Thunder Nerds

Professional software developer biased towards mobile technology.

David’s workshop: APIs & Watson In Any Language On IBM Cloud

It’s 2018, and it finally doesn’t seem to matter anymore what language you want to write APIs in. Thanks to IBM Cloud, you have more choices than you ever thought possible – and that doesn’t even involve containers! In this workshop, David Okun from IBM will walk you through how to write and deploy any API you want in just about any language you want. We’ll focus on Node.js and Swift as our choices, and show you how quickly you can deploy an API, and how you can interface them with one of Watson’s many AI services. Hotel wifi willing, you’ll leave this workshop with at least 2 APIs deployed on the public cloud.

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/dokun24

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-okun/

* Website: http://okun.io/

* Details: https://uxdsummit.com/speaker/david-okun/

Martina started as a self-taught Web Designer in 2001. From the very beginning her approach was user-centered despite not being familiar with the now-common phrase of ‘user experience’. In 2007 she finalized her study in Psychology and started working in the field of clinical Psychology. It was at this point that Martina’s academic background and her passion joined and she started a career as UX Designer, being called “Conceptioner” at first. Since then Martina has not only contributed to the digital and service ecosystems of many recognizable companies (e.g. eBay, PayPal, Emirates Airlines, Volkswagen, Telekom and many more), but she also helped selected Start-ups in Europe, by driving their Research and contributing to their product or service definition.

Martina’s workshop: Learn How to Observe and Identify What Really Motivates People

It’s hard to uncover what motivates people by just talking to them or when you don’t have anything to show them – relying on people’s imagination can turn out quite risky.

People will not only tell you what you want to hear but they are also highly unaware of what profoundly motivates their behavior, so they are not very good at reporting or forecasting it.

In the deeper levels of human motivation, however, lies the true potential for meaningful products or services and we are going to tap into these as psychologists do.

In this workshop, you will learn how to get access to the deeper levels of human motivation by observing people in their natural environment and behavior.

First, you will learn how to collect observations in an objectified and valuable way. Then, in small groups, you will exercise a short approach to create an informed hypothesis based on the observed behaviors.

Finally, you will bring your hypothesis to life in a product or service concept, which leaves you with something you can then put in front of users.

The workshop does not require any preliminary UX-knowledge and is, therefore, suitable for everyone involved in the early stages of Product/Feature Development, as well as anyone interested in human behavior.

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartinaMitz

* LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/martina-mitz

* Details: https://uxdsummit.com/speaker/martina-mitz/

Jacqueline is the CEO and Founder of UX Gofer and User Experience Research and Design, Inc (UXRD). She has been doing user experience research and design since 1999. Her areas of expertise are UX strategy, user research, and product design.

UX Gofer is a new UX tool. It is a web and mobile app that makes User Experience Research easier and faster.

Jacqueline has worked with companies from 1 person startups through to industry leaders like Microsoft, Staples, Fidelity Investments, the Federal Reserve Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Reebok, Zumba Fitness, and others.

Jacqueline’s talk: State of UX in South Florida

Join 3 UX and 3 DEV expert panelists as they discuss the state of user experience and development in our South Florida community. Our panelists will go over the survey completed by UX+DEV SUMMIT attendees and answer questions and concerns in relation to our conference, jobs markets, salaries, and what companies need to thrive in the growing fields of UX and development!

* UX Gofer https://www.uxgofer.com/

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jstetson/

* Details: https://uxdsummit.com/speaker/jacqueline-stetson-pastore/

Bermon has 20 years of product strategy, design and development experience in varying industries including aerospace,automotive, financial services , government, manufacturing , publishing and retail.

As a Senior UX Manager at EY Digital, Bermon leads initiatives to help organizations develop holistic product strategies and then oversees the implementation of products or services that are easy-to-use and deliver value to both the organization and their customers.

Bermon is heavily involved in the local Charlotte tech community and has been organizing various conferences and community events for the past decade. He also speaks at conferences and facilitates workshops around the world.

Bermon’s talk: Projects are Easy, People are Hard

Somewhere, a project is failing. It may be your project and you aren’t even aware yet. More than likely the project isn’t failing because it’s difficult, or the budget ran out, or because there wasn’t a market fit. The project is failing because of people. People are anything but stable and introduce communication problems, staffing problems, politics, disenchantment with the client or stakeholders, and often result in lack of motivation on projects. It doesn’t matter what methodology you use to scope, design, and implement a project if you’re unable to deal with the underlying people issues because people are hard and people are what cause project failures.

Objective:

In this session, Bermon will discuss sociological nature of the work we do and how to overcome them in order to deliver successful projects.

Target Audience:

Designers, developers, project managers, and in general, anybody that tries to build products with other people.

Five Things Audience Members Will Learn:

* The irrational, impulsive, and emotionally driven challenges people introduce on projects

* Overcoming different communication styles, engaging in successful conflict, setting expectations, and navigating politics successfully

* Guidelines to effectively handle conversations

* Communication techniques to help overcome people problems

* Understand how to actively listen, effectively demonstrate empathy, and overcome biases that create extra risks and result in project failures.

