About Alan Stevens
Headshot
This
is the increasingly outdated photo I use as a headshot because I'm too lazy
to have a professional portrait made.
Speaker Bio
For more detail, see my resume.
Alan Stevens is a father, geek, vegan and software artisan living in
Knoxville, TN. Alan regularly speaks at software development conferences
and user group meetings. Alan is an
Open Space Technology facilitator.
Alan is a Microsoft Most Valuable
Professional (MVP) in C#. Alan is a member of
ASP Insiders. When Alan is not hanging
out with his family, posting on Twitter, singing or playing his acoustic
guitar, he occasionally updates his blog at
http://netcave.org.
Open Space Technology
I have received great personal satisfaction from facilitating
Open Space Technology meetings.
This is a photo of me facilitating the opening circle at
Devlink 2008.
Interesting Fact
I have a Masters of Science degree in Curriculum and Instruction. After graduation,
I quickly determined that I would not have a long term career in Education.
During part of my transition from teacher to software developer, I worked as
a mason and built two chimneys on a restored Victorian home. I am very proud
of these
constructions.
Presentations And Interviews
Pluralcast
David Starr and I discuss some of my current ideas around reading and writing
code.
March 1, 2010
Show #10 (35 minutes)
Pluralcast #10 : Reading Code with Alan Stevens
MP3 Download
A few weeks ago at the MVP Summit in Redmond, I was fortunate enough to
run into Alan Stevens, a man my wife refers to as your southern-gentleman-vegan-hippy
friend. Alan shared with me some new ideas he has around the act of writing
(songs or literature) as a metaphor for good practices of software development.
The basic idea is that we write a line of code once, and read it many times.
Why arent we optimizing for the reading part?
Deep Fried Bytes
A conversation I had with Jim Holmes and Leon Gersing grew into a roundtable
podcast.
September 9, 2009
Episode 36: Episode 36: What Happens In The Speakers Lounge is Supposed to
Stay In the Speakers Lounge
MP3 Download
In this episode Keith sits down with a bunch of speakers at the DevLink
2009 conference held in Nashville, TN. It isnt every day one gets to hear
what other speakers talk about and thats why we titled the show the way
we did. Listen in to learn how much time speakers devote to the community,
why they do it, why some are getting tired and why the developer community
can be so rude at times.
Herding Code
I got together with some of the smartest geeks I know to shoot my mouth off.
July 1, 2009
Show #52 (64 minutes)
Herding Code 52: The Alan Stevens and
G. Andrew Duthie Debate Continues!
MP3 Download
This week, G. Andrew Duthie and Alan Stevens bring their recent Real Software
Development vs Microsoft Bubble Development Twitter debate to Herding Code.
Its all the open and honest, fun-loving, snarky banter without the 140
character limit.
Oxite Retrospective
Weston M. Binford III recorded the Open
Space session that I convened at
ALT.NET Seattle 2009 to discuss the community reaction to the release of
Oxite. WARNING:
This conversation contains strong language (most of it by me).
February 28, 2009
AltNetSeattle:
Oxite Retrospective
Alan Stevens leads a round table discussion on the reaction to the Oxite
sample application released by Microsoft.
.NET Rocks!
I had the pleasure of being interviewed on
.NET Rocks! about my activities in
the developer community.
February 13, 2009
Show #420 (63 minutes)
Alan Stevens on
Community 2.0
MP3
Download
Carl and Richard talk to Alan Stevens about his involvement with the .NET
community, and the wider developer community.
Technology And Friends
I did this interview with David Giard
about Open Space Technology at CodeMash 2009 for his
Technology And Friends interview
series.
February 12, 2009
Alan Stevens Discusses Open Space Technology
I've attended two conferences where Alan Stevens helped to make Open Spaces
a success. In this interview, Alan describes open spaces technology and
explains his role in the process.
Fox Show
I spoke with Andrew McNeil of the
FoxShow over breakfast at the
Southwest Fox 2008 Conference for Visual FoxPro
developers in Mesa, AZ.
October 23, 2008
FoxShow #58 (Extra)
Discussion with
Alan Stevens
MP3 Download
I didn't want to do a full show on this little interview but wanted to put
it into the stream because I think it's really valuable for developers to
hear. It's a discussion Alan Stevens and I had one morning at Southwest
Fox 2008. It was held after his talk on Agile and I had some specific questions
we wanted to get into. There is some background noise as we were talking
outside at the breakfast table. If you've never heard Alan speak, this is
a great way of getting a feel for his sessions. Enjoy!
.NET Rocks!
After Devlink 2008 concluded, some of us
went out to dinner. Even fewer of us returned to the hotel bar for some conversation
and refreshments. The conversation was going well, so Carl Franklin brought
out his mic to record a .NET Rocks!
show.
August 28, 2008
Show #372 (65 minutes)
Live from DevLink
2008!
MP3 Download
Carl and Richard break out the microphone during Karaoke night (don't worry)
at the DoubleTree bar in Murphreesboro, TN, to talk to staff and attendees
of the devLink Technical Conference (August 22-23).
Deep Fried Bytes
I got to talk about my favorite social networking tool with some of my tweeps.
:-)
June 12, 2008
Episode
3: Twitter War Stories
MP3 Download
A group of Twitter power users met up on the last day of the TechEd 2008
Conference. They sat down with Deep Fried Bytes host and Twitter user Keith
Elder to discuss their ideas, experiences and observations of the online
service. Each person has their own reason for using Twitter but they all
share a common theme. They all use Twitter to keep in touch with their friends
and stay connected to keep relationships thriving.