2025 Schedule

Monday, April 28 • Grand Rapids, MI

Daniel and Pamella DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health

333 Michigan St NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Merge is where product managers, designers, and developers come together to explore overlaps between disciplines and build exceptional software as one team

7:00am

7:30am — Registration / Check-in Opens

8:00am

8:00am — Breakfast

8:45am — Introduction and Welcome with SoftwareGR

9:00am

9:00 - 9:45am - Making the Invisible, Visible (45min)

Jim VanderMey

9:45 - 9:55am — 10 Minute Break

9:55am

9:55 - 10:40am - AI for Teams - Smart Adoption Not Blind FOMO (45min)

John Crosby

9:55 - 10:40am - Blending Product Thinking with Software Modernization (45min)

Brian McKeiver & Dave Valko

10:40 - 10:50am — 10 Minute Break

10:50am

10:50 - 11:35am - Seeing and Talking about Seeing: Establishing a common language of visual design for engineers and designers (45min)

Sam Bleckley

10:50 - 11:35am - A Pirate’s Guide to Modern Product Teams (45min)

Kristen DeLap

11:35 - 11:45am — 10 Minute Break

11:45am

11:45am - 12:30pm - Brooms Run Amok: AI Lessons from The Sorcerer's Apprentice (45min)

Joe Leo

11:45am - 12:30pm - SPARK Collaboration: Using AI to Break Down Silos and Build Seamless Solutions (45min)

Elizabeth Goede

12:30pm

12:30pm — Lunch

1:00 - 1:20pm — Lightning Talks

1:20 - 1:30pm — 10 Minute Break

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1:30pm

1:30 - 2:15pm - From Rumble to Acceleration: Aligning Stakeholders for Digital Success(45min)

Paul Warner

1:30 - 2:15pm - One Codebase to Rule them All: Flutter to streamline Development(45min)

Ben Jacques

2:15 - 2:25pm — 10 Minute Break

2:25pm

2:25 - 3:10pm - Eliminate the Ego (45min)

Carlus Henry

2:25 - 3:10pm - Object Oriented UX and Developers: Best Frenemies Forever?(45min)

Billy Neuson & Jon Alderink

3:10 - 3:30pm — Ice Cream & Networking in the Lounge

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3:30pm

3:30 - 4:15pm Collaborative Discussion

Andy Van Solkema - Founding Partner, Physics

Christy Ennis-Kloote - Director of Growth, Product Solutions and Experience Design, Augusto