Gary Levitt (of Mad Mimi) contacted Dave Hoover (of Obtiva) in early 2007 about building an email marketing web site in Ruby on Rails. In subsequent months and years, Gary and Dave collaborated almost daily in order to improve, scale, fix, and market Mad Mimi into one of the leading email marketing sites on the web.

Dave will share his biggest lessons from this project. Most of the lessons are not technical, though Ruby and Rails certainly facilitated them.

About Dave Hoover
Dave authored the book Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman for O'Reilly, instigated the Software Craftsmanship North America conference, and is the Chief Craftsman at Obtiva. Dave learned Ruby in 2002 and has been using it full-time since 2006. Dave lives in Wheaton with his wife and three children. In his spare time, Dave competes in endurance sports.

Please use your real name when you RSVP for downtown ChicagoRuby meetings. Reason: We are required to give a list of all attendees to the security desk prior to the meeting. If the name on your ID doesn't the match the name on the RSVP list, then Aon security will not let you in the building. Sorry for the inconvenience, but those are the rules of the Aon Building.