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Entrepreneur Florida How To Podcasts What I’m Up To

Everything you need to know to win StartupBus is in this podcast, part 3

The title of this post should be a big hint: Everything you need to know in order to win StartupBus North America 2022 is contained within a podcast. This is the third in a series of posts covering the “Startup Bus” series of episodes from Gimlet Media’s Startup podcast, which covered the New York bus’ journey during StartupBus 2017.

(Did you miss the first two articles in this series? Here’s part one, and here’s part two.)

I’m posting this series as a prelude to StartupBus 2022, which takes place at the end of July. I was a contestant — a buspreneur — on the Florida bus in 2019, which made it all the way to the finals and finished as a runner-up. Now I’m a coach — a conductor — on the 2022 edition.

Here’s episode 3 of the podcast series…

…and here are the lessons I took away from this episode:

  • If you run into a difficult person in the morning, you ran into a difficult person. If you run into difficult people all day, you’re the difficult person. I don’t want to reduce Ash, one of the buspreneurs, to a single quality — difficult person — but his “hey, I’m just being real” approach to everyone and everything is one of the hallmarks of difficult person-ry. One of the challenges of being a difficult person is that people will work with you only if you provide value that outweighs your difficulty, and that’s not easy to accomplish. This episode gives us a deeper look at Ash. While he can be a difficult person, we get a better understanding of who he is. Which leads me to me to my next observation:
  • “The thing about StartupBus is that it really is like a reality TV show. It’s so intense that every interaction, every personality can feel like a caricature of real life.” In the previous episode, Eric the narrator observed that StartupBus feels a lot like one of those “reality TV” competition shows. In this episode, he takes the observation one step further by noting that in a high-pressure setup like StartupBus, it’s all too easy to reduce your busmates to the most obvious aspect of their personality. Remember that people are more than what you see on the surface.
  • Even though the company you’re creating on the bus isn’t “real,” it helps to get real users, and you either get them through your social network or through advertising. It’s more impressive to the judges at the finals when you can say “Even at this early stage, we already have x users for our product.” You may be working under a compressed timeline, but it’s still doable, and not only do users give you cred with the judges; users can also give you valuable feedback.
  • Pay attention to the details when you’re spending money. One of the teams paid for Facebook ads, but clicking on the ads took users to https://phishly.io when their site actually lived at plain old http://phishly.io. That was 65 dollars down the drain.
  • StartupBus may be the “wild card” that you need in your life. As Madelena Mak, one of the conductors on the bus says: “I think like lot of people who join the bus have that same feeling I felt, like that they want to be dealt a wildcard. That they want to be pushed to the limits so they can break out of their own old molds. Like they want to be something more than who they think they can be. It’s not about the bus. It’s about learning something about yourself.”
  • The pitching gets tougher. As the bus approaches the destination city — New Orleans in the case of StartupBus 2017, Austin in this year’s case — you’ll be pitching in front of judges who’ll ask questions that will require you to have thought through more angles. For example:
    • Team Daisy — the folks behind the funeral-planning app — were asked if they’d considered handling issues beyond just the funeral, such as death certificates.
    • Team Denari — the team with the app for sending cryptocurrency to people in need — got stuck on a question that exposed their blockchain-induced blindness. When they said that they could outdo GoFundMe because it services only 19 countries, one of the judges countered with “You are talking about now securities exchange over multiple countries. Maybe there are reasons GoFundMe only deals with 19. Which I haven’t heard you guys say. Is it cause they don’t want to? Because that’s kind of what it comes off as. It’s like, ‘GoFundMe is the largest one, they’re only in 19 countries.’ Why is that?”

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Entrepreneur Florida How To Podcasts What I’m Up To

Everything you need to know to win StartupBus is in this podcast, part 2

ThinkInsideTheBus - StartupBus

As the title of this post puts it: Everything you need to know in order to win StartupBus North America 2022 is contained within a podcast. This is the second in a series of posts covering the “Startup Bus” series of episodes from Gimlet Media’s Startup podcast, which covered the New York bus’ journey during StartupBus 2017.

If you haven’t yet seen the previous post, check it out! It covers episode 1 of the Startup Bus series, which introduces you to the buspreneurs on the 2017 New York bus.

Episode 2: It’s like one of those competition TV shows!

