Eight – Ruby Hacknight

I was disappointed.  I was going to another technology event.  I wanted to go to a Yoga or a Christian night; something unexpected and difficult.  I wanted to go to a night that was just as fun, entertaining as joy filled as the atheist night.  I was sure that technology nights could be fun too but I couldn’t help but feel that going to a tech event was close to what I did in my day job.  My random choices seemed to be pointing me back to where I started from.

With minutes to spare, I found the entrance to the UK head-quarters of a company called Yammer, a few minutes’ walk from Old Street Station. 

‘There’s pizza over there if you’re hungry, and you can get a beer out of the fridge which is down below the table over there’ a friendly receptionist informed me.

I looked into the fridge.  It was stocked to overflowing with alcoholic delights.  There were about six different types of beers, and big bottles of cider languishing in the bottom.  I opted for a bottle of beer, and soon got chatting to a Hungarian chap called Levente.

‘I don’t know what Yammer is all about.  Do you know?’

‘It’s an enterprise social network’ my new drinking buddy replied.

‘Ah, okay… So, the chief executive can use it to tell his or her employees what they ate for breakfast?’ I said mischievously, taking a swig from my beer.

Levente was from Budapest and he was only in London for three days.  He was visiting the city on a trip to the headquarters of the technology company he was working for.  The Yammer event was a part of a wider programme of talks that was a part of London Technology Week.

Within minutes, everyone was encouraged to sit down so the evening could begin.  There was only a single talk but there were two speakers. One seemed to be more of a ‘product’ guy, another seemed to be more of an ‘engineer’ guy.

‘Who here knows what Yammer is?’ the product guy asked.

Almost everyone put up their hands.  ‘This is going to be a long night’, I thought.

The talk centred upon the Yammer software development process.  The technology speaker was engaging; he asked the audience questions, had a good set of slides and maintained a good pace.  Underneath it all was the question of how do you design an organisational structure that helps you to create a solid software system.  He argued that creating a culture that works is really important; creating software is fundamentally tough since developers are building products that don’t exist in any tangible form.

The talk was less about technology and more about people and process.  We were told that teams were set up to work on projects or problems that last anything between two weeks and ten weeks.  Members of the team are made up of people who have different technology skills; there will be some ‘front end interface people’ and some ‘back end engine’ people and everything will be led by a ‘senior technical lead’.  This structure meant that the knowledge of the software is shared around between different people.  In the world of start-ups where there is a high demand for engineering talent, sharing of information is really important, since the last thing you want is key developers walking out of the door taking away knowledge and experience that only they know about.

By the end of the talk, I still had no real idea what Yammer was all about or what it did, but I know quite a bit about how they made their products.  It was an interesting insight into the world of a tech company.  Judging by the quality of the questions in the question and answer session, the audience seemed to be appreciative.

The presentation area seemed to empty quickly; visitors were clearly eager to get home.  I walked with a couple of tech people who were heading back to Old Street underground station.

I looked at my watch.  It was still early.  The ‘Ruby Hacknight’ group had been fun, but I hadn’t done any computer hacking or learnt anything about a programming language called Ruby.  I also realised that I needed to be bolder.  This was again one of those instances where I should have taken the time to chat to the presenters. 

‘It’s still early days’, I thought.  ‘You’re still figuring out how to do this quest’.