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Technology As If People Mattered - Dylan Richard keynote

1,489 views · Published 15 October 2015 · 11:17 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: O'Reilly · 2015 · Science & Technology

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From the 2015 Velocity Conference in New York: Technology only matters insofar as it helps people to be more effective.

As technologists, we seem to be focusing so much on the power of the technology and the abilities that these tools have imparted on us, that we seem to have forgotten why we’re here.
- Listening and valuing non-technical people – swinging the pendulum back
- Why it’s your job as a technologist to learn the business and the problems
- Why your technical solutions should start with existing business processes
- Appropriate technology – the power of simple tools and simple technology to solve problems simply
- Evolutionary technology – how and why to build levels of complexity, and why and when to evolve to the next level of complexity

We have so much power to change the world for the better, but we cannot do it with tech alone. Let’s focus on building technical solutions born of balanced context.

About Dylan Richard (Modest Inc; formerly Obama for America):
Dylan Richard is the full-bearded technologist who, as director for engineering, quietly led the 40 engineers of Obama for America’s Technology team to victory in 2012. Previously, he helmed technical teams as vice president of engineering at skinnyCorp (home of threadless.com), and was a senior developer at Crate and Barrel. Dylan lives in Chicago, Illinois with his patient wife, two amazing sons, a cat, and a rotating stable of old diesel VWs. His possible favorite claim to fame is having his chest-length beard proclaimed “fierce” by President Barack Obama. Dylan is now working to build the future of commerce as Founder and CTO of Modest.

Watch more from Velocity NYC 2015: https://goo.gl/PZAqiY
Visit the Velocity website: http://velocityconf.com/
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