* Bermon’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/bermonpainter

* Details: https://uxdsummit.com/speaker/bermon-painter/

 

When her nose isn’t buried in a book, Rachel is probably out in her kayak, doing yoga, or tinkering with code. By day, she’s the AppDev Practice Manager at Cardinal Solutions in Charlotte, NC. Rachel thrives on leading teams to deliver high quality software. She’s been programming for over 18 years and leading for at least 6 of those years. Most recently, she’s been architecting mobile apps using Swift, digging into technologies focused on streamlining developer workflows (devops!), and her teams are well-versed in development best practices. Rachel, also known as Pinky in some circles, is the Career Development Director for ChickTech Charlotte, a local chapter of a national non-profit focused on empowering women and girls to get into and stay in technology careers.

Rachel’s talk: Docker for Mobile Developers: Ship It Faster!

Docker for Mobile Developers ( No, I’m not going to show you how to run iOS in a container. But I would love to share with you how you can integrate Docker into your day-to-day to streamline your workflows and integrations with other dev teams. As a mobile developer, you may be wondering “what the heck is the big deal with Docker?” As a modern day developer , I’m here to share the value in learning the basics of Docker and how it can improve your life as a developer. From spinning up an isolated dev environment to running integration tests, Docker is another tool that belongs in any developer’s toolbox whether your a full stack dev or not. And you need to know when best to use that tool. We’ll go through the basics of Docker as well as some tips on when/where to integrate the Docker tool into your workflow. You won’t be able to contain yourself!

* Rachel’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/pinkeerach

* More details: https://uxdsummit.com/speaker/rachel-parsons/

In this episode we get to speak with Sam Edwards, Android developer and instructor. Sam is a Google Developer Expert for Android and has worked with the platform since 2011. We talk with Sam about Android Development, Kotlin, the value of attending conferences, and doing a handstand in almost every state in America. We dive into some of the conferences that Sam contributes to, and why he loves to share his knowledge with others.

Show Links

* Our Guest:  Sam Edwards

* Twitter: @HandstandSam https://twitter.com/HandstandSam

* Website: www.HandstandSam.com

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/handstandsam

* Google Developers Expert https://developers.google.com/experts/people/samuel-edwards

* Caster.io Twitter https://twitter.com/caster_io

* Sam Edwards on Caster.io https://caster.io/instructors/sam-edwards/

* Where the heck is Matt?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBJi0jZR7oQ

* Anisse Edwards @browngirldev https://twitter.com/brwngrldev

* Steal Like an Artist https://austinkleon.com/steal/

* Gary Vanderchuck https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

* UX Dev Summit https://uxdsummit.com/

* Android Summit http://www.androidsummit.org/

* Android Summit Twitter https://twitter.com/AndroidSummit

* DevFest Florida https://devfestflorida.org/

* Kotlin + buildSrc for Better Gradle Dependency Management https://handstandsam.com/2018/02/11/kotlin-buildsrc-for-better-gradle-dependency-management/

In this episode we get to speak with Christian Nwamba: Author, Program Manager, Developer Evangelist, and Technical Content Creator. We chat with Christian about his new book Hands on Next.js. We discuss how Christian got his start in the industry, his love for development, and his current projects. We also keep him up way past midnight, due to the time zone difference.

Show Links

* Our Guest: Christian Nwamba

* Christian Twitter: https://twitter.com/codebeast

* Christian LinkedIn: https://us.linkedin.com/in/chris-nwamba-032b04b2

* Christian’s book:  Hands on Next.js https://www.honext.io/

* Zeit: https://zeit.co/

* Next.js: https://nextjs.org/

* Github: https://github.com/zeit/next.js/

* Tracy Lee: https://www.thisdot.co/

* https://leanpub.com/

* Scotch.io: https://scotch.io/

* Scotch Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisoncode

* forLoop: https://forloop.africa

* forloop Twitter: https://twitter.com/forLoopAfrica

* Frontstack: http://frontstack.io/

* Frontstack: https://twitter.com/frontstackIO

* Ire Aderinokun: https://ireaderinokun.com/

* Prosper Otemuyiwa: https://github.com/unicodeveloper

We talk with Dan Denney about the Front-End Design Conference: how he started it, why he did it, and what it has become.

Show Links

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/dandenney

* Website: https://dandenney.com/

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-denney-77b60a152/

Eric is a Developer Advocate at Cloudinary where he works to build a better toolset for managing images on the web. He’s also a card-carrying and tee-shirt-wearing member of the Responsive Issues Community Group – a rag-tag band of everyday developers who worked with standards bodies and browser vendors to upgrade the element for the responsive web. He loves learning through teaching and building and lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest.

Lazy and Progressive: Image loading and perceived performance

Like teenagers, web pages go through some jarring transitions as they develop. This talk is about that awkward time *after* a page’s content and/or layout has loaded, but *before* the images come in.

What can we do to make this time shorter, or, at least *feel* shorter? How can we use it to set user’s expectations, and minimize nasty surprises? And why, sometimes, should we try to intentionally make this time as *long as possible*, so that images arrive *just in time* rather than *as soon as possible*?

In this talk, we’ll discuss the code-y hows and UX-y whys of lazy and progressive image loading on the web.

A designer with over 15 years of experience based out of Columbia, South Carolina. A graduate of the University of South Carolina with a degree in Art.

He is a design instructor at the Art Institute/South University teaching web design and development (Web 201 & 301).

* http://www.speakerrate.com/speakers/2863-gene

* Twitter: @genecrawford https://twitter.com/genecrawford

* http://unmatchedstyle.com/