Hello Fellow Agile Developers,

Wakeup!

Join David Hussman and other birds of your feather for wonderful stories and conversations about swans and colors and agility and software.

We now have a room for next week: OWS150  (the 3M auditorium) . We have the room reserved  (6-8 pm). Here is the map: http://www.stthomas.edu/campusmaps/stpaul/stpaul39.htm .

We have Davannis (a block away on Grand)  party room reserved (OTUG) from 8:30pm to 9:30pm.
FREE Pizza and soda will be served.

See you then,
Your president in bursts - Arun Batchu.
(please pass on this information to at least one of your weak links).

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 11:34 PM, Arun Batchu <arun.batchu@...> wrote:

SPEAKER: David "The Dude" Hussman of DevJam (http://DevJam.com)

TITLE: The Black Swans of Big A Agile

DESCRIPTION: When Nicolas Taleb published "The Black Swan" in 2007, he was
not writing to the agile community. None the less, this excellent book
simultaneously supports and challenges the core agile principles and
practices. At a time when the agile community is truly working hard to
evolve and grow our agility beyond version one, Taleb's ideas are meaty
grist for the mill.

Taleb's "black swans" are significantly disruptive events which are
difficult to predict. To illustrate the dangers of black swans, Taleb
provides an excellent collection of ideas and terms wonderfully applicable
to a day in the life of any pragmatically practicing agilists. From
skeptical empiricism to epistemic arrogance to Philistine scholars Taleb is
not short on concepts which are wonderful catalysts for anyone interested in
keeping agility agile. In short, Taleb challenges to be wary of thinking we
know too much, a beginners mind perspective helpful to any agile community.

====================
Arun's note:

• If you know of David Hussman, you will definitely come.  If you know about the book " The Black Swan", you will come too.If you do not know about either, you SHOULD come and discover David and the Black Swan - both are interesting in their own way. Its a FREE event.  I am expecting this is going to be a sellout crowd (well, a FREE sellout crowd).We will have pizza and non-alcoholic drinks in the end (yes, that is FREE too ). I am hoping to garner one of the fantastic University of Stthomas rooms. 
• If you would like to sponsor, let me know.
• Epistemic: http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aepistemic&ie=utf-8
• Philistine: http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aphilistine&ie=utf-8