You can listen to episode 2 on its page or use the player below:

Here are my notes from this episode:

  • Eric the narrator discovers the secret of StartupBus: it’s like a reality TV show, but in real life! “When I was growing up, my family was very into a particular kind of reality tv—competition shows… I thought I’d be reporting on a hackathon. I’d find one person, going through something interesting, and we’d just see how their week played out. Pretty simple. But when I woke up in a hotel in Raleigh, North Carolina that Tuesday morning, and I saw a giant “StartupBus” decal on the charter coach outside my window, I had this realization that would have thrilled my younger self to no end: “Holy shit. I’m not just reporting a story about a hackathon, I have landed inside a real life competition show.”

    The lesson you should take from Eric’s realization: if you think you wasted your time watching Survivor, The Amazing Race, or similar shows, guess what…you didn’t! A lot of the personal dynamics on those shows is pretty much like those on StartupBus.
  • Be prepared to pitch constantly. Eric observes: “To get the day started, each team sends one person to the front of the bus to practice their pitch over the intercom. This is something that happens a lot on StartupBus—people are practicing their pitches constantly.”
  • Be prepared for surprise challenges and surprise obstacles. StartupBus borrows a big trick from reality TV shows: surprise obstacles. When the bus pulls into Charlotte, North Carolina, the New York team finds out that they’ll be pitching against two other teams — a bus that started in Akron, Ohio and another that started in…Tampa!
  • Don’t limit yourself to just software, because there’s a chance that some team on another bus isn’t limiting itself to just software. “And the Ohio bus is impressive in its own way. It turns out they teamed up with some people from San Francisco, and they’re manufacturing physical products. So they have 3D printers and computer aided design software. The whole thing feels like that scene in “The Sandlot” when the other team shows up in their actual jerseys and matching converse sneakers, and all of a sudden you realize, ‘Oh… this is some real competition.’”
  • Try not to fall into the trap of traditional gender dynamics. On one team, there’s a good news/bad news thing going on because they’re electing one of the women to be CEO; the bad news is that it’s a job that none of them particularly want, and a lot of it will be about reining in unruly behavior.
  • Have a plan for managing conflict. On another team, a “that’s just who I am” kind of guy butts head against a woman on his team. This is a pretty big topic, and I’ll write more about it in a later post. Just know that you may have to manage conflict within the team.

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Entrepreneur Florida How To Podcasts What I’m Up To

Everything you need to know to win StartupBus is in this podcast, part 1

I’ll repeat what this post’s title is telling you: Everything you need to know in order to win StartupBus North America 2022 is contained within a podcast. More specifically, the “Startup Bus” series of episodes from Gimlet Media’s Startup podcast, which covered the New York bus’ journey during StartupBus 2017.

This five-part series covered the journey from its start in New York City to the finals in New Orleans. It features reporter Eric Mennel, who “embedded” with the StartupBus New York bus in July 2017 to follow the participants, talk to them, and report on what happened. It gives you a look not just into the teams and their projects, but the people in those teams, what drives them, and the very personal reasons why they chose to go on the bus.

I participated as a “buspreneur” (their word for contestant) in StartupBus 2019 — the tenth StartupBus North America event — and our team took the Florida Bus to the finals, where our project got the runner-up position. As a way of preparing for my ride, I listened to these episodes three times, which gave me plenty of opportunity to distill a lot of knowledge from them.

I’m quite certain that this knowledge played a role in our team’s success, and I think it can play a role in yours — but only if you ride the bus!

Episode 1: Boarding and brainstorming

You can listen to episode 1 on its page or use the player below:

Here are my notes from the episode:

