Again this year, Google sponsored a reception for Agile 2007 participants. Nothing gets conference people together like free food and drink (not to mention the chance to win coveted electronics). This year's reception featured the top 5 videos from the AgileAdvert contest, aka: So you want to be a famous Agilist?
After attendees made quick work of the food and gobbled up all the Google swag the top 5 videos (as ranked in earlier YouTube voting) were shown on large screen projectors. Finalists were determined through audience enthusiasm - the crowd rated the (very sad) Thoughtworks recruiting clip "Developer Abuse" as the number 1 video, making "Matthew" (name changed to protect the innocent) this year's AgileAdvert famous Agilist. Emcee Paul Culling of VersionOne pointed out the irony of a ThoughtWorks recruiting video winning the video contest at a Google sponsored event, providing a good laugh.
The runner up was also by ThoughtWorks: the Singalong Sound of Music parody, "Being Agile is our Favourite Thing" featuring singing and dancing developers! Honorable mention went to (in no particular order) "The PiMP" from the people at Sixth Sense Analytics (the story of a misguided and self-important software development manager); "Feedback?" from outsystems.com in which A. Giles and Walter Falls have a conversation in a familiar format (Mac vs PC); and a late entry from Intridea, "Get Agile: Agile vs Waterfall" in which Agile and Waterfall are charmingly portrayed by two talented children, also in Mac vs PC style.
After VersionOne presented raffle draw winner Todd Miller with his new 42" LG LCD TV and Google raffled their 30GB video iPod, the crowd wanted to see more videos, so the evening continued with Agile ideas and comedy on the big screens in the ballroom. Some of the videos were hilarious, others thoughtful, and everyone appreciated all the work the entrants put in. Look for AgileAdvert to be bigger and better next year - plan your video now! Thanks to this year's AgileAdverts, you now know how to plan: find your whiteboard, get out those index cards...
Here are this year's top 5 - they'll play one after the other, below. We've also included a special mention, the venerable "High Moon Studios: A Portrait – Scrum" (arguably the granddaddy of AgileAdverts).
All videos can still be seen at AgileAdvert.org.
PS: "Matthew," we hope you're getting the help you need.
AgileAdvert 2007 was sponsored by:
