Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Kairos Society’s Global Summit in New York City – a networking event for college entrepreneurs and current industry leaders. The event was held at the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange – not typical networking venues, but conducive to the Society’s goal of “Uniting the Brightest Young Minds to Fuel Innovations for a Better Tomorrow.” Beyond the fervent entrepreneurial ambition exhibited by Kairos Fellows, we had the honor of listening to several impactful speakers, one of which was Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor at Wired Magazine.

His talk particularly struck my interest as it relates to the topics I often discuss on this blog; the interaction of end user and software developer, the behavioral change (both organizational and operational) that comes with adopting Agile development, and the cyclical feedback that imparts better aligned software to the enterprise …all wrapped into Goetz’s two words: feedback loops.

I believe that to truly understand the agile development process, one needs to see an agile team in action; and perhaps even attend a daily “stand up” meeting.

I believe that same level of understanding applies to any good agile development platform, and Mendix is no exception.  Gaining the best appreciation for the Mendix platform typically occurs once agile developers see it in action. I can say (or write) “one click deployment,” “visual modeling,” and “integrated AppStore” until I’m blue in the face (or red in the fingers) – however, it’s a developers  ability to create a CRM system with Google Maps integration in less than 10 minutes that really does the talking (or typing). Once developers actually touch the product and begin to create with it, it is then that they truly understand – much like attending that first daily “stand up”.

Building and managing applications on the Mendix platform is a very visual process, from the initial modeling of the application within their own domain model, to deploying it for immediate feedback… However, reading and hearing about it can only prove so valuable – it’s something you’ve really got to see.