Software Defined Interviews

Jake Moilanen started and sold two companies and is now joining the ranks of Venture Capital. We discuss his career, his approach to investing and he explains what it is like to bringup the Linux Kernel on a supercomputer for the first time.

Connect with Jake:

Special Guest: Jake Moilanen.

Zane Rockenbaugh specializes in working with early stage startups. Most of the time his clients are boostrapping their new compnay and need someone technical who can help build version 1.0. In this episode, we talk about Zane's career and what it's like to be a "Startup CTO." Most importantly, we talk about his experience of taking raw ideas and turning them into real products.

To work with Zane contact him at Liquid Labs

Special Guest: Zane Rockenbaugh.

Coté talks about his job being an "evangelist," a word people no longer seem to use but everyone understands. Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well. Call it "developer advocacy," "developer relations," being a "thought leader," or just a straight up hustler - it's a job that most companies in the computer industry have at least one of. Most of the successful software and projects out there get a big boost from key evangalists.

Brandon interviews Coté about what the job is, what the work's like, and some examples (other than himself) of people who do it well. As the two discuss, it's a weird job.

Links:

• The Man Who Would Be Khan — March 2004: "A new breed of American soldier—call him the soldier-diplomat—has come into being since the end of the Cold War. Meet the colonel who was our man in Mongolia, an officer who probably wielded more local influence than many Mongol rulers of yore."

When Coté says he doesn’t know how numbers work, he actually means it. To help out, he talks with Rachel Stephens, from RedMonk, who not only explains ratios, but also finance numbers.

Fine more from Rachel on her RedMonk blog, and in Twitter.

Special Guest: Rachel Stephens.

Links:

• Five Minute Finance — Have you ever felt utterly out of your element when meeting with your counterparts in the finance or accounting department? If you find yourself lost when discussing financials, here’s a quick primer on some of the key concepts you should be familiar with at a high level.
• Developers and Social Responsibility — “We do, however, want a world where developers are cognizant of their impacts. We need developers to analyze their products and think about second order effects from a variety of perspectives as part of the software development process. We want to encourage technological progress, and we want to do right by people. This is one minor example that illustrates the difficulties of anticipating unintended consequences and considering who is empowered/disempowered with technology products. With one in four workers expecting their job to be eliminated via automation in the next decade, this small example is indicative of a much broader economic shift underway.”

Dustin Kirkland joins us to discuss Linux, Cloud Computing and making wine. We talk about Dustin’s career journey from entry-level developer to Google Product Manager. He shares his experience working at IBM, Canonical and now Google. Plus, he tells the story of how working on his own open source project helped him land a job at startup.

Links:

Special Guest: Dustin Kirkland.

How do you implement IT Automation best practices at a large company? What's the best approach to convince stakeholders that IT Automation is worth the effort? In this interview with Acxiom's Chris Donaldson we talk all about the good, the bad and ugly of IT Automation.. We discuss his career and how his previous experiences shaped his view of IT Automation. He offers practical advice on automation, weight lifting and how best to secure shade at the beach.

Special Guest: Chris Donaldson.

Brandon speaks with Matthew Brutsché from 500 Rockets Marketing. Matt gives us his bold predications based on his recent shopping experience at the Amazon Go store in Seattle. Plus, we talk about the evolution of digital marketing and what it means to launch a product into the market.

Links:

Special Guest: Matt Brutsche.

Brandon interviews Satish Kodukula about product management. We compare product management at large companies and startups, discuss how to validate your next startup idea and when to build your minimum viable product (MVP).

Marc Andreessen on Product/Market Fit

Special Guest: Satish Kodukula.

Getting familiar with analyst relations is a key component of an enterprise software business. “Analyst relations” is sort of like PR, but actually pretty different. You want to, of course, drive influence with the analysts, but also consume the content and advise they’re putting out. And while there’s two major firms in the tech world - Gartner and Forrester - there’s plenty of other firms and individuals to work with. In this episode, Coté talks with Rita Manachi who’s been doing AR for over a decade about all of this, plus some advice on selecting drinks and using iPads in meetings.

Special Guest: Rita Manachi.

Sponsored By:

• Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG

This is a great conversation with John Mitchell about Duke Energy improving it’s software capabilities, doing “digital transformation,” as the kids like to call it. We start from the beginning of what kicked the company off, a shift from COTS software to mobile apps and analytics. We then discuss a couple initial projects that Duke transformed, including one that didn’t work out so well, and one that did. Throughout, John shares what he team learned and how they made it happen. Also, we discuss the use it or loose nature of the electricity grid.

Apologies for the audio quality on John’s end, I neglected to ask him to make sure his mic was set-up properly.

Special Guest: John Mitchell.

Sponsored By:

• Software Defined Talk: You know you want a Software Defined Talk t-shirt! With this code, you can get 20% off. WHAT A GREAT DEAL! Promo Code: SDTFSG