User Experience

Product people sit at the intersection of what gets built and what drives the business — but commercial conversations can feel like a different language. This session is designed to change that. Shing will walk through how SaaS Product businesses are measured and valued, giving you the grounding to engage confidently in discussions about growth, efficiency, and business performance. You'll learn to read the metrics that your CEO, CFO, and investors are watching, understand what drives them, and spot when something is off. The session moves from the fundamentals through to the sharper edge of efficiency — how to tell the difference between growth that compounds and growth that costs too much, and how the decisions made in product directly shape the numbers that matter commercially. By the end, you'll have a clearer picture of how your work connects to the business outcomes your company is chasing — and the language to talk about it with confidence. **Meet Shing** Paul Shingles (Shing) is a seasoned tech operator whose senior leadership experience spans operations, product strategy, sales, commercial proposition development and governance. As COO at Auror he is responsible for driving both Product and Commercial success leading to safer communities for everyone. Previously, as COO of Pushpay, he guided the business from scrappy startup through IPO to becoming one of New Zealand's handful of tech unicorns. He then joined Timely as Chief Customer Officer and later COO, driving international expansion and playing a key role in the company's sale to EverCommerce in 2021. Since then, he has focused on advising a number of New Zealand's leading CEOs, including working with the Movac portfolio. Huge thanks to Auror for hosting and sponsoring this event! You can join the livestream here: [https://meet.google.com/trs-aggn-xxk](https://meet.google.com/trs-aggn-xxk). As always the livestream will kick off from just before 6pm. Note that our host venue has asked that we send you the exact location of the event on the day a couple of hours before the start time - the venue is in the Britomart area. Those of you who have attended events at Auror before will know where it is!

You can sleep in on the Sesquicentennial (observed), we’re shifting to the following Friday. But join the local UX community for a chat and some biscuits to catch up. If you were in CA for Figma Config, tell us all the lines and you can tell me how I can animate an SVG without coding it by hand, and why I’d even want to. Thanks to the team at Nationwide of supporting the group.

We're planning a hands-on technical session focused on building AI solutions in ServiceNow - think skills, agents, and real-world use cases. If you’re curious about AI on the platform, RSVP now and stay tuned for more details. Let's build together!

Most people use LLMs by feel: ask a question, read the answer, decide whether it “seems good,” and move on. That works for casual use. It does not work when you are building software, automating workflows, writing important documents, or relying on AI for anything that needs to be repeatable. In this talk, we’ll look at how to improve and evaluate the inputs and outputs of LLMs using practical measurement techniques. We’ll cover how prompt changes affect results, how to compare outputs, how to build simple evaluation sets, and how math-based methods like similarity scoring can help you move beyond guesswork. This will be beginner-friendly, so even if you don't know anything about AI, you should get something out of it. However, this will be a little more technical than our intro talks. You do not need to be an AI researcher, but programmers and technically curious attendees will get a lot out of it. We’ll cover: * Why “it looks good” is not enough * How to improve prompts by changing the input, context, and constraints * How to compare LLM outputs more systematically * Basic evaluation techniques for accuracy, consistency, and usefulness * How embeddings, cosine similarity, and scoring can help evaluate results * Where automated evaluation works — and where humans still need to stay in the loop By the end, you’ll have a practical mental model for treating LLMs less like magic and more like systems you can test, measure, and improve. LOGISTICS AND PARKING: The talk starts at 7:00 PM. The first half hour is reserved for everyone to get set up and mingle. Free pizza and drinks! The cheapest parking option is to find street parking, which will only cost you a few bucks. Otherwise, park in the nearby veteran's museum lot for $8. It's highly recommended you avoid the nearby $15 garage parking.

**Hello Columbus!** **The community is buzzing and growing well. We are thrilled to bring our fourth BrowserStack QA Meetup on Thursday, July 9th!** We are creating a space for deeper insights, meaningful connections, and a vibe you won't want to miss. **What to expect:** * **Connect:** Network with Columbus' top engineering and QA minds. * **Learn:** Real-world tactics and trends you can use immediately. * **Enjoy:** Food, drinks, and great community spirit. **Agenda** * **Two Roads Diverged in a Wood: Docker Compose vs. Kubernetes** by **[Doug Reeder](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pdouglasreeder/)** **RSVP Essential:** Space is limited, and we want to ensure a great experience for everyone. **RSVP now to secure your spot!** 📍 **Venue:** Leading EDJE, 6515 Longshore Loop, Suite 300, Dublin, OH 43017 📍 **Free Parking:** 6725 Longshore Street, Dublin, OH 43017 📅 **Date & Time:** July 9, 6:00 PM **Stay Connected!** Want to continue the conversation beyond the meetup? Join our **BrowserStack Discord Server** to get updates, connect with fellow QA professionals, and be part of an ongoing discussion. **Don’t miss out—click below to join!** 🔗 [\[](https://discord.gg/6SdCyWTNyW)**[Join the BrowserStack Discord Server](https://discord.gg/6SdCyWTNyW)**[\]](https://discord.gg/6SdCyWTNyW) **A Few Notes:** ✅ This is an **in-person event** ✅ **RSVP does not guarantee a seat** – A confirmation email will be sent one day before the event. **TALK ABSTRACT:** Docker Compose and Kubernetes are two of the most popular tools for running containerized applications. Their feature lists are similar. Architects and senior developers need to know how their different paradigms lead to unexpectedly different experiences in production.

We have moved to guild.host. Look us up there. https://guild.host/events/buckeye-cocoaheads-rcavwd

**Practical Curiosity: Learning from Everyday Data** How do we actually get better at utilizing our day-to-day data? Fancy dashboards and complex models might look nice and draw attention, but that’s not where most of us spend our time. In fact those shiny outputs frequently sit unused, while the real insights are drawn from the analyst’s daily practice. Sometimes it’s as simple and as powerful as noticing that a segment is shrinking, a channel is underused, or certain links keep getting all the clicks. There’s many different places that the spark of insight can come from, but you have to keep your head in the data and know where to look. In this session, we’ll explore real-world examples of how segmentation, testing, and click behavior can uncover practical digital marketing opportunities. You’ll leave with inspiration for your own use cases, along with a few simple ways to ask better questions, spot meaningful patterns, and make smarter decisions without overcomplicating it. **About Our Speaker:** [Elaine Armbruster](https://www.linkedin.com/in/elainearmbruster/) is a Director of Digital Experience at the [American Diabetes Association](https://diabetes.org/), where she focuses on using data and insights to create smarter, more effective digital experiences. A lifelong Columbus resident, she has built her career in email marketing and the broader digital user journey, and is finding she most enjoys working in the messy middle where systems, data, and big ideas don’t quite line up yet. Thanks to our 2026 sponsors: [Clarivoy](https://www.clarivoy.com), [What Box Consulting Group](https://www.whatboxconsultinggroup.com), [Conductrics](https://www.conductrics.com), and [Piwik PRO](https://piwik.pro) More info at [cbusdaw.com](https://cbusdaw.com)

Topic to be announced. **CALL FOR SPEAKERS** Learn more: https://www.awscolumbus.com/get-involved/ **THANK YOU** *VEEAM* for hosting our meetup! To learn more about *Veeam*, please visit their website: https://www.veeam.com/ **DIRECTIONS** 8800 Lyra Dr #450 · Columbus, OH go to 4th floor. **Want to sponsor the pizza and/or bar tab?** Please contact me if you would like to sponsor this meetup's pizza and/or bar tab: angelo@mandato.com