Speaking
I love telling a story, whether about code or about life. I've spoken at conferences all over the world, from Barcelona to Paris to Boston and (usually virtually) to meetups from Guadalajara to Stockholm to Sydney.
I fear my schedule fills quickly. If you plan to get in touch, sooner is always better than later.
“I saw your talk at RailsConf today, and I was very impressed. You are the most gifted, engaging speaker I have heard so far at this year’s conference. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences! - ”
Past Speaking Engagements
2020
- Birmingham on Rails, Birmingham, AL
2019
- All Things Open, Raleigh, NC
- LibertyJS,Philadelphia, PA
- Johns Hopkins University,Baltimore, MD
- RubyConf, Nashville, TN
- Explore DDD Conference, Denver, CO
- Landing Festival, Berlin, Germany
- International Women's Day Event at Shopify, Waterloo, ON
- San Francisco Ruby on Rails Group, San Francisco, CA
2018
2017
- RubyConf, New Orleans, LA
- All Things Open, Raleigh, NC
- Vancouver Meetup
- hafentalks, Dusseldorf, Germany
2016
- Beyond The Code, Toronto, ON
- Abstractions, Pittsburgh, PA
- Laracon, Louisville, KY
- Nordic Ruby, Stockholm, Sweden
- Craft Conf,Budapest, Hungary
- RailsConf, Kansas City, MO
- Agile Alliance, Raleigh, NC
2015
- RubyConf Colombia, Medellin, Colombia
- Keep Ruby Weird, Austin, TX
- Full Stack Fest, Barcelona, Spain
- RailsConf, Atlanta, GA
- Booster Conf, Bergen, Norway
- Bath Ruby, Bath, UK
- Canadian University Software Engineering Conference (CUSEC), Montreal, Quebec, Canada
2014
Rails Meetup, Santa Barbara, CA
BBC, London, UK
Magma Conf, Manzanillo, Mexico
RubyOnAles, Bend, OR
Portland Incubator Experiment
- Triangle.rb, Raleigh, NC
2013
- San Francisco Ruby Meetup
- San Diego Ruby Meetup
- Barcelona Ruby Conference
- Wicked Good Ruby, Boston
- Lone Star Ruby, Austin, Texas
- LaConf, Paris, France
- Rails Conf, Portland, Oregon
- Ancient City Ruby, St. Augustine
Technical Talks
Go Ahead, Make a Mess
Software is always a mess, but the principles of object-oriented design allow you to manage your messes.
OOD understands messes; it predicts their courses and foresees their outcomes. This talk shows you how to use OOD to create the best kinds of messes, those that let you get software out the door today without regretting your actions tomorrow.
Nothing is Something
An exploration of the deep meaning of nothing, and an explanation of how to leverage it to find hidden concepts in OO.
Polly Want A Message
An explanation of what object-oriented programming wants, with straightforward examples to indoctrinate you into object-oriented thinking.
You’ll leave raring to write loosely-coupled, message-centric, small-object object-oriented code that isolates conditionals and leans on polymorphism. Once you understand object-oriented programming's natural affordances, everything becomes easy.
all the little things
Removing `if` statements from object-oriented code: The Gilded Rose Kata.
If you enjoyed this highlight and want to see more, you can watch the full video here.
Get a Whiff of This
This talk shows how to take a pile of perplexing code, identify the "smells", and surgically apply the curative refactorings.
Magic Tricks of Testing
Make yourself happy; delete some tests!
If you enjoyed this highlight and want to see more, you can watch the full video here.
Keynotes
Lucky You
You’re Insufficiently Persuasive
How to convince others to behave the way you want them to behave while making your team (and the world) a better place.
Grit
The writing of POODR, a heinous bike ride, and the research on how people use Grit to get things done.
If you enjoyed this highlight and want to see more, you can watch the full video here.
Practical Agile Development: A Challenge From the Trenches
Agile hasn't failed us, but we might be failing Agile. It's time to take an honest look at the current state of software development, and get serious about solutions.
(Video improves, hang in there!)
Rules
Five 'little' rules for writing object-oriented code.
If you enjoyed this highlight and want to see more, you can watch the full video here.
Madame Sandi Tells Your Future
The history of printing as a predictor of your future.
If you enjoyed this highlight and want to see more, you can watch the full video here.
Authority, Conformity, Community
This talk delves into famous (and frankly, horrifying) social science research for hints about how to intentionally create positive, collaborative, and effective teams.