  • Rule number one of StartupBus is that there is no “number two” on the bus. Bus toilets aren’t as well-sealed as airplane toilets, and if you poop on the bus, it will be bad for everyone concerned — especially you, because we’ll all be giving you the stink-eye from now on.
  • You’re going to make your first pitch very soon after the bus departs. At the start of the ride, every buspreneur stands in front of the bus and makes a first pitch. This pitch will be for two things:
    • Yourself: You’ll be selling yourself to prospective teams. You’re going to need to convince people why you should be on their team or why they should be on yours. It works best if you can have your unique value proposition ready in advance.
    • Your startup idea: If you have a startup idea — that is, if you have a problem and a solution — you should be ready to pitch it. You want your fellow buspreneurs to want to work on your startup idea!
  • Be ready for chaos after the first pitches. After the pitches, people will start looking for and forming teams. Be ready to move about the bus to talk to different groups.
  • Build a balanced team. You’re going to need a variety of skills to get the job done in three days.
  • Day one of StartupBus is about coming up with and validating your idea. Your idea will be tested, and you may need to modify it slightly — or make a big pivot. Be prepared to do either.
  • There’s a difference between a technology and a solution. One of the teams that initially looks like a collection of all-stars ends up without a product idea because they were focused more on blockchain than a solving a problem with blockchain. As the saying goes: “People don’t really buy drills, they buy holes.”
  • If the technology you plan to use isn’t something laypeople are familiar with, you may need to spend some time explaining it. The blockchain team ended up spending a lot of the time allotted to their pitch explaining what a blockchain was, and why it might be essential to the problem they hadn’t quite settled on solving. Remember, this was 2017, well before the time when crypto exchanges were easy to find online and celebrities were shilling for cryptocurrency companies; in fact, it would be a little bit before “BitConneeeeeeeeeeect!”. Keep this is mind if your startup is going to be NFT-based — you’re going to spend a good chunk of your pitch explain them to the judges, which will take away from the time to pitch what your project actually does.
  • The conductors are there to help you. Not only that; all the conductors have been on StartupBus before, so we’ve gone what you’re going through now, we learned from our experiences, and we’ve internalized those lessons. Our job is to actively help you make your startup, project, and pitch be the best they can be.
  • The conductors are there to challenge you. The ride to Austin will not be direct. There will be stops, where you will face challenges. A mere 4 hours after the New York 2017 bus departed, the teams had to make their first pitch in front of a panel of judges in Washington, D.C..
  • Try to avoid talking over other team members. Day one is about initial ideas and refinement, and there’s a lot of talking and brainstorming. Your team should try to make sure that team members don’t talk over other team members.
  • Find out why your fellow buspreneurs are there. There are all sorts of reasons why someone would go on StartupBus, but there are a few particular categories of “why” that you’ll definitely see:
    • Seekers: There are always a number of buspreneurs who are participating because they’re looking for something: options for a new career path, new perspectives, new experiences, a chance to see parts of the country they otherwise wouldn’t see, and meaning. They can be great “idea” people, as they’re on the bus with the specific goal of trying new things.
    • Shakers: There are also always buspreneurs who want to “shake up” their current situation. Perhaps they’re in a job or life situation they don’t like, feel they’ve fallen into a rut, or want some experience that will set them apart from other job candidates (this is one of the reasons I went in 2019). These are great “doers,” because their reason to be on the bus is to do new things.
    • Hackathon junkies: Just as there are people who regularly compete in marathons and triathlons, there are people who regularly compete in hackathons (and remember, that’s what StartupBus is). Having one on your team is a real help — they have experience delivering a proof of concept in short order.

Watch this blog for the next episode, and my notes from that episode!

Categories
Podcasts Tampa Bay

What’s on Tampa Bay’s sci/tech podcasts (November 2021 edition)

Once again, it’s time to list Tampa Bay podcasts that you, the Global Nerdy reader, might find informative, interesting, and illuminating!

In the last list, I listed the podcasts from longest-running to newest. This time, I’m listing them in order from most new podcasts. They are:

  1. Space and Things
  2. The 6 Figure Developer
  3. Thunder Nerds
  4. The Mike Dominick Show
  5. Friends That Code

And now, the podcasts…

Space and Things

Space and Things is the newest podcast on this list, and it’s about…well, you get three guesses. Just read its name.

Space and Things features two hosts:

  • Emily Carney: A veteran of the United States Navy, Carney became a freelance writer back in 2008 and started a blog called This Space Available, which is hosted by the National Space Society.In 2011, Carney founded a facebook group Space Hipsters, of which I am a member. Originally intended to be a place to share news and insights amongst friends, this community has now grown to close to 20,000 members including astronauts, engineers, scientists, historians and space flight enthusiasts from around the globe.
  • Dave Giles: Giles is a singer/songwriter from London, England who has always had a passion for space flight. Since his early years he’s been looking skyward and though he ended up wielding a guitar for a living, space exploration is alway on his mind and one of his most popular songs is about astronaut Gene Cernan, ‘The Last Man On The Moon’.In 2019 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Giles visited all of the crewed space vehicles flown by NASA from Freedom 7 to the Space Shuttle Orbiters.

Here are Space and Things’ podcasts since the last time I did a roundup of Tampa Bay podcasts:

The 6 Figure Developer

At the time I’m writing this, The 6 Figure Developer — hosted by John CallawayClayton Hunt, and Jon Ash — has posted 217 episodes. It’s…

…a show dedicated to helping developers to grow their career. Topics include Test Driven Development, Clean Code, Professionalism, Entrepreneurship, as well as the latest and greatest programming languages and concepts.

