#beecon

Thomas DeMeo is Alfresco's Vice President of Product Management. He was already with us in BeeCon 2016, and he is ready to join us for a new BeeCon this year. We are very glad he wanted to spend part of his time to answer our questions. Do you want to know more about his role at Alfresco? In this interview, he talks about bicycles on the road, priorities on the roadmap, his favourite books, rock music and Spinal Tap.

In the three years that you have been the VP of Product at Alfresco, what are you most proud of accomplishing? What has been the most fun?

First of all, the 3 years have gone by in a flash! I think what I am most proud of is taking the great work that came before me and elevating that to the next level for the community, partners and customers. Prioritizing the build out of the platform with richer capabilities, integrations, UX, mobile, and developer and architect-centric items like APIs, developer environment, tools, benchmarks, richer docs have all made it easier to get value from the broader Alfresco platform. Extending the integrations into adjacent systems, leveraging IaaS and providing the right tools to reduce what we call "Time to Value" are all very important to me. While there is still much to do, and we always want to do more, the fun part of this is working with others in the ecosystem who are equally passionate about the product to make an impact which touches so many around the world. It's fascinating to see how many people use the overall Alfresco platform for everything from exploring the universe, making people healthy, to everyday client interactions in banks and retail. This is very satisfying.

What is the most difficult part of defining a product roadmap?

As in life, it's about priorities and what to focus on with limited time and resources. It's keeping your eye outwards in the market to see the macro trends, while dealing with micro decisions day to day. It's connecting the higher level vision and objectives for where we want to be, and translating that into the meaningful steps along the way to get there. It's listening a lot more than talking, but having a point of view, being comfortable with the unknown, and asking "why" many times to get to the root problem. It's always a balancing act between what you want to do and what you can afford, while trying to keep multiple constituents happy, each with different goals. The roadmap itself is just an artefact of all these competing priorities, values and decisions. I honestly believe that a good PM is both a blessing (we get to help people!) and a curse by never being satisfied as we always want to do more and know where our short comings are. That said, It's also a role where you can make a difference, be creative, and have a "seat at the table" for making meaningful impact. I would rather be at the head of the table than have others do it for me so it's also the best job in the world!

What are the best channels for Alfresco to get feedback from its users, partners, and community? How does that feedback influence the product roadmap? What other things influence the roadmap?

The quick answer is to engage in all communication methods (community forums, UX research, early access programs, events like BeeCon, developer days, meetups, etc.) as each provides a different level of conversation. As I mentioned before, a good PM has to use their ratio of ears to mouth wisely. It's 2x!. Modern product management today is a lot more fluid, agile, inclusive and scientific. You don't need to be the "smartest person in the room" or own a magic crystal ball, you need to be good at listening, observing, asking the right questions, challenging assumptions and balancing your point of view with input from all sides. This input from all of constituents (partners, community, customer, end users, etc.) and personas (end users, admins, developers, architects, partners, CIO, etc.) is needed to test a hypothesis, iterate, learn and build evidence to support a point of view. But as the market is dynamic and users' needs change, it's a constant dialog and like any good relationship, it's built on communication and conversations like this.

Why is it so hard to upgrade Alfresco? What is Alfresco planning to make it easier?

Being open is a benefit, but also a responsibility on all sides. While it's great one can do anything on top of Alfresco, without the proper guidance, we see situations where environments are either not optimally set up or extended, and this could make an upgrade challenging. We have invested in both technology and training to make this easier. First, each release of Alfresco and Activiti have provided more APIs than the previous and the guidance in items like the SDK, api-explorer.alfresco.com, docs.alfresco.com, reference architectures (etc.) are intended to make it easier to have a maintainable environment. Second, we have both certification and training that Alfresco offers to everyone that covers being a Alfresco Certified Engineer, Alfresco Certified Administrator, Alfresco Activiti Certified Administrator and Alfresco Process Services Certified Engineer. There are many options at https://university.alfresco.com/ It's come a long way in my 3 years.

