Greetings from Austin, Texas
Next week, I’m super excited that the API Strategy & Practice Conference is coming to Austin. I could write a novel-sized blog post about how much I love Austin, but I’ll just settle with saying: It’s pretty great city, but I might be slightly biased since I’m a local and Austin is home.
Austin has a spectacular developer community. I started participating in the Austin developer community while studying Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. It has a small town feel for such a large and growing city. I would not be where I am today without it. I’m glad we can share a bit of it with the APIStrat community.
The API Strategy & Practice Conference and its organizers have a long history in the space and they have become one of the leaders in the field of APIs. From business models to API design and evangelism, there’s a wealth of knowledge being shared and collaborated on throughout the conference. Before I joined Keen IO, I remember watching a fireside chat from APIStrat 2014 of one of Keen’s founders, Kyle Wild. For me, the stage at APIStrat had a strong sense of authenticity.
A few of my favorites
I’d love to be a resource to those visiting for the conference, so here’s a few of my favorites:
- Grab some tacos from Tacodeli — you can find their breakfast tacos downtown at Caffe Medici, Houndstooth Coffee, and Royal Blue Grocery
- If you are trying to avoid the nearby Starbucks, grab an excellent cup of coffee from Houndstooth Coffee, Patika Coffee, or Caffe Medici
- Collaborate or relax over a beer, cider, or root beer at Easy Tiger, Wright Bros. Brew and Brew, or Craft Pride (if you are a bit closer to Town Lake aka the Colorado River and want nothing but Texas craft beers/ciders)
- You can never go wrong with Austin Beerworks, Austin Eastciders, Live Oak Brewing Company, Real Ale Brewing Company, or Hops & Grain
- Royal Blue Grocery is a great local neighborhood grocery that has pretty much everything and is open from 7am until midnight
Please let me know if you need anything else or other local favorites on Twitter or via here.
How to find me
If you’ll be around the conference and want to meet up, feel free to reach outto me if you want to chat about Keen IO, event data, analytics, community building, hackathons, or anything else. I will also have some sweet limited edition Keen IO Field Notes and stickers to share. I’d love to meet up!
You can also find me talking about “Developer Love” during the Developer Experience breakout at 2:45pm on Thursday, 19th and on the API Consumption Panel with a bunch of other great people at 10:00am on Friday, 20th. A bunch of developer evangelists and advocates, including myself, will also be meeting up on Thursday from 6:30–9pm at Waller Creek Pub House for a meetup organized by the Austin Developer Evangelists group. You can RSVP and get more info here. Feel free to join!
I hope to see y’all in Austin soon! 😃
