The Art of Software: Recent Episodes
Martin M. Lacey
The Art of Software is a radio show that provides a look under the hood of software, how it is created and the software industry behind it. The show provides insights in software technologies and the methods used to author, eliciting an understanding of how business applications are designed and developed. We look at software conceptually from idea to adoption, and practically with Block-Chain technology, and the Internet of Things (IoT). We delve into delivery with software as a service, service oriented architecture, micro services and cloud computing. We pull back the curtain on black-hat and white-hat software specialists, discuss ethics, history and evolution of software, as well as explore on some of the more poignant and epic fails in the software industry. The Art of Software is broadcast monthly on the VoiceAmerica Business Channel.
In todays’ show we will speak with product visionary and entrepreneur, seasoned senior business leader Manoj Chawla about … Vision Led Product Development. We’ll look at what Vision Led Production Development means - and explore how to build the product vision, a consensus around it, a road-map for it; and how you ensure it maps to true value in eyes of your customers. To do this, we’ll discuss User Centered Design and Persuasive Design, Dark Patterns, and User centric vs Customer centric features and services. Building awareness and demand around your product offering, and identifying its value proposition will also be discussed.
In todays’ show I will be joined by Peter Elger - CEO of Four Theorem, author of “AI as a Service” to explore the growth of AI and the technologies that make it available to adopt and exploit. We’ll look at the evolution of software and its decomposition into functional access points; from Monolith to Cloud Services.
We will come to understand what Serverless Architecture is and how you can approach this paradigm shift.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Neural Networks can be adopted readily and can be used to enhance and modernize your applications – we’ll look at how this has been done and give practical guidance on successful approaches. We’ll be discussing the application of AI to do some heavy lifting - and modernize software itself through adoption of micro-services framework / architecture.
Today we’ll be speaking with Manoj Chalwa about product road-maps, their history and evolution, and more importantly - how to build and evolve one, bring it to life and generating new business. We'll explore historic successes that have shaped our world today - and opportunities misses, offering perspective on what went wrong - and right. With the thoughtful guidance of our guest, Manoj Chawla will step us through how to tackle your own product ideas and build the teams needed to bring it to market in the most meaningful way. Manoj Chawla is an entrepreneur, non-executive director, consultant, trainer, mentor and coach. He coaches and mentors’ businesses and start-ups. He had developed a unique holistic methodology for building and turning around businesses and runs courses on • Designing for Persuasion, • Designing Business Models, • Eureka - Innovation and Product Design, • Organized for Success and • Designing for Happiness and is incubating a number of new businesses.
Presenting the opportunity to gain a foot-hold in development using the latest paradigm of micro services and containerization - adopt at the leading edge to secure your business future. With our special guest, Richard Rogers [author of Toa Of Microservices, former CTO/CEO nearForm, owner of Ricebridge, and founderCEO of Voxgig] we will focus on the transition from monolithic development to a microservices architecture. We will explore discuss deployment and containerization, inter-service and database connectivity – performance and security. We will be discussing software technology and lessons learned, pitfalls and ah-ha moments; business and software – vision and outcomes.
In today's show we are taking a closer look at the entry-point to your enterprise and the private information it protects. We will examine the problems and pitfalls with traditional security mechanisms, and the proposed new technologies that are intended to address them. We'll take a look at innovations both physical and logical, and make sense of the options available. With out guests guidance, we will examine a new approach that simplifies implementation and ease of use, while improving the effectiveness of the gateway.
In this episode we are going explore what software is, and how it can enable your next big business innovation; we look at what it takes to start a software project and what should be done to ensure its success. If you’ve never thought about software as an enabler of your business vision, this show will help navigate your ideas to fruition through software enabled solutions. If you are a seasoned professional that would like insight into the world of software, I will guild you through the symbiotic relationship between software teams and business units and processes they serve.
In this episode we are going to peel away the layers of security within the enterprise, discuss the objectives and outcomes, methods and practices for understanding and protecting your business from cyber threats. We will then home in on Cyber Security from a Software Architecture perspective; discuss the security objectives architects should be trying to achieve with their designs and how they impact the new paradigms of as micro-services, the cloud, and containerization. We will pose critical questions you should be thinking about, with guidance in how to formulate your answers and build your cyber security strategy.
In this weeks’ episode we will explore the practicalities, realities, and wishful thinking in gauging the return on investment for software projects. We will look at the impact of investment in software development; from business to personal development and mentorship. We will also discuss various calculation methods to arrive at quantitative analysis, and look at more qualitative and long term strategic benefits and suggest possible key performance indicators.
Join Steven Bryant and myself Martin M. Lacey as we explore how to be proactive and protect your systems from hacking attempts – and slay those malware dragons! We’ll address the most common and prevalent means to gain access and control of systems and simple way you can prevent them from gaining entry. We’ll explore and explain a new way to authenticate access to your systems and between them – using MiNiGATE patented technology. We’ll dig into the mindset of the hacker, so you can understand their ways and means; know thy enemy is the mantra.
In this episode we dig into the proactive measures of ensuring software quality and resilience to attacks by enlisting friendly forces to look for weaknesses in your environment and applications. Find a problem in the wild – an exploitation waiting to happen in your running production systems – is incredibly costly when you are not in control. Don’t let external actors compromise your business and the trust other put in you - step up your game by hunting on your own terms before you become the target and your information / customers the victim. We will explain what a bug-bounty program is, why it is so valuable, and how you can setup one in your shop.