We were pleased that you attended BeeCon 2016. What were your expectations attending that conference, and what surprised you? What are you looking forward to this year?

As I mentioned previously, conversations with members of the extended community are always rewarding. I love hearing different experiences and points of view about this shared passion of building a great product that makes an impact in our world. The range of use cases, configurations, integrations and extensions is always great to see. I'm looking forward to the unexpected this year, seeing something new and different that perhaps we didn't even know was possible built on the new capabilities provided in the last few versions. If you see me, don't be shy, I'd love to see what you are working on.

We are aware that you love music. Do you play any instrument? What kind of music do you enjoy the most?

Yes indeed, I started playing guitar when I was an early teenager and have played, on and off, ever since. I like the creative part of it, it's a good "right brain / left brain" activity. Even after a long day, after ~ 15 minutes of playing, my energy level jumps back up and I am refreshed. Having grown up in the Boston area in the 80's, it was all about classic American and British rock, and I leaned more towards the heavy side of the spectrum. Good riffs, heavy groove, interesting arrangement, melody and tone, that's what it's all about for me. That's the style I like to play too.

If you could play music with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?

Jimmy Page, he was a big influence growing up. The variety of style, depth, alternate tunings and good ol' rock & roll never gets old. Even as a person, he leads a good life, glad he is still with us and still doing his thing. A very close second would be Eddie Van Halen, or Angus Young, Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Ray Vaughan, dang, I can't decide. Don't get me started...

You have worked in product management in a number of high profile software companies. If software product management was not a career choice for you, what else do you think you would have done?

Similar to Nigel Tufnel, I'd work in a shop of some kind, maybe in a haberdashery, or maybe like a chapeau shop. You will have to google Spinal Tap quotes to get the joke, or better yet, see the movie.

What is one dream project you have thought about pursuing apart from your professional life?

My passions are family, technology, music, cycling and travel. To paraphrase Elon Musk's approach, who advises to look at the overlap of two or more areas where you are an expert to explore opportunities, it would be in those domains. The landscape changes quickly and there are always areas to innovate and find new ways of adding value.

What books have influenced you such that you would recommend them to the Alfresco community? We are interested in both professional and non-technical books.

There are so many books that I have enjoyed, but here are just a few of the more product related titles I recommend to those I work with. As a PM, of course this list is in order of priority :-)

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change"

"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" by Steve Blank

"The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries

"Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan

"The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)" by Clayton M. Christensen

"Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech" by J. B. Wood

We are happy and honoured to have John Newton once again talking at BeeCon this year. And only that, this time we also got the chance to steal some time from his busy agenda for an interview, where he talks not only about the topics of his keynote, but also about movies, anthropology, books, machine learning, and secret projects.

Being the father of Alfresco, and with all the knowledge and ideas you have about content management, we could have you giving a full seminar at BeeCon, but we have to limit it to one talk. Given the limited time, how do you choose your topics for each presentation?

It's based upon trends that are going on in the industry and what interests me at that particular time. The Digital Transformation theme started with my time on the AIIM board where we had active discussions on where the industry was going. Lately, I am very intrigued with the rapid pace of evolution in machine learning and its impact on artificial intelligence. I hope to talk a bit about that at the next BeeCon.

Your presentations always feature a theme. I remember Bruegel and Renaissance Painting (BeeCon 2016), Star Trek (Alfresco Summit 2014), Back to the Future (Alfresco Summit 2013), Monty Python (Alfresco DevCon 2012), and James Bond (Alfresco DevCon 2011). How do you pick them? Is there any theme that you liked better than the others?

Sometimes its based upon the last movie I saw or the last thing that I saw on television before I started working on it. I try to find something with a lot of characters, images and situations that I can warp into fitting whatever I am working on at the time. My favorite was probably Star Trek because it was such an important influence on me when I was growing up.

We try to be better from year to year. This year we offer to all attendees to use mobile app to keep up with the schedule. It brings the following features to you:

The full schedule, filtered by tracks, time, speakers and session types

Speaker biography and talk resources (presentations and other) in advance to the session or during it

Own agenda formed from the sessions interesting for you

Please vote for the sessions they like in the app. So we can select best talks and award speakers.