Here are The 6 Figure Developer’s podcasts since the last time I did a roundup of Tampa Bay podcasts:

  • Episode 217 – The Senior Mindset with Swizec Teller: Swizec is a software engineer, instructor, blogger, vlogger, conference speaker, and author. He has trained the engineering teams from multiple Fortune 500 companies on React, Redux, GraphQL, Serverless, and other modern web technologies.
  • Episode 216 – Visual Studio 2022 with Mads Kristensen: Mads is a principal program manager on the Visual Studio Team and has published over 150 free Visual Studio extensions. He blogs about anything related to Visual Studio and extensibility, and is a home automation enthusiasts.
  • Episode 215 – Rebuilding the Plane Mid-Air w/ David Merk: David is a Software Engineer, Mentor, Organizer, Volunteer, Speaker, Workshop Creator, and unabashed Career Changer, specializing in C# .NET, N-Tier and Microservice Architecture.
  • Episode 214 – Open Source Software with Tanner Linsley: Tanner builds open source software that is currently used by hundreds of thousands of developers at companies ranging from fortune 500 companies all the way down to startups and indie developers. He has a focus in JavaScript using React, Remote/Server State Management, Data Grids/Tables, Data Visualization, and Enterprise Application Architecture.
  • Episode 213 – Developer Best Practices with April Edwards: April is a senior cloud advocate for Microsoft specializing in application transformation and DevOps ways of working. Her focus is working on Microsoft Azure to take customers on a journey from legacy technology while enabling them to take full advantage of DevOps.
  • Episode 212 – Don’t Sacrifice Quality: While “quality” can be subjective, certainly there are items with which we can agree? • This is what Roy was saying • Clayton is weirdly zen • Azure DevOps Podcast with Jeffrey Palermo & Capers Jones missed requirements • When agreements have been broken, understand the constraints? • Team Agreements?
  • Episode 211 – Git for Programmers with Jesse Liberty: Jesse is a principal developer, specializing in web and mobile and has been programming in C# for 20 years. He is a Microsoft MVP, a Xamarin MVP, an author, and he creates on-line courses for Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, and Pakt. He is the author of 18 books, the latest of which is Git for programmers.
  • Episode 210 – Compiler API with Jason Bock: Jason Bock is a Developer Advocate at Rocket Mortgage and a Microsoft MVP (C#). He has over 25 years of experience. He is the author of several books including “.NET Development Using the Compiler API”. He is a leader of the Twin Cities Code Camp and holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Marquette University.
  • Episode 209 – Elastic Leadership with Roy Osherove: Roy Osherove has worked in the software industry for over 20 years, and has authored several books including “The Art of Unit Testing”. These days, he is working as a freelance consultant & trainer on-site for various companies across the world.
  • Episode 208 – Software Consultancy with Ryan Vice: Ryan has published programming and architecture books, been awarded Microsoft MVP and frequently talks at conferences and users groups. He started Vice Software 6 years ago and has grown to over 40 developers and continues to grow 50% year over year.
  • Episode 207 – Tech Debt vs Cruft: Today we are going to talk about tech debt. What it is and how to manage it.
  • Episode 206 – The Birth of RavenDB with Oren Eini: Oren Eini aka Ayende Rahien is the founder of Hibernating Rhinos which develops RavenDB, a NoSQL open source & ACID document database.
  • Episode 205 – Polly with Bryan Hogan: Bryan is a Software architect, Microsoft MVP, Pluralsight author, Podcaster, and Blogger. He has twenty years experience; focusing on development of web applications, micro services and desktop applications.
  • Episode 204 – Comet and .NET MAUI with James Clancey: James is a PM Architect at Microsoft. He joined Xamarin in 2011 and has been at Microsoft now for 5 years. He joins us to talk about Comet, .NET MAUI, and a little bit about Xamarin Forms.
  • Episode 203 – NuGet and TikTok with Jon Douglas: Jon is a technical product manager, YouTuber and podcaster. He enjoys exploring the systems, strategies and tools that help us live happier, healthier, and more productive lives.

Thunder Nerds

Of the podcasts in this roundup, Thunder Nerds — “A conversation with the people behind the technology, that love what they do… and do tech good” — has been around the longest, with 289 episodes to date. You’ve probably seen the hosts at local meetups and conferences; they’re Frederick Philip Von Weiss and Brian Hinton.

Auth0 logo

Thunder Nerds is sponsored by a company that’s near and dear to me, Auth0! That’s partly because they have a great authentication, authorization, and identity service, and partly because I work there in my role as a Senior Developer Advocate!

