What should your audience walk out with?
Most speakers hand you a list of talks. I’d rather start with your goals: who’s in the room, what they’re wrestling with, and what should be different when they leave. Then I build the rest around that.
Three ten-thousand-hour careers. One stage.
A showman’s stage presence, a magician’s instincts, and decades of hands-on experience from master practitioner to C-suite. Thirty years of performing taught me to read a room and move it from skepticism to astonishment. I bring that to every talk.
The result is a room that stays full, an audience that leaves talking, and a slot that anchors your program.
One session, or the whole program.
- KeynoteAn opener gives the whole event a shared question to carry into every session; a closer ties the program together and sends people home with something to do on Monday.
- SessionsOne breakout, or a short run of them: a pair that builds on each other, a half-day track, or a session plus a panel. My repertoire keeps evolving, so ask for what’s ready now, or tell me what the room needs and we’ll build something custom.
- The whole conferenceBook me for the whole conference: typically ten or more talks across the event. (No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I do this all the time.) Go deep on one topic, or give every talk a different subject.
- WorkshopHalf a day to two days, hands on. See Training.
- EmceeHosting that keeps the program on time and the room awake.
- Magic and mentalismPurpose-built for the room, from strolling to the main stage. See trulymagic.com.
Pick a topic, or give me a problem.
A sample of what I’ve delivered. Most sessions start here and end up shaped to the room.
Architecture
- A Model for Holistic Software Architecture
- Architecture in the Age of AI
- When Code Is Cheap, Architecture Is Everything
- The Innovation Playbook
AI and the semantic layer
- Your Data Is Useless to AI (Without a Semantic Layer)
- Data Architecture for AI
- Third Generation Agentic AI
- Architecting the Semantic Layer (workshop)
The human side
- The Influential Engineer: Persuasion Patterns
- Innovation: Why the Majority Is Always Wrong
- Value-Driven Development
- Why AI Acceleration Is Slowing You Down
Rethinking X in the age of AI
Architecture, data, agility, code, and collaboration. The industry is handing old work to AI without asking whether the patterns underneath still hold. For fifty years a human in the loop caught the failures. AI can’t.
What’s your superpower?
Skills that were once rare are becoming commodities. Inside everyone is a capability that compounds instead of depreciating. How I found mine, and how your people can find theirs.
Consistently high, whatever the topic.
Michael put terms to things I hadn’t previously known how to describe and still gave me things to think about.
Gage A., DenverAs a brand-new architect, this gave me an approach to creating an architectural design that is more likely to result in success for the project. I have a tool for this now.
Robert G., ClearwaterGenerating interest in any given topic is one of Michael’s unique gifts.
Vince H., ClearwaterBeing able to talk about one’s failures is not something that everyone can do. To use that as a teaching moment for others is excellent session material.
Cory B., Denver
See me live.
Upcoming and past dates, generated from the same event data as the home page.
Everything your team will ask for.
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Our next speaker has spent thirty years as a professional magician and more than twenty-five in software, and he’ll tell you they’re the same job. He wrote Mastering Software Architecture. Please welcome Michael Carducci.
Introduction for the emcee
Tell me about your event.
Who’s in the room, and what should be different when they leave?