Actually we had no time to develop new custom app, so we use EventsXD service to deliver all features to you. It's a reason why installation process is a bit difficult. Sorry for it.

Use the following QR-codes to open the app in the market (iPhone, Android or Windows Phone) and to install it.

Register in the app. It asks for a complex password, just use "qwe123!@#" if you don't want to think about it.

Click search button on the top and search for "BeeCon" event.

BeeCon 2017 will be probably the best Alfresco developer conference ever, as content cover every technical topic and speakers are highly skilled.

However, man does not live by bread alone and our sponsors have contributed to make real different social events which will happen the evenings after conference sessions.

April 25 - 19:00 to 22:00

Cost for attendees: free

Dinner at Espacio Ebro, an open space near Etopia and the river to welcome all you to BeeCon. 

You can reach the place walking from Etopia.

April 26 - 19:00 to 22:00

Cost for attendees: free

Dinner at El Cachirulo, where we’ll share local food enjoying one of the beauties gardens in the city.

You can reach the place by taxi or you can take the free bus provided by us from Etopia at 18:45 and to Etopia at 22:00.

Also a surprise live show will be announced for this event, stay tuned!

April 27 - 19:00 to 22:00

Cost for attendees: about 20 €

“Tapas” walk through the old part of Zaragoza leaded by local fellows of the Order of the Bee. Each one pays his part.

You can reach the place walking from Etopia (about 30 minutes) or by taxi.

April 28 - 13:00 to 20:00

Cost for attendees: about 40 €

We have an open poll at Alfresco Community to decide what to do that evening. Each one pays his part.

Please, vote to help us reserving the activity!

Tuesday, April 25 is ‘Day Zero’ at BeeCon 2017. 

As Axel Faust introduced last month, developers will join that day at BeeCon hack-a-thon to collaborate around addons and new Alfresco features. 

If you are not an experienced Alfresco developer but you want to participate also in this first day, a parallel training session has been scheduled. This training session will cover basics for Alfresco development, focusing the practice on the use of the brand new Alfresco SDK 3.0.0.

Participation in the BeeCon training session is open to any member of the Alfresco community and any attendee of BeeCon 2017. There is no extra charge - if you want to join simply be there on April 25th, the day before the main session start. In order for us to properly prepare the session and estimate the participation in advance (i.e. so that there are enough power outlets and chairs for everyone), please register your intention to attend the training session. This registration will also be used to provide any updates or other details about the session in advance of BeeCon.

BeeCon is approaching and we are excited to have some key members of the Community attending our event. If you are still not convinced to join us, check the following interview with none other than Jeff Potts, board member of the Order of the Bee, former Chief Community Officer at Alfresco, best known for his excellent learning material at ecmarchitect.com and the "Alfresco Developer's Guide". Definitely an Alfresco Guru.

The "bee" in BeeCon is connected with your talk "The Challenges of Keeping Bees", at the Alfresco Summit 2013. How do you feel having given a talk that inspired the community to create the Order of the Bee and BeeCon?

I've given a lot of talks over the years but that one is my favorite. It was the right talk at the right time for the right group of people. So when the Order of the Bee formed and then later, BeeCon, I was really flattered and proud of the name. It kind of celebrates a moment when what we have and what we do as a community kind of clicked for a lot of us.

One of my favourite talks during BeeCon 2016 was yours, "Would the commercial open source software you depend on survive a zombie apocalypse?". In that talk you gave the community some goals. How do you think is that progressing? What role does BeeCon play in that story?

I'm glad you liked it! That talk was a reminder that this organization exists to make sure that if some terrible thing happened and the beekeeper left the bees to fend for themselves, we could carry on. Everyone who contributes to our community, no matter how small the contribution, furthers its mission in some way. That happens naturally without much coordination. BeeCon is a chance for us to be a bit more proactive. We can check on our progress as a community, work together in person, and set some markers to use as we move forward.