Building Apps in the Family History Market

Date:

Friday, Mar 22

Time:

9:45 - 10:45 am

Room:

258

Session ID:

D3

Type:

Panel

Difficulty:

All

Track:

Developer

Description

Thinking about building a family history app? Come join this panel discussion to gain insight on how to build a successful solution in the fast moving, fast growing family history industry.

Everyone has ideas. Often people have the same ideas. Only some ideas make their way to becoming a successful product. Let’s discuss how that happens, and even some of the mistakes along the way that might prevent success. In particular, we will talk about this in the context of family history software, the existing market landscape, and the ongoing needs of the end user. The world needs good family history tools, and that means they need you and your great ideas to materialize.

This session is for any developer, hobbyist, start-up, or volunteer/OSS leader that wants to know what they are getting in to, what to watch out for, and how to navigate this often quirky yet endearing frontier of family history technology!

Presenters

David Pugmire

David Pugmire is currently the Developer Marketing Manager at FamilySearch. He spent most of his career at Microsoft (starting when Windows 98 was the OS of choice), and is an early pioneer of family history technology, building one of the world’s first online family tree applications in a start-up between 2000 and 2004. His roles at Microsoft included Product Manager of .NET, Silverlight and Visual Studio (Microsoft’s flagship development technologies).

David is a UX enthusiast, and likes to make complex things super simple for the novice. He is a business person by trade but a client, server and electronics developer by night.

Brian Edwards

Brian joined FamilySearch in 2011 to help improve the global user experience, particularly focused on the needs of patrons outside of North America. Prior to working for FamilySearch, he worked in various product management roles at Ancestry.com working on collaboration, family tree, DNA, and search initiatives. He has extensive international experience as the managing director for Ancestry.com in Beijing, China; site manager for Novell over International Product Development in Dublin, Ireland; and primary development and product management liaison to Novell Japan. He also worked as a software developer and development manager. Brian has a passion for family history and loves to make things simple for users.

Gordon Clarke

Gordon J. Clarke joined FamilySearch over 7 years ago and started the developer platform with restful APIs, training and support. He is now the Software Partner and Community manager. Prior experience came from over 20 years of entrepreneurial activities including the startup and management of iPowerplex, ici MEDIA, Interactive Creations, New Vision Technologies, MediaMAXX, and MultiWare. Gordon enjoys and excels at bringing new business and technological solutions to market. He has 7 sons, 3 daughters, 3 grand-daughters, and still enjoys piano, gymnastics, juggling, web and graphic design, animation, audio/video production.

Tom Cormier

Founder of the Living Legacy Project, President of LegacyStories.org and the International Association of StoryKeepers (I-ASK).

Nate Quigley

Nate Quigley is a repeat entrepreneur currently building his third business, a digital photo and memory management company called JustFamily. Nate and his wife Vanessa are constantly taking pictures and making memories with their seven wonderful children.