The last show of our season will bring us full circle and talk about software as a business; how to get started with insights and lessons learn from the trials of experienced entrepreneurs. We will explore how a business in software is started and grown; we will see the challenges and rewards faced by the very successful founder and former CEO of Puppet; an internationally successful technology company providing leading edge software delivery.
Our second to last episode will summarize the evolution of the software industry, offering an opportunity for retrospection, reflection and potential Innovation. We will review the significant advances in computing technology and the software concepts that enabled it, demonstrating the layered nature of advancements - and insight. We will examine current and emerging software technology, and discuss how this is impacting the designs and capabilities of next generation business systems. We will provide a key vantage point for understanding emerging capabilities of Blockchain, IoT, Machine Learning (AI), and the software process itself.
Ethics in software wraps up our 11th show, where we look at the responsibilities implied and applied to those who create applications that run our lives. We will look at tools and techniques used by ethical hackers to uncover weaknesses and expose access points (attack vectors) to your business sensitive data. We’ll come to understand their role and the mindset needed to find gaps in your enterprise. We will then dig into the very development practices and methods needed to shore up the underlying software and ultimately improve quality and security.
In this weeks’ episode we will explore the vast breadth of tools that are available to software professionals today – those that improve the quality, capability, and reach – and those to avoid. We will review the types of choices available at each of the software layers and help identify the ones you may need for your next development project; from web and mobile user interfaces to system services and databases, compilers and runtimes, as well as environments, architectures, frameworks and libraries.
In this ninth show we will delve into the do’s and don’ts’ when building a software product or service. We will explore and explain the root cause behind some of the most epic fails in the field of software, and see the impact of these events and how they affect consumers and businesses. We will review the decisions leading up to the failure, why it occurred, and how it could have been avoided. We will also take hard look at the impact to business – and the not so obvious repercussions. Have your got a potential business bomb hiding in plane sight? Listen to see if you might be harboring a fault waiting to strike.
In our eighth show, we will pull back the curtain on black-hat and white-hat software specialists; those that perform penetration testing of vulnerable systems for various organizations and governments. We will take a close look at how they do their jobs, the thinking behind crafting an exploit, and how you can protect yourself and your business from potential hacks and attack vectors. We will gain the insights from Cyber Security & Intelligence Excellence Award Winner Terry Cutler, and learn how security aware software is built.
For our seventh show we take a look at the various layers of software technology used to build business applications; known as the software stack. We will discuss the options and implications of choosing technologies in each layer, and the possible dependencies those choices can create. We will explore how the playing field has changed with Cloud computing adoption and deployment scenarios, and the expanded lifecycle of software in a continues delivery ecosystem. We will see new opportunities and new challenges in the software development landscape unfolding in real-time.
The sixth show will look at security from a software application perspective; what are the choices available and best practices for protecting your business. From web site hacks and scripted attacks, to application databases and file content misappropriated access; protecting customer personal information and your business data is critical. How to best secure your content – behind a firewall or in the cloud - or should you have a private cloud for your business only? Should you also need to track changes to your business information; identify who made what changes and when. There may be legal considerations, regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley that apply to your financial data governance if you are a large public company in the US. These topics and more will be discussed with our special guests.
In this episode, we will continue the exploration of software’s transition from traditional delivery platforms and paradigms to the Cloud, where continuous deployment and provisioning of services provides unprecedented scalability. Combined with the move to Software as a Service (SaaS), Agile become an integral piece of modern software development providing seamless growth of application features and capabilities. Today we will explore what all this means to the growing Art Of Software.
For our fourth show, we will dive in a little deeper in The Art Of Software and explore the development of software as a service, service oriented architecture, and micro services; what these are and how to build modern implementations. We will explore how software architectures have changes over the years, and where SOA fits in – and how you can design for it in your business applications.
Todays’ show dives into the technology behind the proliferation of smart devices, sensors, and autonomous systems and the networks connecting them; the boom and expansion of the Internet of Things into everyday application and consumer conveniences is just getting warmed up. Enabled by the increasing power of hardware and its’ shrinking form factor, plus the growing sophistication of on-device network enabled software – there seems to be no limit to the ways in which this technology can be applied. Join us as we explore the build-out of IoT.
During this show we will look past the hype and hyperbole of this software technology and dig into what Crypto Currencies are and why there are so many; how they differ and function. We will go into their underpinnings and explore Blockchain; what it is and what you can do with it. We will discuss how to get started building application that employ it – and possibly avoid building applications that gain little from it. With insights and first-hand knowledge from Industry experts at the IXO Foundation, Anne Connelly and Dr. Shaun Conway, we will span the nascent blockchain adoption through to current day application and use in finance and further, into sustainable development.
During this show we are going to explore how an idea gets transformed into a working software application. We will look at the different types of software applications and the processes used by professionals to build, test, and deliver these applications to their customer – end users. We will explore the processes used and methodologies employed; look at the various steps and phases of the software craft and get a glimpse at the vision, the teams, and the teamwork necessary to pull off a great product.