The book is easy to read in the sense it is well written. Some of the ideas might keep you awake at night thinking about some of the consequences. She frames her arguments by offering some perspectives on the history of technology and clearly explains the two opposing sides of view on the question.
Is technology neutral?
In the neutral corner…
On the side of neutrality, she discusses the views of people including Demis Hassabis – DeepMind founder, Verner Vogels – Amazon CTO and others who argue broadly that technology is neutral but can be applied for good and bad. It is not really the tech that is the problem, it can be very powerful, but it is users that can abuse the power.
The legendary chess grand master Garry Kasparov sums up the neutral side succinctly.
“Tech is agnostic, it amplifies us. ‘Ethical AI’ is like ‘Ethical electricity’”
Burnout is real. It’s a phenomenon that can affect anyone and has become increasingly common over the past couple of years. Founders in particular, but anyone working in a fast-paced and ambiguous environment such as a software or SaaS startup, are likely to have experienced some form of burnout at some point. Addressing it is rarely as simple as having a break for many reasons.
For everyone who has stood at a bus stop in the pouring rain – you will know the feeling of waiting for what feels like forever for three to then arrive all at once.
Why am I rambling about buses in poor weather? Because hot on the heels of our last announcement of new speakers for 2022, we have even more to share with you!
The first of our whopping 40+ speakers this year has been confirmed!
We know that one of the reasons some of you may be holding back from signing up to Business of Software conferences this year is not knowing who you are going to be learning from. You want to make sure that you have time to do your homework, learn up on people, and prepare your questions before you’re in the room with them.
So here is our first speakers of 2022 and a few of the wonderful and smart folk leading some of the breakout sessions online.
1st century AD, the Romans built a fort on Castle Hill.
1200 The School of Pythagoras was founded in Cambridge.
1209 The University of Cambridge was founded.
1960 Churchill College was founded.
2007 Business of Software was formed in the outskirts of the city.
2022 Business of Software returns to in-person conferencing at Churchill College
Okay, so this may overlook a lot of wonderful and amazing steps Cambridge made but then we wouldn’t want to spoil any of the many walking or punting tours you can take when you’re here in the city attending Business of Software In-Person Conference Europe on 4-5 April 2022.
The ever wonderful April Dunford returns to the BoS Podcast with her talk from Europe 2020 thats helps you use strategic positioning to carve out a place in the market where you can win against any competitor of any size.
One of the wonderful things about Business of Software is the community that has formed over the years.
We have seen some of our delegates go from unfunded initial concept startups through stages of growth and then exiting to move onto new adventures. This is what Business of Software is about and we want to hear your story.
We’ll be picking a few submissions to win a BoS-Ambassador ticket to our one-day exclusively online conferences.
Whilst we are working on who will be speaking at our eight conferences this year, we wanted to take a moment and make sure you don’t miss the opportunity to get registered early and beat price rises, sell-outs, and be the trendsetter your followers expect you to be in the world.
Cesar Kuriyama worked in advertising before leaving it all behind to pursue his own personal creative endeavours; among them a personal project – 1SecondEveryday.
In this episode of the BoS Podcast we find out more about Cesar’s journey and how his side project became the top app of the Apple App Store in 2018.
“I think I might prefer online networking… The conversations get straight to the point.”
Tim Burgess, Founder, SheildGEO
This year, a series of one day online BoS Conferences will run in addition to our in-person events. These will be exclusively online. The in-person ones will be exclusively in-person.
We have yet to find a hybrid solution that actually works well and gives those in the room and those online positive experiences.
So let’s take a quick look into what BoS Conf Online looks like in 2022:
It’s been a while since we have run in person conferences. Did you miss them? We think we can run them safely again, albeit with some differences.
We may have made some changes but we think it’s time to experience some real world meetings again.
BoS Conf Europe returns to Churchill College, Cambridge, UK and will run 4-5 April 2022 with an informal welcome reception on the Sunday evening before the conference begins.
