Michael Carducci
Greater Wisconsin Software Symposium
Madison · February 23 - 24, 2018
Software Architect & Magician
Michael Carducci spent years learning to see things as they actually are; first as a magician, then as a software architect, now as both simultaneously. And somehow that’s not even the whole story.
He’s the author of Mastering Software Architecture (Apress, 2025) and is currently writing The Semantic Layer. He has spent over 25 years following interesting problems; through roles from individual contributor to CTO and back again, across industries and continents.
As a speaker, he applies the same toolkit he uses in close-up magic: attention, misdirection, timing, storytelling, and the instinct to take the long way around when that’s where the truth lives. Audiences at hundreds of conferences across four continents have described his talks as the kind that change how you think about a problem rather than just what you know about it.
He also makes YouTube videos about technology and curiosity with his wife Kate, because some ideas are too important (or too interesting!) to leave only in conference rooms.
Presentations
VDD: Value Driven Development 10 Golden Rules for incremental Greatness
On the NFJS tour, there are questions that seem to come up again and again. One common example is “How do we determine which new tools and technologies we should focus our energy on learning?” another is “How do we stop management from forcing us to cut corners on every release so we can create better and more maintainable code?” which, after awhile becomes “How can we best convince management we need to rewrite the business application?”
There is a single metaanswer to all these questions and many others.
The Influential Engineer Overcoming resistance to change
By the end of this conference you will have learned many new tools and technologies. The easy part is done, now for the hard part: getting the rest of the teamand managementon board with the new ideas. Easier said than done.
Whether you want to effect culture change in your organization, lead the transition toward a new technology, or are simply asking for better tools; you must first understand that having a “good idea” is just the beginning. How can you dramatically increase your odds of success?
You will learn 12 concrete strategies to build consensus within your team as well as 6 technique to dramatically increase the odds that the other person will say “Yes” to your requests.
Influential Engineer Part 2 Persuasion Patterns
In Part 1, you learned the core principles of influence and persuasion. How to we take this back to the office and apply what we've learned?
Ego Driven Development - A Cautionary Tale
Think back over your career as a software developer. How many great–and I mean truly great–software developers have you worked with? The chances are you can count them on one hand? Developers with 20-30 years experience can rarely name more than two or three. What does it take to be considered truly great? Michael can certainly tell you what NOT to do… from cold, bitter experience.
Diving into Big Data and Hadoop I
Big Data is exploding into our industry and these skills are increasingly in demand. Much of our existing body of knowledge needs to be updated, however as Big Data solutions present a number of unique challenges. In this half-day workshop we start with the question “What is Big Data?” and “How do big data solutions differ from traditional data architectures.” We then dive into core Hadoop technologies to tackle your Big Data challenges and dive into several tools and technologies for distributed processing of large datasets.
Diving into Big Data and Hadoop II
Big Data is exploding into our industry and these skills are increasingly in demand. Much of our existing body of knowledge needs to be updated, however as Big Data solutions present a number of unique challenges. In this half-day workshop we start with the question “What is Big Data?” and “How do big data solutions differ from traditional data architectures.” We then dive into core Hadoop technologies to tackle your Big Data challenges and dive into several tools and technologies for distributed processing of large datasets.