Business of Software 2009
a Joel On Software Conference
Fall 2009 - Boston, MA
We will start organizing Business of Software 2009 soon. In the meantime, if you're interested in building long-term, sustainable and profitable software businesses then join the Business of Software social networking site
The Conference
Business of Software 2008 took place over two days in September.
Download the program (.pdf)
The speakers included:
- Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek software, author of several books and the man behind the joelonsoftware blog
- Seth Godin, Business Week's "Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age", is the best-selling author of 7 books (including Permission Marketing and Purple Cow) as well as the most popular eBook of all time.
- Eric Sink, founder of SourceGear, author of "Eric Sink on the Business of Software" and the person who coined the term "Micro ISV"
- Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing and winner of last year's Software Idol competition
- Richard Stallman launched the development of the GNU operating system, now used on tens of millions of computers today. Stallman has received the ACM Grace Hopper Award, a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award, and the the Takeda Award for Social/Economic Betterment
- Paul Kenny is one of the UK's top sales trainers, consultants and speakers. He has worked with many customers in three continents, including IBM, Perot Systems, The Guardian and tens of others.
- Tom Jennings is a Managing Director at Summit Partners, a private equity and venture capital firm with offices in Boston, Palo Alto and London. Tom focuses on investments in growing and profitable software, technology, healthcare and life sciences companies
- Dharmesh Shah is a geek, serial entrepreneur, founder of HubSpot and blogger at OnStartups.com
- Mike Milinkovich is the Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation
- Steve Krug is author of "Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
- Noam Wasserman is a professor in the entrepreneurial management unit at Harvard Business School
- Jessica Livingston is author of Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days and a founder of Y Combinator
- Jason Fried is founder of 37signals (developers of Basecamp and Ruby on Rails) and Signal vs Noise blogger
Business of Software Blog
What would Bill Gates do?
November, 17 2008
It's odd how asking yourself the simple question "What would Bill Gates do?" can bring a clarity-inducing shift of perspective to seemingly intractable problems. I don't why it works, but it does. Depending on the problem you're facing, you can... Read more
BoS digest: how to learn to love your inner sales person
November, 17 2008
Last week, 18 of us gathered for the first ever London BoS dinner. It was a great reminder of how the pub, the pizza parlour and the coffee house - real-life interactions as old as beer itself - trump the... Read more
BoS digest: the problem with self-directed teams
November, 11 2008
Last night, at 7:30, six of us were faced with a problem: where to eat? By 7:45 we still had no answer. It was a well-defined, tractable problem with clear goals (eat) and fixed parameters (somewhere close). We were six... Read more
Eric Sink on product management
November, 10 2008
I've just posted up Eric's talk at Business of Software 2008. I like how he summarises all you need to know about people management onto one slide:http://network.businessofsoftware.org/video/eric-sink-on-productThere are still a couple more videos to come. Subscribe to my RSS feed... Read more
BoS digest: tenuous US election analogies
November, 6 2008
I was at the PDC last week. Maybe I was jet lagged, or maybe it's my slow and grumpy decline into cynicism, but I was underwhelmed. My reaction to Live Mesh, Azure and Windows 7 was "so what". I keep... Read more
Curious what happened last year?
Business of Software 2007 was a huge success. 150 attendees came from 30 US states and 12 different countries, from as far afield as Brazil, Mexico, Denmark and the Czech Republic.
Amazing conference. It will be tough to beat.
Chris Kemp, I Love Rewards Inc.
Excellent content! Good food for thought!
Matt Ruma, President, Creative Logic
Great variety of topics. There were many moments where I felt validated or was shown our company's flaws. I'm not a developer but it was the right level of 'technical'!
Anon
Day one alone was worth the price of admission - great work on getting great speakers.
Austin Salonen, Lead Developer, SGS Mid-West Seed Services
Business of Software 2008 is sponsored by
Very diverse, great speakers. Great variety, great logistics. Thanks!
Felix Trepanier , Technical Lead, OZ Communications
Excellent speakers. It's what I came for and it's what I got.
Anon
Excellent overall. Great speakers, great content. Ton of opportunities to network.
Scott Lawrence, Software Development Manager, APS Healthcare Inc
The combination of small, intimate size and a diverse list of speakers made this the most valuable and provoking conference I've been to in a long time. It's a significant achievement that from every speaker I've come away with either something quite profound to consider or something concrete to do.
Rob Muir, Development Manager,FINCAD
I'm glad this type of conference is finally taking place. Thanks for your efforts.
Jennifer Desha, Project Manager, Numira Biosciences
Best conference!
Mark Belliveau, VP Marketing, Normsoft Inc
Some really excellent speakers. Liked the mix.
Anon
Thanks! Great conference
Joe Crevino, Development Supervisor, LAN International
I feel like I'm a lot more prepared to do my job after being here and will be more successful in the future as well. Thanks a lot!
Anon
Great job on the conference! The site and accommodation were excellent. An amazing experience!
Bryan Dykstra, Director of Business Development, Creative Logic