Here are Thunder Nerds’ podcasts since the last time I did a roundup of Tampa Bay podcasts:

  • 289 – ⚱️ The Digitization of Deathcare with Faisal Abid: In this episode, we talk with Faisal Abid: Speaker, Entrepreneur, Google Developer Expert, and co-founder of Eirene cremations. Eirene provides high-quality, affordable cremation services. Eirene allows families to plan an affordable cremation entirely online or over the phone. Leveraging technology to help provide a better funeral experience to families. Additionally, Faisal walks us through the unique business and technology challenges he faced at the beginning of Eirene.
  • 288 – ⚖️ Digital Ethics, Rights & Responsibilities with Ali Rizvi: In this episode, we talk with Ali Rizvi, Vice President of Product Management at Star2Star, a Sangoma company. We discuss digital ethics, rights & responsibilities of technology companies such as Facebook. There are many aspects to how these entities influence our political climate and unnaturally distort social behavior. Some of the social media algorithms are presented to make our lives better, but do they? Are these types of technologies a fundamental threat to the whole of humanity, or just misunderstood?
  • 287 – 🧠 Learning in Public with SWYX: In this episode, we talk with SWYX, author, speaker, podcaster, and learning in public evangelist. We dive into his career history in finance and how he transitioned into development. We also discuss the challenges of Developer Experience, the advantages of learning in public, and lessons learned from podcasting. Additionally, we get a musical performance from SWYX himself. Bonus: We have Software Engineer, Arit Amana as a guest co-host.
  • 286 – 🌩️ Effective Conflict Resolution with Joshua Mauldin: In this episode, we get to talk with design director and conflict resolution expert Joshua Mauldin. We discuss the most effective techniques for conflict resolution, how to establish trust, and employ empathy. Joshua explains when we should use a third-party mediator, start a conversation with safety checks and lead a talk with facts. Additionally, we dive into disaster recovery. The approach of creating a shared purpose in building alignment.
  • 285 – 🎯 Essential Marketing Strategies with David Portnowitz: In this episode, we get to talk with David Portnowitz, Chief Marketing Officer at Star2Star, a Sangoma company. We discuss Star2Star, their solutions, and how they’re providing services that address the challenges of our new normal. We also delve into Marketing in the 20s and leverage the lessons learned from 2020 to ready business for the future. Additionally, we evaluate the current marketing trends and hypothesize which opportunities hold the most value.
  • 284 – 2021 ❤️ Conf-amigues 4 Life: In this episode, we get to talk with Baskar Rao Dandlamudi, Santosh Hari, Super Di, Faisal Abid, Sivamuthu Kumar, Todd Libby, Vincent Tang, Tessa, Jared Rhodes, and Stacy Devino. It all began with a tweet; we should do a show where we connect with some of our best conference friends and have a virtual conference… So we did, check it out ❤️! We also discuss COVID: Going to events, work-life balance, and should/can we go back to the office.

The Mike Dominick Show

The Mike Dominick Show is hosted by Mike Dominick, the CEO and founder of The Mad Botter INC, and has an open source focus.

Here are the most the three most recent Mike Dominick Show podcasts:

Friends That Code

Friends That Code is hosted by Mike Traverso, whom locals may know from the Tampa Bay Google Developers Group meetup and other Google-y events. In this podcast, he showcases…

…some amazing people I know that just happen to write code for a living. Whether they started off intending to code or just happened into it, we get to hear about the types of people you’ll meet, things you’ll get to do, jobs you’ll have along the way, and advice from some awesome coders along the way!

Here are the most the three most recent Friends That Code podcasts:

Categories
Mobile Podcasts

Recommended Android developer podcasts for 2021

This article is part of the Android August series, in which I’m writing an Android development-related article every day during the month of August 2021.

If you’re a regular podcast listener and an Android developer (or an aspiring Android developer), you’ll want to check out these podcasts. Not only are they informative, but they’re also active, or in other words, they’re still in the process of making more episodes. Add them to your playlist and deepen your Android knowledge!

Android Developers Backstage (171 episodes)

This is probably the longest-running Android developer podcasts. Hosted by Nick and Romain, two developers from the Android engineering team, Android Developers Backstage covers topics of interest to Android programmers, with in-depth discussions and interviews with engineers on the Android team at Google.

Jetpack Compose, the reactive data-driven UI toolkit for Android, has finally hit the 1.0 stage, and it’s included in the “Arctic Fox” release of Android Studio. It’s the hot new thing, and Android Developers Backstage is right on top of it, with several recent episodes covering different aspects of Jetpack Compose.

Fragmented: The Software Podcast (220 episodes)

For sheer volume of developer-focused episodes and topics, you can’t beat Fragmented, the Android-centric developer podcast hosted by Donn Felker and Kaushik Gopal. While they do talk a lot about Android, they focus on all sorts of topics that are relevant to software developers of all stripes, such as the importance of having a growth mindset, the importance of code conventions, the three things every developer needs to be able to do, growing an online presence in the software industry, and more.

Talking Kotlin (101 episodes)

I’m sure that there are still lots of Android developers out there who prefer to code in Java, but as far as I’m concered, Kotlin is the Android programming language. And wouldn’t you know it — there is a Kotlin programming podcast, and it comes straight from the source: JetBrains, the dev tool vendor behind Android Studio and Kotlin. Better still, it’s hosted by Kotlin’s best advocate, Hadi Hariri, JetBrains’ VP of Developer Advocacy.

Now in Android (43 episodes)

This is the official Android developer podcast, put together by the Android team. It provides summaries of what the Android team has been up to that you, the developer should know about. It covers library and platform releases, articles, videos, podcasts, samples, code labs — whatever seems relevant and interesting for Android developers.

Lately, there’ve been a number of episodes covering the beta version of the upcoming Android 12.

All About Android (535 episodes)

“All About Android” is aptly named: For over 500 episodes, they’ve been covering all sorts of Android developments — “the biggest news, freshest hardware, best apps and geekiest how-tos”.

POW! Samsung Developer Program (21 episodes)

Samsung, the people behind what’s considered to be the Android flagship phone, have a developer podcast: POW! The Samsung Developers Podcast. It’s hosted Samsung senior developer evangelist Tony Morelan, Sr..

The RayWenderlich.com Podcast

This is the official podcast of my friends at RayWenderlich.com, the premier mobile development tutorial site. RayWenderlich.com started off as an iOS dev tutorial site (it’s how I learned), but they’ve expanded to cover Android, Unity, and Flutter development, and so has the podcast.

Categories
Podcasts Tampa Bay

What’s on Tampa Bay’s sci/tech podcasts (July 2021 edition)

Once again, it’s time to list Tampa Bay podcasts that you, the Global Nerdy reader, might find informative, interesting, and illuminating!

In the last list, I listed the podcasts from longest-running to newest. As is the tradition with this list, I’m listing them from newest to longest-running this time. They are:

  1. Space and Things
  2. Friends That Code
  3. The Mike Dominick Show
  4. The 6 Figure Developer
  5. Thunder Nerds

And now, the podcasts…

Space and Things is the newest podcast on this list, and it’s about…well, you get three guesses. Just read its name.

Space and Things features two hosts:

  • Emily Carney: A veteran of the United States Navy, Carney became a freelance writer back in 2008 and started a blog called This Space Available, which is hosted by the National Space Society.In 2011, Carney founded a facebook group Space Hipsters, of which I am a member. Originally intended to be a place to share news and insights amongst friends, this community has now grown to close to 20,000 members including astronauts, engineers, scientists, historians and space flight enthusiasts from around the globe.
  • Dave Giles: Giles is a singer/songwriter from London, England who has always had a passion for space flight. Since his early years he’s been looking skyward and though he ended up wielding a guitar for a living, space exploration is alway on his mind and one of his most popular songs is about astronaut Gene Cernan, ‘The Last Man On The Moon’.In 2019 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Giles visited all of the crewed space vehicles flown by NASA from Freedom 7 to the Space Shuttle Orbiters.

Here are Space and Things’ podcasts since the last time I did a roundup of Tampa Bay podcasts:

