Confluence 2014 in Santa Clara

On March 5th, I attended Confluence 2014  in Santa Clara. 
First thing first: I must give thanks to the organization of the event, who contacted me and was kind enough to invite me to attend. It was a day very well spent. 

The title of the event could appear pretentious anywhere else than in Silicon Valley: "The Future of Engineering: Better, Faster, Smaller". Here, it felt just right. While I feared to be blown off by topics way out of my comfort (i.e. expertise) zone, the agenda's keynotes and panels hit right home, and I learnt a lot from a roaster of exceptional speakers. 

Just a quick update - with a recently interview on Ciao Pittsburgh

Have you ever regretted not doing an MBA?

HA.

Well, no, I never wanted to go for an MBA (even if occasionally I considered the idea, in particular when my alma mater EPFL started sending me the pamphlets detailing the executive MBA in Management of Technology); I remember too well the sense of relief I had upon finishing my degree, and how much more at ease I felt in the real world rather than in pure academia.

Am I ready to change my mind, just when a few recent articles evaluate the actual value of an MBA sizeable investment (examples of such articles can be found on Forbes, or on Business Insider)? No, I don't think so, but I have become more curious of the different opportunities out there.

My life still doesn't afford me the extra time to go back to school; and programs that I have evaluated tend to be exemplary for how they address other people need for development, but never seem to truly apply to me. My niche is HRIS - it branches out in many different disciplines, but I have never had the ambition to become CIO; even less now that HRIS systems (on premise, in the Cloud, for large corporations, for small 1 to 200 employees ventures, as well as everything in between) are in such a frenzy of novelty.

Credit: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/mooc-makes-oxford-online-dictionary/2006838.article

Enter here the MOOC approach (my last blog in December was about my recent discovery). Quickly, I found myself using many waking moments (I will not say all, because I have an employer and a family, each having every right to expect my full attention during large parts of my days) evaluating which courses I would prefer to pick and how many I can manage to learn well from simultaneously.