January 2006; Volume 7, Number 1
IT Alias
The Knowledge You Need
Mobile Champions
IT Alias
Livening up dull staff meetings
Goal: Give your staff a healthy sense of humor and professional pride.
Activity: Tired of being an ordinary Programmer Analyst? Want your business card to read Code Contortionist, Process Pirate or Software Sculptor? When your shop is long on work and short on humor, break the ice with an activity that won’t consume much meeting time.
Preparation: Make a list of technology profession nouns such as architecture, code, collaboration, deployment, enterprise and infrastructure. Next, list unusual professional titles that are unrelated to technology (jockey, masseuse, knight, excavator, rock star, surgeon and so on). Cut out the words, keeping the technology nouns separate from the unusual professions. Randomly draw one from each pile to form new job titles. Depending on your preferred variation, you can draw the job titles ahead of time, or have staff draw their own during the meeting.
Variations: For departmental meetings or large gatherings, have “Hello, My Name is …” stickers handy and ask each person to write his name and “new” job title. The wacky job titles are great conversation starters. Another possibility is to choose the random job title combinations ahead of time and print a new business card for each staff member. You could also make place cards for each chair. When each staff member enters the room, ask him to sit at the place with the job title he likes the most or best reflects his job. If you have a thick-skinned group, consider substituting the second list with undesirable animals such as paramecium, ogre, sloth, gnome or lizard to create hilarious job titles like Programming Paramecium or Validation Ogre.
Donna Davis manages projects and developers in Pitt County’s MIS Department in Greenville, N.C.
The Knowledge You Need
Conference Director Nicole Garbolino previews SD West 2006
Developers will gather once again this year at Software Development West, held March 13-17 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Now in its 19th year, SD West will bring developers together with some of the biggest names in the software industry-Bjarne Stroustrup, Herb Sutter and Steve McConnell, to name a few-and will offer some new tracks and classes. We asked Conference Director Nicole Garbolino to give us a preview of this year's event:
Who are the standout keynote speakers for 2006?
There are lots of great speakers, but attendees shouldn't miss Steve McConnell's keynote "The 10 Most Important Ideas in Software Development on March 13. Steve explains how these 10 ideas form the foundation for effective software development, and sheds light on which practices will withstand the test of time, and which are fads.
On March 15, there's Bruce Schneier's security keynote "What Works, What Doesn't and Why. From the human to the technological, from the personal to the national, the concepts are the same: By pulling examples from a variety of sources-technological, historical and biological-Schneier will discuss the fundamentals, and tell us how we should be thinking of security.
What's new?
The Business of Software track is brand new. Whether you're starting a consulting business or a small ISV, this track will give you insight into starting your own business. Learn how to raise money, and what terms like "bootstrap, "venture capital and "corporate investment mean to the entrepreneur. Learn what a business plan is and how to present it to investors. Get your questions answered by venture capitalists, lawyers and successful serial entrepreneurs. We'll even tell you when and why to sell your company.
The two-day tutorial "Stroustrup & Sutter on C++ returns this year. Bjarne will reprise his popular "Speaking C++ as a Native talk, and the tutorial will be packed with lots of new, leading-edge and highly practical material-in addition to forward-looking discussions about the next version of the C++ Standard, C++0x.
Are there any special events attendees should know about?
The annual Dr. Dobb's Journal Excellence in Programming Awards and the 16th annual Software Development Jolt Awards will take place on Wednesday, March 15.
The "Model-Driven Development Face-off is also on March 15. This year, industry experts such as Jack Greenfield, Granville Miller, Scott Ambler, Jon Kern and Juha-Pekka Tolvanen will debate which approach is better able to realize the promise of model-driven development in the real world, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, and where they're heading.
What else should readers know?
Each year the conference receives over 600 submissions for class topics and some
standouts don't fall into the suggested categories. This year, we created a "Grab Bag track to showcase these submissions. The track includes such classes as "Agile Contracts and "Taming Legacy Perl Code.
Finally, I'd like to add that our speakers are the best and brightest in the software development world. I've had a few people tell me that any speaker at SD West would be a keynote speaker at other shows.
—Kevin Carlson
Mobile Champions
Nokia looks for the best of its developers.
Forum Nokia is searching for developers to crown as Champions for individual achievements in the mobile space. The winners of this global competition will include "evangelists, regardless of affiliation, consisting of mobile industry gurus, academicians, freelance developers, and corporate IT developers who are part of Nokia Forum. Nokia Forum has more than a million registered developers. This individual award and recognition is a counterpart to the annual recognition of developer companies through the Forum Nokia PRO Awards program.
Individuals may nominate themselves and their peers after February 13 at www.forum.nokia.com/forumnokiachampion.
Champions will be selected for their in-depth knowledge of Nokia platforms and related technologies and applications, as well as their level of participation in Forum Nokia. Forum Nokia may also award membership to individuals on the basis of their outstanding, high-quality contributions to Forum Nokia online services--whether or not those individuals have been nominated. Champions will retain the title for one year.
The initial inductees of the Forum Nokia Champion reward program will be lauched on February 13th at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. New members will be selected every half a year, and listed at the Forum Nokia Champion page at www.forum.nokia.com/forumnokiachampion.
"We are very excited to honor the first group of Forum Nokia Champion developers in recognition of their outstanding talent and dedication to advancing mobile applications development around the globe," said Lee Epting, vice president, Forum Nokia. "Through the Champion program, Forum Nokia continues to expand its support for global mobile applications development by honoring the leading individual applications developers from around the world and duly recognizing their important contribution to the mobile industry."
Being a Nokia Champion means gaining global recognition as an industry leader, free access to select Nokia-training events, receiving sponsored technical services such as a subsidized technical-support case, and a complimentary Nokia device (complete with Forum Nokia Champion wallpaper or theme). Champions will be able to connect with industry leaders at exclusive Forum Nokia Champion events held twice each year, where members meet with Nokia experts, fellow champions and other industry leaders to exchange ideas. Forum Nokia Champions may also receive free or discounted tickets to other select Nokia-developer events.
—Rosalyn Lum
