Episode 020 – User Story Mapping with Steve Rogalsky

So you’re writing User Stories — now what? In this episode we sit down with Steve Rogalsky to discuss how to leverage User Story Mapping to help organize and prioritize groups of User Stories in your project planning. Steve takes us through the process, helps us understand its value, and offers tools and techniques to make your User Story Mapping exercises a success in your organization.

Steve also shares with us that he regularly applies User Story Mapping to other aspects of his home and family life too — listen in to learn how to get your family thinking agile-ly too! 🙂

Show Notes

Recognizing that software development culture, management, and process can be frustrating and inhibiting, Steve has invested significantly in finding ways to overcome and counteract those effects. What he’s found is that valuing simplicity, respect for people, continuous improvement, and short feedback loops are powerful tools for addressing these shortcomings. Since software development doesn’t own those frustrations Steve has also been translating what he’s learned into other areas of the organization, family life, community groups, and coaching. Steve speaks regularly at conferences in Canada and the United States, has been featured on InfoQ, co-founded the Winnipeg Agile User Group, and works at Protegra. You can read more about what he’s learned on his blog.

Episode 019 – Teaching Kids Programming With Jessica Ellis

Software is so prevalent in today’s world that it affects everything we do from our work to our play in ways we couldn’t have imagined even 10-20 years ago. In this world, being at least exposed to understanding computer programming isn’t so much a luxury as a new necessity. And yet what are our middle schools doing about exposing kids to this new skillset? Surprisingly little, it turns out 🙁

In this episode, we chat with Jessica Ellis about her efforts (and those of others!) to bridge this important gap and work to expose both boys and girls to computer programming at a time when they are receptive to learning new skills. We discuss efforts around introducing kids to computer programming, ways to overcome some of the societal pressures preventing candidates from expressing interest in STEM professions, and explore ready-made freely-available tools, curricula, and training to help you get started to help scale out efforts in your own community to help kids acquire these valuable and necessary skills!

Show Notes

Jessica is a lifelong lover of mathematics and statistics but she didn’t come to the world of computer programming until her sons began showing an interest in creating their own computer programs. She started attending classes and soon was setting them up and then teaching them herself. She is now the Program Manager for the non-profit – Teaching Kids Programming. Her skills with cooking and kids lead to her connection with the San Dieguito Boys & Girls Club’s Center for a Healthy Lifestyle. She is now the Director and has just completed the building of a new tech room directly across from the commercial teaching kitchen. It is the combination of these two that was the inspiration for the sold-out summer camp “BarBCode”.

Episode 018 – Can’t We All Just Get Along? (WCF vs WebAPI) with Miguel Castro

Windows Communication Foundation. ASP.NET WebAPI. Two very different approaches to the same thing or designed to solve very different problems? In this episode the Hallway Conversations team sits down with Miguel Castro to explore whether WCF is to be considered an or with WebAPI or an and. Is it SOAP vs. REST or SOAP and REST?

We’ll discuss the origins of each approach to remote services, understand their similarities as well as their differences, and try to come to agreement on when you might best choose one approach over the other. We’ll also spend some time discussing the relationship between topics at developer conferences vs. adoption of a technology in the real world as well as investigate what it really might means when the marketing effort around a technology starts to wind down a bit over time.

If you’re building applications that need to talk to services (and let’s face it, in today’s interconnected world what developer isn’t doing this on a regular basis?), then you owe it to yourself to listen to this episode before you make your next choice of service architecture!

Whether playing on the local Radio Shack’s TRS-80 or designing systems for clients around the globe, Miguel has been writing software since he was 12 years old. He keeps himself heavily involved in every aspect, layer, nook, and cranny of app development and would not have it any other way.

Episode 017 – Finding the Right Job with Emily Schweiss

The world of employment in the Software Development profession has long been a “employee’s market” where prospective candidates often have their pick of competing employment opportunities (and can and often do opt to change jobs at the drop of a hat). In this climate, how do you go about trying to secure a stable workplace for yourself where you will have the opportunity to continue to grow your career without the need to constantly seek alternate/new employers?

In this episode, we chat with Emily Schweiss, a Technical Recruiter who really does view her role as helping prospective employees find a great match for their skills and interests in a possible employer. Learn from Emily the tips, tricks, and valuable questions that you should be asking every prospective employer before you accept an offer!

Emily Schweiss is a Technical Recruiter with Adecco Engineering & Technical living in Louisville, KY who specializes in opportunities for Software Engineers across technologies. She enjoys meeting people who are passionate about the craft of development. Emily uses her recruiting powers for good, giving back to the IT community by supporting, promoting and growing a variety of groups and events in the area including: IT Happy Hour, Louisville .NET Meetup and Code PaLOUsa. She is equally known for her love of good beer and bad jokes. You can follow her on twitter @EmSchw.

Episode 016 – Relaxing at the SPA with Brian Noyes

Today’s users are increasingly demanding a desktop-like experience mixed with the ubiquity of their web browser. In this episode, the Hallway Conversations team sits down with Solliance CTO and Microsoft Regional Director Brian Noyes to discuss how Single-Page Applications (SPAs) can be leveraged to deliver on this seemingly impossible promise. We’ll investigate the ways in which SPAs differ from so-called multi-page websites, explore both the pros and the cons of this new class of web experience, and delve into the various components and frameworks that make this approach possible. We’ll also understand why “SPA all the things!” isn’t really a strategy for the success of your project.

