Talk Night at Carbon Five LA

Carbon Five's monthly talk series, featuring speakers form varied backgrounds, talking about various topics!

Tonight we have two great speakers covering important aspects of software development life that go beyond the keyboard.

First, we are happy to have engineer and advocate Carina Zona! She's in town to speak at the SCNA conference on Oct 21st at USC (http://scna.softwarecraftsmanship.com/), but if you can't make it there we're hosting her at the westside. As the founder of CallbackWoman (http://www.callbackwomen.com/), expanding diversity of all underrepresented genders as speakers at conferences, she'll be speaking "On Proposing Your First Conference Talk":

Giving conference talks is a game changer. Speaking can propel a career forward, expand your network considerably, and lead to wonderfully surprising opportunities. Come learn about how to get started, and get some practical skills for doing your first proposal how to find relevant opportunities, dissecting Calls For Proposals, evaluating their for fit with you, questions it's cool to ask organizers, the darned fair expectations to hold, brainstorming a topic, and writing abstracts!

Then product manager and C5 alum Ryan Finley! He'll be shining a light on the cold heart truth; some projects ARE doomed from the start. Ryan explains why and how to tackle the causes in "Ch-Ch-Changes: Setting the Foundation for Successful Process Change":

Key decisions made, or not made, before the outset of an initiative can either give your team the opportunity to succeed or set them on a path to failure. We will discuss the things that can be done prior to kicking off a change initiative to give it the best shot at success, and some strategies to deal with the issues that may arise when this upfront work hasn't been done.

Doors open at 6pm. Talks begin at 7pm, and last approximately an hour including Q&A. The rest of the evening, until we shut down at 9pm, is free time. We also have an accompanying Slack to discuss during and around the event; contact a group admin to get an invite.

We will provide pizza and drinks (beer and non-alcoholic drinks), wi-fi, cool vibes and killer talks.

If you're driving, here's some parking help (https://www.parkme.com/map/?s=1207+4th+Street%2C+90401#525%20Colorado%20Avenue%2C%20Santa%20Monica%2C%20CA%2C%20United%20States).

Please read our event code of conduct (http://www.carbonfive.com/events/conduct/).