RailsConf Keynotes

Michael is an active member of the Agile/XP community and a member of the ACM and IEEE. He regularly speaks at software conferences around the world. When Michael isn’t engaged with a team, he spends his time investigating new ways of altering design over time in codebases. His key passion is helping teams surmount problems and connect with practices that make software development fun and enriching.

Neal Ford is Software Architect and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. He is also the designer and developer of applications, instructional materials, magazine articles, courseware, video/DVD presentations, and author and/or editor of 6 books spanning a variety of technologies, including the most recent The Productive Programmer. He focuses on designing and building of large-scale enterprise applications. He is also an internationally acclaimed speaker, speaking at over 100 developer conferences worldwide, delivering more than 600 talks. Check out his web site at www.nealford.com. He welcomes feedback and can be reached at nford@thoughtworks.com.

David Heinemeier Hansson is a partner at 37signals, a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary.

37signals’ products include Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, Campfire, Ta-da List, and Writeboard. 37signals’ products do less than the competition—intentionally.

He is also the creator of Ruby on Rails.

Yehuda Katz is a member of the SproutCore, Ruby on Rails and jQuery Core Teams; during the daytime, he works as a framework architect at Strobe. Yehuda is the co-author of the best-selling jQuery in Action, the upcoming Rails 3 in Action, and is a contributor to Ruby in Practice. He spends most of his time hacking on open source—his main projects, along with others, like Rubinius, Thor, Handlebars and Moneta—or traveling the world doing evangelism work. He blogs at http://yehudakatz.com and can be found on Twitter as @wycats.

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a software professional since 1970 and is founder and president of Object Mentor Inc., in Gurnee, Illinois. Object Mentor, Inc., is an international firm of highly experienced software developers and managers who specialize in helping companies get their projects done. Object Mentor offers process improvement consulting, object-oriented software design consulting, training, and skill development services to major corporations worldwide.

Mr. Martin has published dozens of articles in various trade journals, and is a regular speaker at international conferences and trade shows.

Mr. Martin has authored and edited many books including:

• Designing Object Oriented C++ Applications using the Booch Method

• Patterns Langauages of Program Design 3

• More C++ Gems

• Extreme Programming in Practice

• Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices.

• UML for Java Programmers

• Clean Code

A leader in the industry of software development, Mr. Martin served three years as the editor-in-chief of the C++ Report, and he served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance.

Evan Phoenix is the lead Rubinius developer, working on Rubinius fulltime, funded by Engine Yard.

Derek Sivers is best known as the founder of CD Baby. A professional musician (and circus clown) since 1987, Derek started CD Baby by accident in 1998 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby was the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients. After he won the 2003 World Technology Award, Esquire Magazine’s annual “Best and Brightest” cover story said, “Derek Sivers is changing the way music is bought and sold… one of the last music-business folk heroes.” In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby to focus on his new ventures to benefit musicians, including his new company MuckWork where teams of efficient assistants help musicians do their “uncreative dirty work”. His current projects and writings are all at sivers.org.

GARY GETS BUSINESS: Meet Gary Vaynerchuk (VAY NER CHUK), a 34 year old New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling author who is also a self-trained wine and social media expert. From a young age, it was clear that Gary was a businessman. At 8 years old he was operating 7 lemonade stands in his neighborhood and by 10 he had moved onto selling baseball cards at local malls. In high school while working at his family owned liquor store, Gary started reading The Wine Spectator and wine books, and realized collecting wine offered an allure similar to his previous hobby of collecting baseball cards. With a wealth of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit, Gary spent every weekend of his college years at his parents’ wine store. By 1997, Gary launched Winelibrary.com and helped grow his family business from $3 million to $45 million by 2005.

GARY GETS WINE: In 2006, with a flipcam and NY Jets bucket Gary began WineLibraryTV which revolutionized the wine world. Today, his irreverent wine reviews currently attract over 90,000 viewers each day and his email queue typically holds 1,000 messages from die-hard fans, self-named “Vayniacs.” Gary’s cult-like following is the result of his unconventional, often irreverent commentary on wine. Using comical expressions like “Sniffy sniff” and “The Oakmonster,” he encourages straightforward wine tasting and debunks wine myths. Wine Library recently launched Cinderella Wine, a wine website which features one wine per day beginning at 9PM EST for 24 hours sold at a severely discounted price. Gary also owns Cork’d, where wine lovers can review, share and discuss wine in a fun, interactive way.

GARY GETS SOCIAL MEDIA: Gary is one of the first Facebook users to maxed-out his friend limit, with over 17,000 requests still pending. He also has close to 1 million followers on Twitter and was included in BusinessWeek’s list of the top 20 people every entrepreneur should follow. Gary landed a 10-book 7 figure deal with HarperStudio. The first title, Crush It! Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion, released in October 2009, hit the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press Best- Sellers lists in its first weeks. The book maps out Gary’s road rules for how to “Crush It” in today’s business market by following your passion and building your own personal brand. In the spring of 2009, Gary and his brother AJ launched VaynerMedia, a Social Media Storytelling agency and angel investor in www.dailybooth.com that helps Fortune 500 companies and individuals expand and build brand equity with clients including his beloved NY Jets, the NHL and Cadbury.

GARY GETS NOTICED: Gary has appeared on countless programs from Jimmy Fallon, LateNight with Conan O’Brien and Ellen to FOX News, CNN and NPR. He was also notably featured in Decanter Magazine’s 2009 Power List which is a list of the 50 most influential people in wine and named Innovator of the Year at Wine Enthusiast’s 2009 Wine Star Awards. Additionally, Gary was one of Askmen.com’s 49 Most Influential Men of 2009. Gary’s ultimate goal is to one day own the New York Jets.