This is a good presentation I have used in the past to explain to technical and non-technical executives alike what an Open API is and why it can be valuable to their organization.

I removed anything specific to any one company or industry so it should serve as a good general template to start from.

I was a judge this weekend in Speek’s hack meetup. It was a great event with some great apps coming out of it!

Check-out the twitter play by play below:

I am judging Speek’s Hackathon next weekend in San Francisco.

It is going to be a great event with some great developers building new web, mobile and social apps using Speek’s Open Voice API (cloud-based).

Here is the official announcement:

Speek will be hosting a one-day developer hackathon on Saturday 2/12 at the Mashery Corporate headquarters in San Francisco — 717 Market Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94103. The goal of the hackathon will be for developers to build cool and interesting voice-enabled prototypes leveraging the Speek Voice API. Attendance is free. So come on hackers…let’s see what can you give a voice to.

WHAT CAN I CODE IN?

Developers can code in the language and platform of their choosing. The only caveat is that these apps must leverage the Speek Voice API, which is a REST-based interface that returns JSON or XML responses. Our API dials out to cell phones, landlines and VOIP applications like Skype and GoogleTalk.

CAN WE CODE IN GROUPS?

Developers can code as individuals or in teams of two. We would prefer to avoid large groups of developers working as a team, since (in our experience) this leads to scope creep and miscommunication that then results in the project not getting completed…especially for a one day hackathon.

HOW SHOULD I PREPARE

Before the event, please go to http://developer.speek.com to review our technical API documentation.

WHO OWNS THE CODE I WRITE

You own the code, unless you’re using or writing something that belongs to someone else.

WHAT SHOULD I BRING WITH ME?

You should bring a laptop or two, plus anything else you need to build an app (i.e. an iPhone, Android, iPad for mobile app, books; etc.) We’ll provide power and bandwidth, as well as desks, food, and drinks.

PRIZES

Prizes will be awarded, which will include an iPad, iPod Touch, and other cool stuff.

JUDGES

* Clay Loveless — Co-Founder of Mashery
* Danny Boice — Executive Director, New Media / Web Technology at The College Board
* 3rd Judge — To Be Named Later

SCHEDULE

2/12 Saturday

9:00 AM: Walk in registration
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM: Coding with breakfast, lunch, and dinner served. Coding ends at 8:00 PM sharp.
8:00 PM to 8:30 PM: Demo registrations by developers
8:30 PM to 9:30 PM: 90-second developer demonstrations of prototypes
9:30 PM to 10:00 PM: Prizes awarded including free T-shirts to all hackathon participants
10:00 PM to whenever: Party festivities at locations to be determined
To register for the event, please go to http://speek.eventbrite.com.

NOTE: Speek will pay a $250 finders fee to any developer who refers another developer that wins an awarded prize at the hackathon.

Link to Press Release
Link to Speek Blog

I’ve been invited to give a presentation on Cloud Computing Best Practices at the Association of IT Professionals Member Summit.

My presentation will be on Friday, March 25 from 3:00 to 4:00 PM in Orlando.

I’ll likely also be presenting at the National Collegiate Conference (NCC) for a student audience while there (details to come).

Here is the link to the Summit.

Look me up if you’ll be there!

I was on a panel a few weeks ago titled “Building a Successful API”. Fellow panel members were Liz Derr (COO/VP Engineering, Alibris) and Ryan Bloom (Director Engineering, Lulu). The panel was moderated by Quentin Hardy (National Editor, Forbes).

Check it out!

The video of my panel with Matt Raines (VP, Technology – BlueFly.com) and Quentin Hardy (National Editor – Forbes) from the Business of API’s Conference is up!

Check it out:

I’ve always said that being able to take relatively complex technologies and explain them in a way that a 4 year old could understand was a special talent.

Accenture seems to have bitten off on this theory as well and made a video with 10 year olds explaining cloud computing.

Brilliant!

I recently wrote an approach strategy for an exciting new start-up that I have been advising in getting their new product to market.

In helping this team out I broke their approach into some very basic steps. As I thought about it it occurs to me that these steps are fairly universal and representative of the general approach one should take when getting any new product to market regardless of whether you are a large enterprise or a small stealth start-up.

Here is the summary of these steps:

Step 1: Validate that your target market will actually use this product and find it valuable
Step 2: Get it working at a basic level (just enough to put in front of private alpha/beta users and get feedback)
Step 3: Open it up to broader audience and grow usage
Step 4: Experiment with different monetization options / pricing models
Step 5: Generate a little bit of revenue
Step 6: Get it funded

I think that most people either approach these steps backwards or skip critical steps along the way.

I’ll give more detailed breakdown of HOW you accomplish each of these steps, especially if the “get it funded” step comes last, in future blog posts.

For reference, 37 Signals has some good blog posts that go into product development approaches in far greater detail and I tend to agree with them the majority of the time. Here is a good one that summarizes “launching softly” well.

I’ll be presenting at Mashery’s Business of API’s conference in San Francisco next week. It should be great!

Here is the list of speakers:

Rob Abbott, Founder, Egg Haus
Danny Boice, Executive Director, Web Technology/New Media, The College Board
Kent Brewster, Kung Fu Developer at Vurve
Liz Derr, Chief Operating Officer, Alibris
Matthew Thompson, Vice President of Platform, Klout
Mike Hart, Director of Engineering, API and Community, Netflix
Ryan Sarver, Director, Platform, Twitter
Neil Mansilla, CEO, Mansilla Dev
Marc Parrish, VP of Direct Marketing, Barnes & Noble
Jeremy Thomas, Director of Product Development, Active.com
Chris Vein, City CIO and Executive Director, Department of Technology at City and County of San Francisco
Oren Michels, Co-Founder and CEO, Mashery
Quentin Hardy, National Editor, Forbes Magazine

I have been invited to speak at Mashery’s BAPI Conference in New York on Oct 19th. I attended the event last year and it was great! It’s definitely worth checking out for anyone interested in learning how folks are monetizing their data and functionality through an open API and developer community.