Here’s a few things you might want to know before we announce the speakers.
Our big news in 2022 – online grows and in-person conferences coming back.
Online conferences are here to stay. In 2022 at Business of Software, we’re building on the success of our online program in 2021 with a series of six one-day online conferences over the year.
We’re also pleased to be launching our in-person conferences – just not quite like old times.
We think the online and in-person BoS Conferences will fit together in perfect harmony.
So what conferences are we launching in 2022? How can you get involved? When are the conferences happening? Read on to find out…
We asked you our loyal BoS community members what measures we should put in place to make you feel more comfortable about returning to in-person conferencing in 2022.
We had so many replies, offering us some great insights into how you feel about future of BoS events, here’s what you said…
Accepted wisdom for SaaS marketing is simple. You identify your North Star Metric and marketing funnel then build a series of experiments incorporating a range of marketing activities that allow you to monitor and measure the success of your investment over time. Monitor, measure, assess and improve ad infinitum. At the heart of this approach is an understanding that measuring key KPIs that allows you to build a marketing funnel and optimize performance of any activity with a reasonable degree of precision. It works.
Balsamiq Wireframes is different.
If you ask Balsamiq’s founder, Peldi, how many visitors the Balsamiq website has, he would not be able to tell you. Balsamiq have a very different approach. It is an approach that has served them and their global customer base extremely well.
In this podcast episode, I spent some time with Leon Barnard, Balsamiq’s education team lead, to discuss how Balsamiq’s approach to marketing was conceived, why the focus of all their efforts has always been to support the growth and development of product design as a discipline. We talk about Balsamiq’s approach, the impact it has had on the design and product community, the potential disadvantages of their thinking and why they are still proud to be different.
Balsamiq is all about education, that’s not not teaching people how to use the product but how to become better designers.
Leon Barnard, Balsamiq
Balsamiq were a supporter for our recent BoS Conf Online Fall and have been an active advocate of our scholarship program to support attendance at the conference for high potential entrepreneurs.
Online Wireframing Workshop in Action
This year, Balsamiq offered one of our scholarship attendees, Varonique Philander, CEO Founder of Chaya Legal, an online wireframing session to help her with the process of designing and building the core elements of their new website. You can view the session here on the Balsamiq YouTube Channel.
Well worth a look if you want an insight into how to approach one of the trickiest parts of turning an idea into a business.
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They’re incredibly helpful and every discussion we have had with attendees has given us lots to think about. Three short sections will take less than 2 minutes to complete, but you can share more detailed thoughts if you wish.
Thank you!
While our focus for the past 18 months has been on designing and delivering online events that deliver the best experience for our attendees and many people have found that online beats in person, we know that isn’t the case for everyone.
Our position has always been that we will only run physical events at a point where they are not only ‘possible’ but that it would be ‘responsible’, to do so.
Online is here to stay but we feel that running physical conferences in 2022 will be possible, albeit with some differences. You can bet we are planning for them in 2022 and part of that process is to hear the views, thoughts and feelings of the people we serve – you the community of attendees.
Learn how great SaaS & software companies are run
We produce exceptional conferences & content that will help you build better products & companies.
Join our friendly list for event updates, ideas & inspiration.
What is the data literacy continuum and why does it matter?
Every organization is made up of users with different levels of data literacy and competence.
Most organizations massively overestimate how data literate their people are. In this survey, 84% of businesses think employees have high, or very high levels of data fluency, while only 10% of those users consider themselves data fluent.
All humans – this includes your users – sit on this continuum. Even simple organizations have different data needs.
Understanding where your customers are on the data literacy continuum was the subject of a very lively breakout discussion at BoS Conf Online Fall last month that used a sandwich shop to illustrate what it means and why it matters.
This week on the BoS Podcast, we revisit Jessica Livingston‘s talk from BoS Conf USA as she takes a look at what she learnt interviewing some of the giants of industry.
