Signals from Velocity New York 2014

From the lure of work that matters to building your own device lab, here are key talks from Velocity New York 2014.

Practitioners and experts from the web operations and performance worlds came together in New York City this week for Velocity New York 2014. Below you’ll find a handful of keynotes and interviews from the event that we found particularly notable.


Mikey Dickerson: From Google to HealthCare.gov to the U.S. Digital Service

“These problems are fixable, these problems are important, but they require you to choose to work on them” — Mikey Dickerson looks back on what it took to fix HealthCare.gov and he reveals his reasons for joining the U.S. Digital Service.


Empathy: At the heart of what we should be doing

Of people. By people. For people. Tim O’Reilly says getting the “people” part right, by embracing and understanding empathy, is the key both to DevOps and great user experience design.


The simple power of Promise Theory

Promise Theory is “a deceptively simple way of thinking about complex systems and the relationship between failure and success and uncertainty and certainty.” — Jeff Sussna, founder and principal at Ingineering.IT, explains how components within a system can collaborate through promises.


How you know it’s time to build your own device lab

Etsy engineering manager Lara Hogan talks about the evolution of Etsy’s device lab, how they choose and manage devices, and when companies should consider building their own labs.


The network is about to have its DevOps moment

John Willis, entrepreneur in residence at Pacific Crest Securities, says the network has been neglected in the “DevOps journey” thus far, but that’s about to change.


Mobile development: Still complicated, but getting better

Author Max Firtman provides a quick survey of the mobile development world. He also discusses the importance of mobile performance, the development challenges we can expect from the Internet of Things, and mobile myths vs mobile realities (hint: the browser you think everyone uses isn’t the browser everyone uses).


Cloning isn’t an option, but you can become a multiplier

Taking a note from Larry Wall, Rent the Runway CTO Camille Fournier looks at the three virtues of successful multipliers: proactive laziness, thoughtful impatience, and team-oriented hubris.


You can see more keynotes and interviews in our Velocity New York 2014 playlist.

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