Topic: The Internet and the World Wide Web
Picnik's original operations staff person, Justin Huff, and second hire, Tim Wilfong tell the story of how the company removed a SPOF, a single point of failure, by hiring Tim. They list some good rules of thumb for this operational transition, and are frank about the flexibility, honesty and lack of ego needed by both people for this type of change to succeed. Picnik was acquired by Google just months after Tim's hire. This talk offers interesting anecdotes about managing rapid growth.
Dr. Moira Gunn talks with former Wired magazine Editor-in-Chief, Kevin Kelly, about his new book, What Technology Wants, and his theory that technology is undergoing its own evolution.
MeshCentral, a remote monitoring and management web site, allows a user to connect with home or office devices from anywhere in the world. It requires a special management agent on computers, but once installed, the computers will show up in the My Devices section of the MeshCentral web site allowing a user to monitor them, power them on and off and take control of them. Developer Ylian Saint-Hilaire of Intel discusses the project, now in its alpha phase.
Website performance is second only to security in user expectations, claims Joshua Bixby, president of Strangeloop Networks. He suggests that web page rendering must be kept under two seconds to retain user loyalty. Website acceleration directly impacts a company's business metrics and KPIs. Bixby presents his team's latest findings about the relationship between web performance and business benefits.
To enable a free flow of data across platforms, operating systems and languages, Jean Paoli and his team, the Interoperability Strategy team at Microsoft, are working tirelessly. Paoli asks "What is an open cloud?" He contends that it's a cloud where data moves easily in and out, where programmers can work with the languages they choose. A truly open cloud will unleash the imaginations of developers to use the cloud's new data sets and computing power.
Musician and CD Baby founder Derek Sivers had already built his popular music selling website using his own cobbled-together PHP framework when he realized he needed to do something different. His quirky code was not able to scale as the site grew and Rails was the solution. In his 2010 Railsconf keynote, Sivers describes the journey he took and his own thought processes in deciding to use Rails as a framework for this award-winning project.
DigitalGlobe fills the need for fast and accurate geospatial information, which has become ubiquitous in today's always-on environment. Walter Scott demonstrates the latest innovations in satellite imaging technology and web solutions. New developments set the pace for a revolution in GPS and GIS-based lifestyles. DigitalGlobe has over a billion square kilometers of imagery in their archive--close to collecting the land surface of the planet seven times over.
The web continues to evolve as new devices appear and new standards are adopted. The iPhone and other mobile devices are now in the mix of places where people go to connect with each other. Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith call from Belgium where they were attending the Devoxx 2010 conference. They talk with Phil and Scott about internet protocols and social networking and how these are affected by the many different ways people and companies are interacting.
"Everything fails all the time", says Amazon Chief Technology Officer, Werner Vogels. This is especially true in today's technologically complex world where more and more components are built in to a system. Lenny Rachitsky outlines the process in turning downtimes into an opportunity to build trust and loyalty amongst a company's publics.
What's going on behind the scenes at The Conversations Network? Our entire senior management team are on hand to bring you up-to-date: Phil Windley (IT Conversations), Steve Williams (CHI Conversations), Bernadette Clavier (Social Innovation Conversations), Paul Figgiani (Senior Audio Engineer), Sheryl Coe (Senior Web Editor) and Doug Kaye (Executive Director).
