We’ve just announced Dan North and Dave Snowden as conference keynote speakers for this year’s Agile Cambridge conference.

Dan North writes software and coaches teams and organisations in Agile and Lean methods. He believes in putting people first and writing simple, pragmatic software. He believes most software problems come back to communication and feedback, which is why he puts so much emphasis on “getting the words right”, and why he is so fascinated by systems thinking, communication and how people learn. He has been working in the IT industry for over 20 years, and he occasionally blogs at dannorth.net.

Dave Snowden is the founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge. His work is international in nature and covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy, organisational decision making and decision making. He has pioneered a science based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complex adaptive systems theory. He is a popular and passionate keynote speaker on a range of subjects, and is well known for his pragmatic cynicism and iconoclastic style. His paper with Boone on Leadership was the cover article for the Harvard Business Review in November 2007 and also won the Academy of Management award for the best practitioner paper in the same year. He has previously won a special award from the Academy for originality in his work on knowledge managment.

The conference takes place September 27-28 at Churchill College. Cambridge. Visit the Agile Cambridge event website for more information.

Dates and venue for this year’s Functional Programming Days event have been announced.

FP Days 2012 will take place from 25-26 October at the Pitt Building, Cambridge.

As for FP Day 2011, and our other conferences, this will be a practical event focussing on making FP work for you.

We’ll run a public Call for Speakers, so sign up to the mailing list on the website or follow @FPDays on Twitter if you’re interested in finding out more information.

We’ve released the first batch of tickets for March’s Code Generation 2012 conference. These are the cheapest tickets you can buy. Places at these prices are limited so book not to avoid missing out.

I was interviewed recently on Cambridge’s Business Hub radio show:

http://thebusinesshub.fm/wp-content/podcasts/12-01-01-bhub-show-podcast.mp3

I talk about my background, how I founded Software Acumen, why I started running events and also about some basic tips for event management.

The Call for Speakers for next year’s Code Generation 2012 conference has been announced. Once again, accepted speakers pay no conference fees.

CODE GENERATION 2012 CALL FOR SPEAKERS – DEADLINE DECEMBER 9th 2011

We are seeking high-quality session proposals covering any aspect of MDSD (including Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs), Model-Driven Architecture (MDA), Domain-Specific Modelling, Generative Programming, Software Product Lines and related areas).

Sessions could cover topics such as:

• Defining and implementing modelling languages
• Code Generation and Model Transformation tools and approaches
• Language evolution and modularization
• Domain Analysis and Domain Engineering
• Tool and technology adoption
• Meta Modeling
• Runtime virtual machines versus direct code generation
• Approaches to code generation
• Approaches to combined development (partial code generation with partial handwritten code)
• Flexibility in code generation

Hands-on sessions, experience reports, tutorials, panels and other interactive sessions based on any aspect of these and related approaches are particularly encouraged although more theoretical sessions are also welcome.

In addition to paying no conference fees, being a speaker gives you a unique opportunity to present your viewpoint to our audience.

Visit http://www.codegeneration.net/cg2012/speak.php for more information.

With its lack of up-front activity, short iterations and emphasis on minimum-viable products, Agile approaches can seem to be the antithesis of a considered approach to User Experience.

However, the Agile Manifesto does value qualities that UX practitioners also value: an emphasis on customer collaboration, individuals & interactions and uncovering better ways of developing software. So, is a perceived problem with Agile and UX more to do with the way either is implemented in practice, more to do with the personalities involved or is the problem organisational?

I’m helping put together a new 1 day workshop to explore how Agile and UX can best co-exist.

The workshop will draw together people from the Agile and UX communities to share experiences, problems and solutions to enable UX to have a happy marriage with Agile approaches. The workshop will be facilitated but participants should come prepared to play an active role in the session and to discuss their particular context.

Visit http://www.agilecambridge.net/ac2011/workshops.php#agileux for more information.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a big fan of functional programming – I learned ML as an undergraduate and it was the programming language with which I had the most resonance. My (programming) career was primarily Lisp-based and since the move into management the only language that’s really inspired be to begin programming again is clojure.

I’m also personally very excited that there is so much interest in FP these days.

Given this, it was only natural that I’d put together a new functional programming event here in Cambridge.

I’m pleased to announce FP Day 2011 will take place at Lucy Cavendish College on October 14th and doubly-pleased that Simon Peyton-Jones and Don Syme have agreed to keynote the event.

I’ve put together a programme of hands-on sessions on Haskell, Clojure and F# and am sourcing some short talks to round out the day.

Booking is now open for the event. And as usual if you want the luxury of booking late you’ll end up paying more. You have been warned…

If the event is a success then we’ll hopefully see future FP days as an annual event.

I’m running a new event for the East of England User Experience, Design and Web communities.

UX Cambridge 2011 will run from 10-11 November at Clare College, Cambridge.

An open Call for Speakers is now available. Accepted Speakers pay no conference fees.

The submission process is straightforward, just asking for enough information to enable us to judge whether your session is suitable for our audience. The deadline for submissions is Friday 2nd September 2011.

We’re trying an experiment at this year’s Agile Cambridge conference by running a bunch of pre-conference tutorials.

Kanban – Successful evolutionary change for your technology business – with David J. Anderson 27-28th September:
http://www.agilecambridge.net/ac2011/tutorials.php#kanban

Mastering the Product Backlog – with Roman Pichler 28th September
http://www.agilecambridge.net/ac2011/tutorials.php#backlog

Hands-On : TDD at the System Scale – with Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce 28th September:
http://www.agilecambridge.net/ac2011/tutorials.php#tdd

Visit the Agile Cambridge 2011 website at:
http://www.agilecambridge.net/ac2011/index.php

Early-bird booking discounts now available.

The conference programme for this year’s Agile Cambridge conference is now online.

As usual we are offering discounted early-bird tickets on a first-come, first-served basis.

Keynote speakers are David J. Anderson (@agilemanager) and Jurgen Appelo (@jurgenappelo).

The rest of the programme is made up of case studies, hands-on sessions, experience reports, simulations and of course fun.

See this short Youtube video to find out what participants said about last year’s event.