This month we have two fantastic talks from Tessa Cooper and Aimee Gamble-Milner. Plus we've got free food and drinks provided at the event thanks to our sponsors.

Everyone is welcome and there are no tickets required. Just turn up - it's free!

If Building A Great Team Is The Question, Technology Is Not The Answer

by Tessa Cooper

Technology is invented to make our lives easier, to make us happier and in many ways bring humans closer together. But sadly, whilst technology can help us to solve problems, it can also create them. And instead of questioning our relationship with technology we simply layer on more, in an attempt to solve these new problems. We have reached a point where many of us have become so reliant on technology, that instead of thinking about the human beings we all are and how we work together, we get hung up on our technology, tools and processes in order to improve how effective our teams are.

Tessa will share some examples of how focussing first and foremost on human interactions within your team or organisation will be the key to your success.

About Tessa

Tess is a freelance people consultant and facilitator, providing support to businesses and organisations to help them to understand and empower their teams and support people to collaborate effectively together.

Previously, Tess was Director of People and Culture at FutureLearn, an online learning platform that aims to transform access to education, and in her role  focussed on creating a diverse company where people are able to fulfil their potential and work together in an open way.

She believes that focussing on developing your culture and your people is key to being a successful global business. She is passionate about her work because she wants to see businesses change the way they do things! Prior to this role she spent 5 years building product teams at the Guardian, Comic Relief and FutureLearn, after which Tess moved into an Organisational Development role helping the entire company, not just the product teams, to develop their practices and ways of working. 

Error: Property “X” does not exist on type “Genders”

by Aimee Gamble-Milner

Collecting gender data is often overlooked when designing an application. It’s just a simple 2-option input, right?

On the surface, it’s straightforward to collect this data… but in reality, the go-to implementation could prevent some users from accessing your service. Additionally, trying to design an inclusive gender-input from scratch can rapidly cause complexity to escalate!

Aimee will discuss how we can make tech more inclusive for all genders whilst trying to keep it simple. This will include alternative form designs, as well as questioning if something else would be more suitable - or if we should collect that data at all? She will also explore how we can handle that data better after we’ve collected it. The poor storage and security of a users current and historical responses to this question could pose a risk to gender minorities.

About Aimee

Aimee is a full-stack software engineer, spending most of her time in JavaScript. She recently joined Bulb, helping to provide simpler, cheaper and greener energy for their members. Previously she worked for Nottingham-based S4RB and had a career as a scientific researcher. 

Win Stuff at Tech Nottingham!

This month at Tech Nottingham we’re giving away two copies of Daniel Coyle’s book The Culture Code. Attend and tweet on the #TechNott hashtag to be in with a chance of winning!

We'll also be giving away two 1 year subscriptions to a JetBrains product of your choice, including Resharper, IntelliJ and PHPStorm. You know the drill: attend and tweet on the #TechNott hashtag to be in with a chance!

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