  • STP 43 — We’re joined by author Elizabeth Howell to discuss her new book ‘Leadership Moments from NASA – Achieving The Impossible’ which is co-written with former Canadian Astronaut Dr. Dave Williams who is also a former director of Space and Life Sciences at NASA. The book is set for release on July 6th.
  • STP 42 — This week we’re joined again by Christina Korp, this time to talk all about her organisation ‘Space For A Better World’ and the the zero gravity flight that is coming up with Apollo 16 moonwalker Charlie Duke. We hear all about her recent flight with Charlie and Nicole Stott, and their tour of the Artemis rocket and space craft at Kennedy Space Center.
  • STP 41 — This year’s Spacefest will take place from July 15th- 18th at the JW Marrito Starr Pass Resort & Spa in Tucson, Arizona. We asked one of the organisers Kelsey Poor to come and talk to us about what it is, how it started and why you want to be there. Spacefest is organised by Novaspace, an online store for space art, astronaut autographs and memorabilia. Definitely worth checking out.
  • STP 40 — This week we talk about Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Space Coast. We discuss a few of our favourite parts and what not to miss, plus some tips for what to see and do around the area.
  • STP 39 — This week we’re joined by not one, but two astronauts! Mike Massimino and Garrett Reisman have just started their own podcast ‘2 Funny Astronauts’ – so we asked them if they’d like to come and talk to us all about it and to speak more about life as an astronaut and some of the other wonderful things they’ve been able to do. Not only were they funny, but it’s also pretty damn inspirational.
  • STP 38 — This week we were joined by legendary NASA flight director Gerry Griffin to discuss the 50th anniversary of Apollo 14 and Apollo 15. We obviously had some other questions for him too, but we really want to hear about those missions, and boy did he deliver. At 86 years old, he remembered things in such incredible detail and was an absolute pleasure to talk to. This was very kind set up by Max Kaiserman of Luna Replicas (check out episode 15 of our podcast), so he also joined us for this wonderful discussion. We really hope that Max can join us for more chats in the future, a true friend of the podcast.
  • STP 37 — There have been some things happen in the space industry this week that we’re not happy about, so we speak about that but also offer a positive story as well as we talk to Czarina Salido, founder of Taking Up Space, a charity which sends Native American girls to Space Camp.
  • STP 36 — It’s finally happened. We’ve got a whole show dedicated to Skylab. That’s right, this week Emily talks us through 5 random facts about Skylab which maybe you knew, or maybe you didn’t, but either way, it’s something she’s incredibly passionate about and thus very entertaining and educational at the same time.

Friends That Code

Friends That Code is hosted by Mike Traverso, whom locals may know from the Tampa Bay Google Developers Group meetup and other Google-y events. In this podcast, he showcases…

…some amazing people I know that just happen to write code for a living. Whether they started off intending to code or just happened into it, we get to hear about the types of people you’ll meet, things you’ll get to do, jobs you’ll have along the way, and advice from some awesome coders along the way!

Here are the most the three most recent Friends That Code podcasts:

The Mike Dominick Show

The Mike Dominick Show is hosted by Mike Dominick, the CEO and founder of The Mad Botter INC, and has an open source focus.

Here are the most the three most recent Mike Dominick Show podcasts:

The 6 Figure Developer

At the time I’m writing this, The 6 Figure Developer — hosted by John CallawayClayton Hunt, and Jon Ash — has posted 201 episodes. It’s…

…a show dedicated to helping developers to grow their career. Topics include Test Driven Development, Clean Code, Professionalism, Entrepreneurship, as well as the latest and greatest programming languages and concepts.

Here are The 6 Figure Developer’s podcasts since the last time I did a roundup of Tampa Bay podcasts:

