need to hear from you. Whether you are a tech entrepreneur, freelancer, or innovator within a major institution, this is an opportunity to step up and set the agenda.

We hope that participating in this session will make a significant impact in the development of an emerging cross-sector, region-wide talent initiative to make a great place even greater.

Come share and learn about sites, apps and strategies used for fundraising (pitching, pre-sales, selling stock), tracking shareholders (cap tables), communications, accounting, expenses. If money is a pain - whether fundraising, tracking expenses, tracking ownership - let's help each other out and put all of the best practices and tools on the whiteboard to help make the money portion of entrepreneurship.

And if you have a FinTech app, etc. - contact me at pd@investyr.com and I will add you to this agenda so we can highlight our local apps / companies that are making money in business easier.

Do you hate the long and bureaucratic process of installing Ruby on Rails? Do you hate the finicky nature of Ruby on Rails installations? Do you hate it when your source code fails on another computer or in production even though it worked on your computer? Are you having difficulty installing Ruby on Rails in Windows? Do you hate it when you are unable to work on your Ruby on Rails project because you have issues with your development environment?

When basic and routine tasks require jumping through hoops, the process is broken. My Debian Stable Vagrant box is the solution. You can have Ruby on Rails up and running in under 30 minutes and with minimal effort. If you think Ruby on Rails is broken, or if you need to try out your project in a fresh Ruby on Rails environment, you can return to a fresh installation in just a few minutes with virtually no effort.

Got a innovative technology-based idea, concept or project at the fuzzy front end of technology development. Come and learn about the $2.6 Federal Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Programs that provide non-dilutive seed funding for early stage innovations. You will learn if SBIR/STTR funding is right for your company or project, and whether this highly competitive source of funding is applicable to your research and commercialization strategies. The session will cover the who, what, where, when and why of the SBIR/STTR Programs.

Speaker: Ms. Pat Dillon, MBA, has worked with hundreds of technology companies over the past 20 years in both Minnesota and Wisconsin resulting in more than $50 million in federal research funding to support innovation and technology commercialization.

Ms. Dillon is the director of MN-SBIR that aims to foster a more innovative Minnesota economy focused on turning new ideas and inventions into products and technologies that spur job growth and competitiveness while promoting economic development. In this position, she is responsible for the strategic direction and leadership of MN-SBIR and its services to small businesses and startups in Minnesota.

When I talk with folks in software development about bringing new ideas, tools and processes to stagnant companies, I am frequently met with inspired but perplexed faces. “I can’t just start collaborating with people. It’s not that easy at my company. We don’t work like that.”

Turns out it takes more than an inspiring pep talk to get people collaborating in a meaningful way — it takes a cultural shift. But change doesn’t come easily. From my very first job as a UXer at a company with a burgeoning UX squad and incredible mentors to my current position on a team of (almost) one, I’ve screwed up a lot. But I’ve also learned a tremendous amount about instigating change, waiting patiently for change, and how a great work environment makes for healthier, happier practitioners.

Your organization is not the only one experiencing growing pains. Join me for 10 lessons on culture change and tips for becoming a catalyst for good right where you are.

Amanda Nagy and Adrienne Peirce will share their favorite productivity tools and hear from you about yours. To Do lists, note-taking, calendars, Chrome extensions, and more!

Aggregated computing becomes distributed computing... distributed computing becomes "hyper-distributed" computing. Monolithic content becomes granular content... granular content becomes hyper-granular content. As computing form factors march relentlessly from desktop / laptop to tablet, smartphone, and now the "Internet of Things", user interface paradigms respond accordingly.

Join us in exploring the transition between previous form factors / technology generations and extending the underlying principles of those transitions to IoT -- particularly human-scale IoT.

• Hyper-distributed computing brings unique UX challenges / opportunities relative to other topologies

• Human factors at human scale brings unique UX challenges / opportunities relative to other types of hyper-distributed computing

We'll present a case study of Adaptive Avenue -- an emerging hypermedia platform for automatic viewing of personalized Web content and an experiment in non-traditional media at human scale.

Art Shanty Projects has been a long standing every other year event. A dozen or so artists build "Ice Houses" that have amazing themes, and then place them on a frozen lake in the middle of winter.

A group of folks came together to build Elevator Shanty. It is an Elevator simulator and experience generator. It was built by a team of 14 people in total. A subset of us wired up the hardware and programed the software for the "elevator experience". The inside was powered by several Adruinos, and a Linux computer running a custom written Python program.

We had a lot of fun making it- and would love to do a quick overview of what we did- and how we programed it.

Additionally, David Bryan will also show off a T-Shirt Cannon, and a Cat feeder that are both powered by a Raspberry Pi. David Bryan's Blog

Presenters:

• David Bryan
• Matt Mackall
• Cali Masteny
• Caly McMorrow
• Aaron Prust

I'll walk through all of the steps needed to take your run-of-the-mill Javascript and HTML5 skills to the next level by building and shipping Chrome Apps using AngularJS that work on Chrome and on Mobile.