Brian is CTO at Solliance, a Microsoft Regional Director and MVP. He specializes in building maintainable client applications in XAML and HTML 5, as well as building the services that back them with WCF, ASP.NET Web API, and Windows Azure. Brian has authored several books including Developer’s Guide to Microsoft Prism 4, Data Binding with Windows Forms 2.0, and Smart Client Deployment with ClickOnce. He publishes articles frequently in a variety of publications and speaks at conferences worldwide including Microsoft TechEd, DevConnections, DevIntersection, VSLive!, DevTeach and others. Brian got started programming as a hobby while flying F-14 Tomcats in the U.S. Navy, later turning his passion for software into his current career. You can contact Brian through his blog or on Twitter @briannoyes.

Episode 015 – Whirlwind Tour of Azure Mobile Services with Mike Benkovich

Today almost all meaningful apps on mobile devices need access to a rich array of cloud services. But building those services is often an order of magnitude too complicated for anyone focused on merely getting their app into the market. Enter Azure Mobile Services: pre-canned services for authorization and authentication, notification queues, roaming settings and more!

In this episode we sit down to chat with Mike Benkovich to explore the rich world of Azure Mobile Services that can be stood up with just a few clicks from the Azure dashboard, and then extended and customized with either node.js or C# scripting. Your apps need to offer a rich ecosystem of cloud services to compete in today’s app world — find out how Azure Mobile Services makes it dead-simple to do so!

Mike Benkovich is a former Microsoft evangelist who has spent his career helping developers explore and apply new technologies to solving information challenges. His website www.benkotips.com provides developers with resources to get started and work with technologies including cloud, data and devices. Follow him on twitter @mbenko.

Episode 014 – Getting MEAN with Lee Brandt

MongoDB. ExpressJS. AngularJS. NodeJS. Four great tastes that taste great together! (or something like that)

In this episode we sit down with our own co-host, Lee Brandt, to investigate the benefits and the challenges of building web sites using this integrated technology stack. Is MEAN more than simply another LAMP stack? Check out this episode and learn for yourself!

Show Notes

Lee has been programming professionally for more than fifteen years and currently works as a consultant in Kansas City. He speaks internationally about software development practices and has mentored teams on improving their approach to lean software development through achieving technical proficiency.

He is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, one of the directors of the Kansas City Developer Conference, one of the leaders of the Kansas City .Net User Group, and is a connoisseur of fine cigars and craft beers.

Episode 013 – Modern Web Development using ASP.NET MVC with Kevin Grossnicklaus

In the past 4-5 years, developing for the web on the Microsoft stack has undergone a series of transformations (and they aren’t done yet!) In this episode, we explore what it means to develop modern, responsive web sites and services in the Microsoft ecosystem today with Kevin Grossnicklaus.

We talk WebForms vs. MVC (fortunately, only briefly!), discuss how to survive in a world where a new JavaScript framework arrives on the scene every Thursday like clockwork, and explore philosophies of web development and design.

We also talk to Kevin about the future of Web Development on the Microsoft platform and where things are headed next!

Show Notes

Kevin Grossnicklaus runs a St. Louis-based software development firm called ArchitectNow where his rag-tag team of developers work hard to deliver robust software solutions to clients around the US. When not doing that, they spend their time enjoying good beer and brainstorming the next great app idea.

Episode 012 – Telephony and SMS Interactivity for your Software with Devin Rader

In this episode, the Hallway Conversations team sits down with Devin Rader of Twilio to discuss the myriad of ways that companies are leveraging voice, SMS, and other telephony techniques to extend their engagement with their customers and users. Whether its building your own IVR system or just pushing notifications to your users via SMS, the tools and technologies available to enrich your software with telephony capabilities have never been more accessible!

Not everyone has a computer, but (nearly) everyone has a phone — don’t miss this chance to hear about some of the powerful scenarios for extending your software’s capabilities into this exciting area of communications!

Devin Rader spends his day’s extolling the virtues of Twilio, the amazingly simple cloud communication platform. Before that he worked at Infragistics where he focused on delivering great user experiences to developers using their controls. He’s done work on all of the .NET platforms, but most recently has been focused on ASP.NET and Silverlight. As a co-founder of the St. Louis .NET User Group, a former co-organizer of the Central New Jersey .NET User Group and a former INETA board member, he’s an active supporter of the .NET developer community. He’s also the co-author or technical editor of numerous books on .NET including Wrox’s Professional Silverlight 4 and Wrox’s Professional ASP.NET 4. Follow Devin on Twitter @devinrader.

Episode 011 – VisualStudio project templates using TemplateBuilder and SideWaffle with Sayed Hashimi

Have you ever wanted to customize Visual Studio, and it’s project system, to suit your needs? In this episode we chat with Sayed Hashimi who describes how you can use TemplateBuilder to create a Visual Studio Template Pack. Template packs can contain project templates, items templates, snippets, ASP.NET scaffolders, and standard Visual Studio commands. By customizing the contents of project templates, your developers can focus on the code they are writing!

If you’ve ever tried to create your own template pack in the past and had difficulties, then you’ll love the power and simplicity of TemplateBuilder!

Show Notes

Sayed Ibrahim Hashimi has a computer engineering degree from the University of Florida. He works at Microsoft as a program manager, creating better web development tools. Previously, he was a Microsoft Visual C# MVP. Sayed has written four books on MSBuild, keeps a blog, and can be found on twitter.