Re: BIG NEWS - Select Speaker on Friday, July 26

[Matt Roberts]

Oh and could someone forward this to the agile Austin leaders distros?  I can't figure out which email corresponds to which list. 

Thanks,

Matt

On Jul 18, 2013, at 12:10 PM, "Roberts, Matt" <Matt.R...@ca.com> wrote:

Team:

I'm really excited to announce that Dr. Robert L. Read, a Presidential innovation Fellow working on the RFP-EZ project, will be presenting to the community on Friday, June 26th. The topic will be "Making Government Open and Agile". He's going to talk about the challenges of adopting agile, lean, and lean startup within the federal government. He'll also be talking about what we can do to help through the availability of tools such as open APIs. 

I've decided to host this at CA during lunch (12:00 - 1:30), but will reach out to Cheng at Indeed in case we exceed our capacity of 40. 

This is a really cool and unique opportunity--I plan on billing it as a "Select Speaker" unless anyone sees an issue. 

My ask--can any commit to coming to help with escorting the visitors through the doors?  I probably only need two. 

Thanks all!

Matt


Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Read <read....@gmail.com>
Date: July 18, 2013, 10:34:03 AM CDT
To: Matt Roberts <cpgm...@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Some details...

Dear Matt,

Please find below a blurb about the talk I plan to give, some links, and a bio.

Please let me know if you would like me to go in any particular direction with the talk, or what your audience might find most interesting or least interesting.

Making Government Open and Agile

Like a giant awakening from a deep slumber, the Federal government is attempting to become more Agile.  This talk will describe some of the government’s efforts from the point of one developer working inside the RFP-EZ program which strives to lower the cost to the government of buying emerging and high-tech services by encouraging small companies to bid more aggressively on government contracts.  A brief discussion of high-tech business opportunities will be mentioned.  The state of government practices will be described with special focus on those programs run by the Presidential Innovation Fellows, an ongoing program of particular interest to Austin though-leaders.  Additionally, government efforts to foster entrepreneurial new businesses and new jobs through the Open Data Initiative will be briefly discussed.  Finally, upcoming opportunities for open-source and crowd-sourcing  participation by Austinites involving government projects will be mentioned.

This will not be a discussion of Agile Methodologies per se.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows/faq

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/15/rfp-ez-delivers-savings-taxpayers-new-opportunities-small-business

http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows/open-data-initiatives

http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/rfp-ez-is-headed-to-the-states-contracting-made-simple/?utm_source=dailyawesome&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=manibody&elq=e601f196fd5049e78028a691bed515f5&elqCampaignId=3345

 

Dr. Robert L. Read is a Presidential innovation Fellow working on the RFP-EZ project.  He loves programming.  Previously, Rob served as Director of Product Development at Planview, Inc., where he led agile software development teams for six years.  While doing so, he constructed the Merfluke 7, a functional but slow device for dolphin-like human-powered swimming.  Before that Rob created a website programmed in LISP for forming human consensus, and maintained and improved the Elephant LISP-based database.  He was a Principal Engineer at Hire.com, where he wrote “How to be a Programmer” and was strongly influenced by Kent Beck.  He has two patents in optics and solar energy.  He received a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA from Rice University in computer science.  Rob speaks Esperanto fluently, and has served on the board of Esperanto USA.  He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and two nearly-grown children.

On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Matt Roberts <cpgm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Robert:

Understand completely. Yes consider Friday the 26th locked in. I may seek out a larger facility as back up, but I can host up to 40. I like the program as you've  described.

If you can send me a few Sentences about the program as described as well as the PIF program today I can get it posted as soon as tomorrow morning. The more advanced notice people have the better the attendance will be.

 No need to talk on the phone if all the above makes sense to you.

Thanks again--really looking forward to this!

Matt

On Jul 18, 2013, at 8:11 AM, Robert Read <read....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Matt,
>
> I'll try to call you today.  Phone conversations are sometimes hard for me because I have a hearing loss, so let me review my situation here:
>
> I'm flying in Thursday night (late) on the 25th and will be there on July the 26th and Saturday the 27th.  I currently have a lunch-time talk scheduled at Planview (my company) but I am happy to move that to late in the afternoon if would prefer to do a lunchtime talk on Friday the 26th.
>
> I will obviously attempt to tailor my talk to the desires of Agile Austin, and will focus on the government and PIF use (and failure to use) Agile methods and the "Lean Startup" approach etc.
>
> If we can get the talk scheduled, I will send you a draft on Monday if you want to review and suggest adjustments that may make it more interesting to your audience.
>
> --
> Robert L. Read, PhD
> Presidential Innovation Fellow, 2013

--

Robert L. Read, PhD

Presidential Innovation Fellow, 2013

<AgileAustinBlurb.docx>