Our Thoughtworks San Francisco office kicked off a series of quarterly Technology Radar events to bring together technologists, decision makers, and practitioners. The Technology Radar San Francisco Events are an informal conference for professional software developers, technologists, and practitioners organized by key leadership within Thoughtworks.
Since 2010, Thoughtworks has published the Technology Radar which outlines the current and future technologies that we find interesting. The Technology Radar is a tool which is broken up into sections covering Technology, Tools, Platforms, and a separate section for Languages and Frameworks. Within each section, the topics are separated into Adopt, Trial, Assess, and Hold to indicate how relevant these technologies could apply within the context of a given project. We use the Technology Radar within organizations to enable forward thinking discussions on projects, internal growth, and transitioning to technologies which may present deeper levels of efficacy or relevance within technology driven strategies. As such, we have crafted our Technology Radar events to promote the use, expansion, and rich conversations surrounding this invaluable tool.
This event was held in our San Francisco office, located in the heart of the the San Francisco downtown financial district. We wanted to do more than just appeal to the locals. To assist us, Susan McConkey, a Client Principal, hosted a remote location at WeWork, Seattle. We will continue to livestream this exciting content and we expect to grow this event to include more locations all over the West Region.
We loved engaging with so many passionate technologists and practitioners in the community and sharing our enthusiasm for all things innovation. We had opportunities to network with local technologists and meet new faces from Macys, Amazon, and Sephora. Attendees experienced lecture style talks and had opportunities to participate in Q & A sessions, open discussions, and experience the domain industry knowledge that Thoughtworks has to offer in Javascript, DevOps, Big Data, and important privacy issues. There was also a presentation on how to build your own Technology Radar within a project and a surprise visit from Martin Fowler.
Thoughtworkers:
Pete Hodgson & Chris Ng co-presented a talk on how Javascript and DevOps are currently evolving in technology driven organizations.
Johnny LeRoy, Head of Technology for North America, spoke about Privacy, Big Data and how organizations are bridging the gap between the physical worl and digital technologies.
Derek Hammer gave a talk on how companies or individuals can create their own "technology radar" to help guide, evaluate and standardize technology decisions.
In case you missed it, you can catch all of the presentations
Disclaimer: The statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Thoughtworks.