  • Episode 202 – Stories about Software with Erik Dietrich: Erik is CEO at Hit Subscribe, a unique marketing business that helps companies reach software engineers with content.
  • Episode 201 — Sustainable OSS with Rockford Lhotka: Rocky is an open source and distributed systems architect, author, and speaker. He’s currently CTO at Cognizant Softvision and calls Eden Prairie, Minnesota home.
  • Episode 200 – Devil’s Advocate: For this episode the guys talk about topics from a different perspective.
  • Episode 199 – Redis with Guy Royse: Guy works for Redis Labs as a Developer Advocate. Combining his decades of experience in writing software with a passion for sharing what he has learned, Guy goes out into developer communities and helps others build great software.
  • Episode 198 – DAPR with Cecil Phillip: Cecil is a Cloud Advocate at @Microsoft, Podcaster, Teacher, Swimmer, & Music Lover. Born and Raised in Antigua, he now calls Fort Lauderdale, FL home.
  • Episode 197 – .NET Data with Jeremy Likness: Jeremy is a Senior Program Manager for .NET Data at Microsoft. His personal mission is to empower developers to be their best. In this episode Jeremy shares all about .NET Data using EF Core, GraphQL, .NET for Spark, and much more. He also speaks about his recent diagnosis and starting a podcast to help others with Parkinson’s Disease.
  • Episode 196 – .NET 6 Preview with Rich Lander: Richard Lander is a Principal Program Manager on the .NET Core team. He works on making .NET Core work great in memory-limited Docker containers, on ARM hardware like the Raspberry Pi, and enabling GPIO programming and IoT scenarios. He is part of the design team that defines new .NET runtime capabilities and features. He enjoys British rock and Doctor Who. He grew up in Canada and New Zealand.
  • Episode 195 – Orleans with Reuben Bond: Reuben is a Principal Software Development Engineer at Microsoft working on the Orleans distributed systems framework. Orleans is a cross-platform framework for building robust, scalable distributed applications. Orleans builds on the developer productivity of .NET and brings it to the world of distributed applications, such as cloud services. Orleans scales from a single on-premises server to globally distributed, highly-available applications in the cloud.
  • Episode 194 – Teams and Power Platform with Christina Wheeler: Christina is currently a Principal Solution Architect at Canviz Consulting and part-time Trainer for Critical Path Training. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Christina has knowledge in SharePoint Development, Administration, Branding, and Business Intelligence. She also specializes in search and leveraging ECM features in SharePoint. When teaching, Christina brings her real-world experience to the classroom. Currently residing in Middle Georgia, Christina is a highly respected Microsoft 365 consultant who is extremely active in the technology community. She was the tech editor of “SharePoint 2007 Developer’s Guide to Business Data Catalog”, co-author of the “SharePoint 2010 Field Guide”, and co-author of “SharePoint 2013 Inside Out.” She enjoys contributing articles to technical websites and often speaks at tech community events and conferences. Christina has a strong passion for technology and when she’s not working on SharePoint, she is either cooking, enjoying photography, spending time with her recently graduated college daughter, and spending time with her lovable dogs.

Thunder Nerds

Of the podcasts in this roundup, Thunder Nerds — “A conversation with the people behind the technology, that love what they do… and do tech good” — has been around the longest, with 283 episodes over five seasons to date. You’ve probably seen the hosts at local meetups and conferences; they’re Frederick Philip Von Weiss and Brian Hinton.

Auth0 logo

Thunder Nerds is sponsored by a company that’s near and dear to me, Auth0! That’s partly because they have a great authentication, authorization, and identity service, and partly because I work there in my role as a Senior R&D Content Engineer!

Here are Thunder Nerds’ podcasts since the last time I did a roundup of Tampa Bay podcasts:

  • 283 – 🔊 Voice Content And Usability with Preston So: In this episode, we get to talk with Preston So, Senior Director of Product Strategy at Oracle. We talk to Preston about his new book VOICE CONTENT AND USABILITY. We discuss the concepts of building conversational designs that are ethical, accessible, and usable.
  • 282 – 🪴 How To Grow Your Own Digital Garden with Maggie Appleton: In this episode, we get to speak with Maggie Appleton, Art Director & UX Designer at egghead.io. We discuss the ethos of Digital Gardening and the value of cultivating ideas in public. We also dive into Maggie’s digital anthropology work and discuss how visual metaphors better shape our understanding of technology.
  • 281 – 💻 Empowering Women in Tech with Arit Amana: In this episode, we get to speak with Arit Amana: Software Engineer, Founder, Writer, Mentor, and Conference Speaker. We discuss Arit’s day-to-day as a Software Engineer and her career journey. We also dive into Arit’s organization OurTimeForTech.org, a nonprofit online program that empowers early-career & career-changing Women in Tech!
  • 280 – 🎹 R&D Content Engineering with Joey deVilla: In this episode, we get to speak with Joey deVilla: Tech Evangelist, Author, Senior R&D Content Engineer, and rock and roll accordionist. We discuss Joey’s new job at Auth0, what it takes to be an R&D Content Engineer, and an array of super cool technologies.
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Watch my live podcast recording with the Thunder Nerds tonight!

Tonight, May 6th at 7:30 p.m. EDT (UTC-4), I’ll be the guest of Tampa Bay tech podcasters, the Thunder Nerds, and you can watch LIVE it as we record!

With 279 episodes so far, The Thunder Nerds have been at this for a long time. I’ll chat with hosts Frederick Philip von Weiss and Brian Hinton about all sorts of things, not the least of which is how their podcast was a key part of the research I did to land my job at Auth0.

I’m sure that a good chunk of our conversation will be about what working at Auth0 is like, authentication and authorization, and possibly the hardware and electronic music dabbling that I’ve been doing lately.

The Thunder Nerds record their podcasts in such a way that you can watch the recording process LIVE on YouTube, and can even type in questions or comments as it’s happening! If you’d like to see how the sausage is made, follow this link tonight at 7:30 p.m. EDT and watch the fun!