ShowAndTell:Emails

From Payne.org Wiki

These are the emails we used to organize the Boston CTO show and tell.

Contents

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Original Email

From: Andrew Payne

To: Boston CTOs

I'm writing to float an idea for an local CTO event; please let me know your thoughts and interest level.

I'm imagining a "speed presenting" type event, where local tech teams for Web site companies (destination sites or ASPs) meet to share architecture pictures and ops experiences. We'd invite the CTO (or architect) + head ops person, and allocate 15 min per company with ~3 structured slides. We'd shoot for 4-8 companies sharing for 1-2 hours around a pizza lunch. I'd find a place to host in Waltham.

The idea would be to make a bunch of connections between local CTO teams around shared experiences. I'm always talking to people about Web site arch and ops:

  • What dev language are you using? (Ruby, Python, Java, etc.) What libraries/tools?
  • What AJAX toolkit? Which ones have you looked at?
  • Where are you hosting? What are you paying? What's your hosting architecture?
  • What firewall? What load balancer?
  • What database? (MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server) What hardware storage architecture?
  • What OS, Web and app server stack?
  • What development tools?
  • For commerce sites, who do you use for cc processing/billing?
  • .. etc ..

The idea is NOT to do detailed walkthroughs (there's not enough time), but to make connections for discussions taken off line. For example, I'm imagining team A hearing about team B's experience with managed hosting vs co-lo, then following up with them directly to compare notes on a specific decision they're making.

We'd shoot for sometime in January, and we'd circulate the attendee list in advance to make sure nobody feels like there's a competitor there. There would be no NDA, but a "gentleman's agreement" to keep info within the group. We should minimize (or avoid) "non-presenting attendees".

I'd do a 2-4 slide template for folks to start with, to try to get some degree of consistency in level of detail. Groups would send their slides to me, and I'd concatenate into one big slide deck that we all present from -- no switching laptops.

If you are interested in participating, let me know. If you have specific thoughts or subject interests, please let me know that, too.

-andy

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Soliciting Availability

From: Andrew Payne

To: {confirmed presenters}

Everyone,

We need to pick a January date for the Boston CTO "show and tell".

If you're in the "to:" line for this message, you've led me to believe somewhere along the way that you will present.

Please:

  • Confirm that you can present
  • Send me availability in January (please mark dates/ranges as "YES", "MAYBE" and "NO"). The idea is that the CTO/lead tech person could bring a team of 1-2 others (e.g. ops person, etc.)

Please reply just to me to keep traffic down. Please reply as soon as you can.

We will be scheduling a ~2 hour slot around lunch, so plan for something 10am-2pm. We will plan for lunch (pizza). Presentations will be about 15 minutes each, with 2-4 slides (I'll send out a template in a week or so).

We've had offers for venues in Cambridge and Waltham (probably need room for up to 30). We're almost equally split between Cambridge companies and folks out on Rt 128. I'll have to flip a coin.

If you have any other thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions, or ideas, please let me know.

-andy <xxx@payne.org>

Presenter list:

{actual list deleted}

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Saving the Date

From: Andrew Payne

To: {Confirmed presenters}

Everyone,

Please "save the date" for our Boston CTO show and tell:

January 26th, 2007

11am -1pm

Venue: TBD (targeting Alewife area)

Please forward this note to other members of your team that will be attending that I didn't catch on the "to:" line.

This date should work for everyone, based on what you sent for availability. If it now doesn't work for you, please let me know ASAP.

A light lunch of some form will be served.

I'll send out a starting point slide template in the next few days, with slides due back roughly a week before the meeting.

Happy New Year!

-andy

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Venue Information and Slide Template

From: Andrew Payne

To: {attendees}

Everyone,

We're less than two weeks away from the Boston CTO "Show and Tell" at 11am-1pm on Friday, January 26th. The venue has been finalized:

{venue information}

(Many thanks to Paul English, General Catalyst and BBN for setting us up.) A light lunch will be served.

Also, attached is a presentation template, with suggestions for content and topics to cover. Feel free to improvise, but please do not exceed 4-5 slides and plan for a 10-15 minute presentation.

Please send me your slides by END OF DAY on Monday, January 22nd.

Finally, please make sure that the attendee table in the slide deck is accurate. Please send me the citizenship of anyone who ISN'T a US citizen. This is very important -- I need to send the attendee list to BBN several days before the meeting.

Call or write if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks!

-andy <yyy@payne.org>

Attached slide template: Image:BostonCTOPresTemplate.ppt

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Confirmation

From: Andrew Payne

To: {attendees}

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone this morning at the CTO show and tell.

Just a reminder:

{venue information}

11:00am - 1:00pm (though we have the room reserved to go later)

A light lunch will be served.

I'll be there ~10:30-10:45 to make sure we're all set up. If you need to reach me, please don't hesitate to call or txt my cell: +1 781-258-XXXX.

Stay warm!

-andy

PS. I didn't have emails for all of the team attendees; please forward this to anyone on your team that's not in the 'to:' line.

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