• Learn how AngularJS and Chrome Apps can play nicely together
• Learn about the APIs available for you when building Chrome Apps
• Learn about tools for getting started including NPM and Bower

Two years ago the first question was, "Why do recruiters suck so bad?"

Last year it was the second question.

This is the 7th year of doing this kind of presentation... a few slides and a lot of Q&A and discussion.

Frequent conversations I have had lately include (and bring what is on your mind):

• What the local job market is like right now
• Are startups any more risky than large employers
• How to prepare for and recover from a layoff
• Code schools and bootcamps, are they worth the price
• How do I create a loose confederation of consultant friends
• Specialize or be a master of none

The world of physical computing and the so called "Internet of Things" is getting smarter. Shouldn't we be using smarter languages as well?

Gobot is an open source robotics framework which allows developers to interface and control a multitude of devices using the Go Programming Language. We'll cover the history of where the Internet of Things is today, where it’s forecasted be in the future and why you should care. I'll also demo using Gobot to control an Arduino, Sphero and ArDrone.

WordPress is everywhere (powering over 25% of the internet).

Should it be powering your next MVP/prototype? Maybe.

I'll briefly cover my experience helping several local businesses get started with WordPress as their application development platform, why you might want to consider using WordPress, then open things up for discussion.

There has been a lot of press over the last few years on the absence of underrepresented groups in the tech space; specifically women. Recently companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook have released numbers highlighting this issue.

However, there isn't as much press surrounding the current racial underrepresentation in the tech industry. For example, Harvard Business Review published an article entitled 'Hacking Tech's Diversity Problem' in October 2014 but the focus was on gender diversity, not racial diversity.

The question is do we even have an issue with race in the tech space? Is the playing field level for any and everyone to enter this lucrative field? What are some of the inputs that result in the current disparity we see at some of the largest, most innovative companies in the world?

This session is to explore the issue to see what can be done to close the gaps.

I will be arguing the opposite of pop-geek culture, essentially playing Robots Advocate.

It's easy to just say "Skynet" or "robot uprising", like it is a dystopian inevitability. We need to keep the conversation going past those memes. Dystopia isn't inevitable if we pay attention.

About me: I currently build autonomous vehicles, focusing on software, AI, and HW/SW prototyping. I read about neural nets almost 30 years ago, and have been interested ever since. I often wonder when my AI's will be mature enough to be told about Asimov.

What are some of the most important technology law developments over the past year? Notable lawsuits and legislation span areas that include privacy, social media, copyright, patents, trademarks, security, licensing, and cloud computing. A technology litigator will discuss the evolving tech law landscape, as well as trends that will likely continue to affect technologists in the coming year. Attorney Damien Riehl frequently speaks and writes on legal topics that affect businesses, including the legal implications of the Internet and technology.

What started out as a few dedicated players battling each other in local LAN tournaments has sprouted into a multimillion-dollar international competitive gaming industry, drawing sponsorships from major companies like Coca-Cola, Monster Energy, and American Express.

Major competitive events featuring popular games like League of Legends, Ultra Street Fighter IV, and Dota2 draw viewerships in the hundreds of thousands, and player counts in the millions worldwide. Brand new companies at the tip of the spear of this brand new business are focusing on cultivating the eSports fanbase and connecting gamers around the world with their favorite professional players and brands.

What makes competitive gaming so special? Why is it taking off now? Where is it going in the future? How is big business getting involved?

Join software developer and professional eSports journalist Michael Migliacio to discover the answers to these questions and much, much more.

Do you already know the basic observer pattern of reactive extensions and want to take it a step further? Have you been working with reactive code for a couple months but have some lingering questions? Then this is the talk for you!

I'll go over some of the lessons I've learned after using RxJava for a while, such as:

• Subscription management
• Hot vs. cold Observables
• Sharing Observables
• When to use Subjects
• Custom Operators
• Backpressure
• ...And maybe more (as I think of things to say)!

(Though the talk will have a basis in RxJava, by the nature of reactive extensions the knowledge can apply to any platform's implementation.)

Drupal is open source CMS software maintained and developed by a community of over 1,000,000 users and developers. Drupal can be suitable for projects as small as a personal blog or for large scale enterprise projects.

The Twin Cities is home to one of the most vibrant and active Drupal communities in the country. With multiple meet-ups per month and one of the best Drupal Camps in the country.

This session will include:

• A brief introduction to what Drupal is
• A guide to the local Drupal community and how you can get involved in Drupal development
• A list of some great tools and strategies for getting started with Drupal
• An update and very brief tour of Drupal 8 - which is currently in Beta release