Virtual Reality is something we at Carbon Five have been playing around with the past few months, learning not only how to get started but how we can use our current toolset to work within the growing field. That’s why I was excited two weeks ago to give a talk on getting started in virtual reality through JavaScript and WebVR at EmpireJS in New York. We all had a fun time while I (wearing a TRON hoodie and Snow Crash referencing tee) walked through what we’ve learned while cracking jokes about Lawnmower Man and the 90s obsession with VR.
The video of the talk is available above (thanks to the EmpireJS crew for it and being incredible hosts) and the slide deck is available below. Try out demos on our VR demo site c5vr.com with all the code being available through the site’s repository.
Finally, we’re holding a workshop in our Santa Monica office walking through the same concepts for the Android platform, using Google Cardboard and Unity on Wednesday May 20th at 7:00pm PDT. For $15 you get one of the limited spots and your own take-home headset so if you’re interested, please register here!
Star Wars Day isn’t the only thing to look forward to this May. Join us for some new (and classic) events this month. If you’re looking for some adventure our hack nights are a great place to find it. Find kindred souls, work on your own projects, or build a lightsaber. Every hack night is different but they are always free and everyone is invited to laugh, learn, and drink beer at a Carbon Five office near you. Interested in something more cerebral? Have lunch at AutoDesk for a Sum of the Parts talk or join us in our new LA office for an AIGA Workshop.
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Spring into action by joining us for this months events! Our hack nights are a place for you to work on a project, or get in on a surprise challenge with like-minded folks. Hear brilliant speakers share their thoughts about interesting things at this months Tinderbox discussion.
All events are hosted at a Carbon Five office and are open to the public unless otherwise stated.
Los Angeles – Map
Wed, April 15 @ 6pm // Hack Night
Wed, April 29 @ 6pm // Hack Night Continue reading …
We have a medley of different events this month! Whether you are interested in finding like-minded people or need a space to work on some projects, we have an event worth attending. All events are at a Carbon Five office unless otherwise specified.
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We have so many events going on this coming month that we thought it would be helpful to round them up in a post. If you’ll be in any of these cities, come say hello.
For anyone who is new to our hack nights, we gather a diverse mix of developers and designers who want to code and collaborate for a couple of hours after work. You can bring a project or enthusiasm for working on someone else’s. If you want to give a short presentation or run a workshop, we have the facilities and completely welcome ad-hoc organization.
Los Angeles
Wed, Feb 4 @ 6pm // Hack Night
Wed, Feb 18 @ 6pm // Hack Night
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Interested in the current state of tech in LA and meeting key leaders in development, startups, media, fashion and more? Join myself and several Carbon Fivers from our Santa Monica office at Techweek LA, Nov 20-21st to hear from top thought leaders in LA and attend a variety of events and networking opportunities.
Register for the event through our City Partnership and get a 15% discount.
Carbon Five will be participating in the judging of the Launch competition and hackathon where we see what next big thing will shape the future of LA and beyond. Interested in competing? Rally your team and apply today!
Techweek LA runs from Nov 20th – 21st in a custom built tent on the Santa Monica pier. Check out the full schedule and contact us if you want to meet up with one of our developers and designers at the event.
Recently, we joined the CODE2040 community for a celebration of the 2014 Fellows. The evening started with a career fair where Marc, David and I had the chance to talk with the Fellows about what was next. A few of us had met some of the Fellows at previous events and we had briefly meet Estefania as she works with one of our clients, Good Eggs. But the career fair was a rare opportunity to speak with them one-on-one.
CODE2040 is addressing a real need to close the gap between the vast opportunities in the technology space and the lack of diversity in the workforce. Right now, the program is focusing its efforts on a Fellowship program for high achieving Continue reading …
A couple of months ago, we committed to hosting Tinderbox talks every 8 weeks. We’re excited to announce the second event in the new series, which is scheduled for Wednesday April 30th. This is what we have on the docket:
Paul Biggar, founder of CircleCI, is joining us to discuss the Many Ways of Continuous Deployment:
So… Continuous Deployment. You hear that you should be practicing continuous deployment, but nobody every pointed out that there are many different ways to do it!
This talk compares and contrasts different kinds of continuous deployment strategies. Implementation, requirements, tradeoffs will be covered. Case-studies, examining different strategies practiced at companies such as Facebook, GitHub, IMVU, Heroku and CircleCI.
We use CircleCI on many of our projects these days and think it’s pretty wonderful.
Doc Ritezel, from the Ministry of Velocity, is joining us to share some wisdom on the subject of Better Code Reviews:
Do your team’s technical discussions devolve into tense confrontations? Are you frequently confused by other people’s code changes? Is there someone who you just can’t seem to get along with? Software peer review on a modern development team is essential to healthy code and a happy team. But it’s riddled with human-sized pitfalls. Learn why talking about code in person is important, how to talk about code without burning bridges, and most importantly, how to take dread out of your workplace.
We shoot for an intimate atmosphere, great talks and insightful Q & A. We’re pretty proud of our previous events not only because the content has been good, but the questions and interactions have been high-quality. We hope you can join us.
Doors open at 6:30 and the talks begin at 7. Please RSVP at the Tinderbox meetup.
Last night I had the opportunity to do a dry run of my talk for the Flowcon conference coming up this November 1st at the Lean UX SF Meetup. The event was hosted at WeWork which has a beautiful office conveniently right around the corner from ours. Thanks to great promotion by Mike Long and Niley Barros, we had a sell-out crowd which at one point resulted in a line out the door. The folks from WeWork and the Flowcon conference, which was sponsoring the Meetup, were incredibly helpful and accommodating and we packed everyone in that we could fit.
Getting in front of a room that crowded had me battling quite a few nervous jitters but the friendly, enthusiastic faces in the crowd brought a ton of great energy. By the end of the night I realized how inspiring it can be just sharing stories with people about the work that we are all doing. I know that personally it always serves to refocus my efforts and ensure I’m on top of my discipline going into work the next day.
The slides for the talk are up on the Carbon Five Slideshare account:
Mixing Lean UX & Agile Development
Thanks to everyone that came and for all of your questions and helpful feedback. Really excited for the FlowCon conference on November 1st followed up by Balanced Team November 2nd and 3rd.
We’re super psyched that Lean UX guru and Carbon Five designer extraordinaire Lane Halley is speaking at this year’s Silicon Beach Fest, held in Santa Monica from June 19 – 22.
Lane will participate in a Lean UX panel, with Jaime R. Levy from JLR Interactive, and Chris Chandler from Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online. Be sure to say ‘hi’ to Lane after the talk and grab a Carbon Five t-shirt or some stickers.
Photo: Jaime, Chris and Lane present at the Los Angeles User Experience Meetup
Other Silicon Beach Fest speakers include friends of Carbon Five William Hsu from MuckerLab and David Carter from Amplify; along with interweb luminaries Sarah Austin of Pop17, GRP Partner Steven Dietz and Alisa Gould-Simon, Co-Founder of Pose.
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