About the Authors

Grant Allen has worked in the IT field for more than 20 years, including in roles such as chief technology officer at various leading software development companies and such as data architect at Google. He has worked across the industry, as well as in government and academia around the world, consulting on large-scale systems design, development, performance, innovation, and disruptive change. Grant is a frequent speaker at conferences and industry events on topics such as data mining, collaboration technologies, relational databases, and the business of technology. In his spare time, Grant is completing a PhD in leading disruptive innovation in high-technology companies.

Mike Owens is the IT director for a major real estate firm in Fort Worth, Texas, where he's charged with the development and management of the company's core systems. His prior experience includes time spent at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a process design engineer, and at Nova Information Systems as a C++ programmer. He is the original creator of PySQLite, the Python extension for SQLite. Michael earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Mike enjoys jogging, playing guitar, snow skiing, and hunting with his buddies in the Texas panhandle. He lives with his wife, two daughters, and two rat terriers in Fort Worth, Texas.