Day 2 at the Westin in San Francisco, I attended the Business of Software Conference as both speaker and delegate.

Here are my notes from Day 2

Ryan Carson

Ryan is a genial American working in Bath England at Carsonified, a web applications and events company.

Ryan’s topic was  ”How to give your company soul!” Anyone who has the brass balls to ask 400 techies to shut their eyes and reflect on a piece of classical music for two minutes at the start of a presentation and then get them pumped with the King Leonidas speech from 300 deserves my attention.

Ryan’s presentation highlighted all the stuff they do to create a unique and productive review at Carsonified. They believe in Having fun, recognising effort and talent, creating short term projects and victories, celebrating success and creating an awesome working environment. In truth I have heard lots of people claim to do this but Ryan’s story was presented with great authenticity and his passion for the business was evident.

When the videos come out you should check this one out.

Chris Capossela

A senior  representative of the worlds biggest software company at a conference for rebels and renegades seemed like an interesting choice but Chris gave a frank and highly engaging presentation on the lessons learned from both the successes and the failures at Microsoft over the years.

Chris began with a great video clip from 1998 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrAD25V7ll8. Watch it and squirm!

Key lesson: that video was played on all major news channels and mentioned an national chat shows, however at the following years conference when everything went well it generated very little PR.

Chris made some comparisons between Microsoft success stories and flops( X Box vs Accounting)

Key questions for all software companies when developing new successful  products

1. Are we in it for the long term?
2. Is the product Game Changing?
3. Are you delighting endusers and IT departments
4. What is your Geo Strategy (ie MS Office Accounting launched first in US against a very well developed competitor. Perhaps they would have been better launching in Europe where the market was more fragmented.)
5. Can you reach the Key Influencer Community
6. What channels really matter and can you afford them.

Neil Davidson

Neil was super sub, stepping bravely into the slot created by swine flu and a cranky product manager.

Neil doesn’t like presenting, he would rather let others take the stage and play a supporting role. On the evidence of this presentation he should stand up more often.

Neil has just written and published Don’t just roll the dice A usefully short guide to software pricing  http://www.businessofsoftware.org/ebook.aspx and I would recommend that  anyone in the business should get a copy either hardcopy from Amazon or in pdf form from the link above.

In essence Neil’s presentation encouraged everyone to think more thoroughly about the value of stuff.

He challenged the audience to think how much they would pay for a signed first edition of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and  to establish where the value really lay, in the book, the story the signature the rarity or just the warm feeling that you can get when you spend a large amount of money on an indulgence.

He also challenged us to think beyond just monetary value but to consider value in terms of service delivered.

I still havn’t worked out  precisely how many kittens an ipod is worth though.

Having read the book I can recommend it as relevant to all entrepreneurs wrestling with the pricing .

Kathy Sierra

In my very rough research based on eavesdropping the conversations between sessions and the Twitter post conference I would suggest that Kathy was the speaker that rocked the conference. In my head it was 3am and I lost the power of note taking so will simply say this;

The essence of Kathy’s presentation was

Know your user, Love your user, Make your user look and feel like a hero.

My favourite quote was “it’s not was the product does its what the product allows the user to do..”

Kathy is obsessed with customer/user experience as so should we all be.

Jennifer Aaker

Jennifer is Professor of Marketing at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford and she came to talk to the conference about Happiness!

There was so much in this presentation I can’t begin to summarise adequately everything that she packed into an hour. But I’m going to try.

Chasing happiness is useless (happiness like crack cocaine has a short high and severe crash)

In American( western) culture the concept of a right to happiness is less than 100 years old.

The pursuit of happiness can make us miserable.

Our perception of happiness changes with age

11-14 our vocabulary is too simple to prperly articulate what happiness means

15-18  our Angst vocabulary increases but happiness is about feeling loved / known

20’s Feeling vindicated, powerful, wealthy

30’s Balance

40-50 Rested wonderful grateful

How long does happiness last?

A promotion at work ……….3 days

A significant lottery win……3 months

How long does unhappiness last?

research amongst paraplegics suggests that the unhappiness associated with a major life changing/limiting accident lasts……on average 6 months.

People can’t actually remember what makes them happy. (when we go to Disneyland we remember the pictures of the smiling children because we don’t take pictures of sulks and tantrums.

It takes about 24 minutes to get into a state of Flow (happiness) but the average worker gets interrupted every 3 minutes.

Conclusion. Instead of chasing happiness try for brief moments of fun, being effective, striving for overriding goals.

The pillars of happiness

• Autonomy
• Competency
• Meaning
• Self Esteem
• Feeling linked to something bigger

Make time to protect different sources off happiness in your life. (Friends Partner Work Community Health Family) When we neglect any of these sources we become unhappy when our activities combine these we create more opportunities to feel happiness in our lives.

Work on Projects you love. These energise us . Do you know what projects give you energy and which deplete you?

Anticipating pleasure has a similar effect on the brain to anticipating pleasure. ( Aaker suggested, with a wry smile, the best way to enjoy a holiday was to book it look forward to it and at the last minute cancel it!)

Spend time with people you love and with people who energise you.

Beware people who deplete your energy,  their attitude spreads like a contagion.

Simple things make us happy People, Dancing, Giving, Sharing and all things that give us a sense of self esteem.

Things that you think should matter like religion and education only make us happy in as much as they provide the above.

In Summary: Be with the people you love, work on stuff that excites you, and dance like no one is watching!

Just got back from San Francisco, where I presented once again at the Business of Software Conference. I really love this event, pretty much everyone there is an entrepreneur and all delegates share a passion for creating and selling software solutions to business. Often when I speak at conferences I use the opportunity to have a look around the city, soak up the local sites and culture and I was looking forward to doing so in San Fran. My usual strategy is to watch the headline speaker (usually a “name”) and whoever is next up, just so I can get a feel for the mood of the group,the dynamics of the conference etc. After which I disappear until my allotted slot,  job done I am free to enjoy the city. This conference was different every speaker was excellent (I make no comment or judgement on my own contribution) and try as I might I could find no good time to leave. This has to be the sign of an excellent conference.

Here are the main things I got from each of the main speakers.

Geoffrey Moore is the author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and a new book Dealing with Darwin. A real heavyweight when it comes to all things Strategy. Geoffrey’s presentation began by covering some well trodden ground from the books mentioned, what grabbed me though was the idea of aligning vectors of innovation. Moore argued that innovation in many organisations was ill disciplined, innovation for innovations sake.  In his words bubble up innovation =0. For innovation to be effective you need a compass to direct your attention to the specific needs of the market and the type of innovation through which you are most likely to meet that need.

Key concepts

Differentiate between the core (the stuff that differentiates you from the competition) and the context (the stuff that you need to do just to stay in business)

Decide on your primary vector of innovation

Be aware of the fish to pond ratio. The pond needs to be big enough to matter small enough for you to lead.

Focus on your core, prioritise funding for the core over context

Drive hard, beyond reason, catching up is not really innovating.

Solutions innovation is a great market space for entrepreneurs, so Go Early Go Ugly.

Paul Graham is one of the founders of  Y Combinator and a successful software pioneer. Paul ran through 21 trends to back in the near future. Not sure if this was the best use of his time. I am convinced that any syndicate group at the conference could have generated a similar list. (innovation, The USA, Small companies open source to name just a few) Paul has a unique insight into what makes entrepreneurs successful I would loved to hear more on this.

Heidi Roizen has a unique perspective on Venture Capital given that she has been both the backer and the backed.

Heidis presentation (great as it was) can be summed up by saying, be careful who you partner with. It seems to me that VC’s are no different than anyone else with whom you have a strategic partnership. Pick people you can work with, don’t be overawed by the VC  just because they have the money. Remember they need you just as much as you need them. I really liked this presentation Heidi managed to demystify the process of seeking VC backing and provide useful insights for the entrepreneur on the look out for capital; including when and why you should look to other sources.

Dharmesh Shah

Dharmesh provided what for me was the most useful presentation of the whole conference. He focussed entirely on what to do to bring sales leads to your company. What did I love about this presentation?  It was entirely practical and every bit of advice backed up with specific examples from his own experience. Furious key tapping and scribbling amongst the audience suggests that all the delegates will be trying some or all of his tactics in the coming weeks.

Everything he covered is in his new book Inbound Marketing  Get found using Google Social Media and Blogs

Matt Clayton

Matt is a expert in Social Media and an entrepreneur. His company  Mixcloud aims to become the Youtube of radio. Mat shared with the audience some of the tricks of the trade that he has utilised on behalf of major entertainment brands to ensure coverage on Facebook, Twitter etc.   Matt’s focus has been B2C and the predominantly B2B audience shook their heads ruefully at some of the tactics he shared. (some of which were really exploiting loopholes that will no doubt be closed sooner rather than later). However I admired his honesty and in a world where the differences between B2B and B2C are no longer as distinct as they were  it is always better to understand how these new media can be manipulated even if you do not intend to use all the techniques.

Don Norman

Some years ago a friend of mine who works in the creative design industry in London lent me a book called the Design of Everyday Things. The fact that he emailed me every day for a fortnight to see how I was getting on with it (when to be honest it was sitting on my desk on a pile). Under pressure to read and return I picked it up as reading material for a long train journey.  I didn’t put it down, which is rare for me. I was really looking forward to Don’s presentation and he didn’t disappoint.

Don began by pressing the wrong button on the PowerPoint remote control and then went off on a short musing as to why the buttons were where they were.  Learning point number one Always have your Radar on!

The underlying theme for the presentation “Design the way your customer is not the way you want them to be”

Don’s  10 rules for successful products were;

1. It’s all about the experience, how does using the product make people feel?
2. It’s a system (iphone/ipod/kindles are selling more than a box, the system that supports the box is every bit as important)
3. Everything is a service    } These two points seem to be at odds with each other but the point is they shouldn’t be.
4. Everything is a product  }
5. Don’t be too logical our emotions control our decisions
6. Memory is an important part of the process (if people have a good memory of the outcome of using the product they often forget the less good stuff at Disney people remember the rides not the lines So long as the rides deliver!
7. Complexity is good/ Complicated is bad (A 777 cockpit may look complex but it is very well ordered so not complicated)
8. You can have fun with products austere does not always + good design
9. Put the right operations in place to deliver on the promise
10. It’s all about experience !!!!

Sorry the notes cannot do the presentation justice.

Don clearly looks at the world a little differently and anyone who is bringing a product to market should try and apply his observant and reflective take on life.