What I enjoy most about what I do is turning nothing into something. It’s about taking an idea that most sensible people say is dumb, and trying to prove them wrong. It almost doesn’t matter whether it succeeds or fails – it’s about the thrill of the journey. The next step – turning that small something into a big something – is an activity that I like being part of, which I’m moderately good at, and which is enormously important, but it’s something which other people are way better at and enjoy way more than I do.
The first Business of Software Conference was in 2007. Over the past few years many people – Joel Spolsky, the team at Frosch, Anna Andersen, all the speakers, myself, and, of course, all the delegates – have been part of turning it into something much bigger and better than I thought it would ever be. But, selfishly, it’s not as much fun for me now as it used to be. And that’s kind of important. On the other hand, I want it to continue, I want to stay involved with it, and I still want it to be the place that people who care about building long-term, profitable and sustainable software businesses go to from around the world to meet their peers and listen to amazing speakers.
So I’ve taken the decision that somebody else should run organise it. Mark Littlewood, Darren Harper and the team at BLN have agreed to do this. Some readers of this blog might have met Mark at last year’s conference. He was the larger than life, outgoing guy, wearing a very loud t-shirt, who probably came up to you unprompted to say hello. I’m still going to have overall control, and will still front at least some of it, but Mark and Darren are going to take BoS to the next level.
Business of Software 2011 will be October 24th – 26th at the World Trade Center in Boston.
Watch this space for more news. We’ll be announcing speakers, revamping the web site and doing a whole bunch of stuff very shortly.