I spoke on the business of internal APIs at the IBM Impact conference in Las Vegas, this last Tuesday. About 15 people attended my talk, but the conversations I had with folks afterwards, signaled to me that my talk was a success.
I do not expect IBM or the enterprise to listen to my brand of API evangelism, but I’m still determined to better understand the collision of the enterprise with the open world of web APIs. Even if I convert just one or two individuals at any event, my mission was a success.
Impressed that IBM invited @kinlane to speak at #IBMImpact. Maybe this isn’t your father’s IBM!
— Michael Facemire (@ASocialFace) April 29, 2014
As I walked around the event talking to people I was reminded of how hungry the enterprise is for conversation about the API space that aren’t linked to a product or particular company. As soon as people realize I have no sales pipeline, and I’m genuinely trying to understand the space, and help them be successful, the tone always shifts dramatically.
You can find my slide deck for the talk on Github, unfortunately its in my minimalist style, so you need to have my narration—maybe I’ll work on longer post to summarize what I covered during the talk. I’ll have more thoughts on my experience at IBM Impact in Vegas, but will publish as separate posts across Kin Lane, and API Evangelist.
