API Strategy Conference 2015 Recap

Originally published on the Clarify.io blog. View archived copy.

The week before Thanksgiving wrapped the sixth API Strategy & Practice Conference and the first one in Austin. While there were a ton of things that stood out about the event, here are a few that are particularly interesting:

First, it was great having many of the best and brightest in Austin. We had people from all over the world gathered together to talk about the ideas, concepts, and tools that are defining our community now and driving us forward for the next few years. We had teams that are focused on API design, implementation, testing, documentation, reliability, monitoring, and probably a dozen other areas I’ve forgotten about.

Next, the sessions were great. While I was only able to catch a few each day, those on API marketing and documentation stood out as unique an informative. If you’d like to catch up, most of the slides are already on Speaker Deck and the videos will be on the YouTube Channel in just a couple weeks. Stay tuned and check them out when they drop.

Next, the conversations were fantastic. We had everyone from us to Capital One to IBM Watson to Runscope to insurance companies to dozens of tiny startups you haven’t heard of… yet. The point of this goes back to those “defining conversations.” We talked about the ideas that are working, the things that are failing, the businesses that are blowing up, and those that have dissolved. We traded war stories, lessons learned, and traded notes on how to make things better now and in the future. While there was a “support group” feel to it once in a while, it was educational too.

Next, they tuned the conference for the audience. Most of the evening events were at places like Stubbs, The Mohawk, and Easy Tiger. I think we left an Austin feel on the attendees and event overall. But of course, the most important “tuning” was totally impromptu by my friend and occasional colleague Tony Blank of SendGrid. Austin is the “Live Music Capital of the World” and so he closed out the event with a song dedicated to APIs. It might be a new tradition…

Finally, the conference came about in large part due to the AustinAPI community. A few years ago, Jason Harmon pitched the API Evangelist Kin Lane and 3Scale CEO Steve Willmott about hosting in Austin. They issued a simple challenge: Show us the community. Shortly after that, we put together the AustinAPI group, proved there was a sharp and hungry community, and the rest is history: