Brilliant technology with bad design can kill people at worst. Not a great outcome. There are plenty of less extreme examples of bad design in software that have resulted in injuries, the destruction of one of the world’s greatest cathedrals, through to frustrated users who often end up not using the software you take so much care to build.
Is your product as easy to use as you think? In this new BoS talk, Scott Berkun tells great stories and offers practical steps to design your products better. He discusses why we’re responsible for the products we put into the world and the importance of making design an integral, iterative part of building products. He shares the four fundamental questions of design you should ask whenever you building products. Check out the latest video from the BoS Library.
With the next In-Person Business of Software Conference is coming up on 26-28 September 2022 in the USA; here are a few of the things that you should know.
There are some new elements this year so take a look and hit up our team if you have any questions
In 1800s they were dirt-cheap because they were so copious, so were routinely fed to prisoners, apprentices, enslaved people, and children. Nowadays they are seen as delicacies for the more fortunate. This rags to riches story is why we at BoS LOVE the lobster and why we are proud to wear the lobster emblem on our USA tours.
What do you wish you knew about selling your company? You probably won’t know until it is too late.
The most common feeling that founders share post exit is that they wished they had known more about the ins and outs of selling a company before they entered a process.
At BoS, we’ve been talking with a lot of founders, both post-exit and those that are considering an exit, to understand what they would like to know about the process of selling a company. We’re going to be running a mastermind group for founders who want to achieve the best possible exit for themselves, their customers and their teams.
BoS Conf USA is being held at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, MA on 26-28 September and you can now reserve your room at the BoS Conf Special rate of just $289 per night.
Building long term relationships with high-valued SaaS leaders
At Business of Software conferences, we aim to make a real difference to the wonderful people and companies that make up our BoS Community. When we aren’t able to meet in-person, we can still come together online to share ideas, learn new tricks, and work on our businesses together. This isn’t something we can do all on our own though – it is thanks to the speakers, supporters, and attendees who come together to help each other grow and succeed.
“The best place to learn practical lessons that can be applied to your business right away.“
James Avery, Kevel | BoS Online 2021 & 2022 Supporter
Join dozens of people all over the world to help you make progress, at BoS Online
Why do we offer a bundle price for online events but not a bundle price for teams to share in the same online event?
Good question…
Our bundle pricing aimed to encourage you to come to more online events, be part of the community, access some of the smartest people on the planet who can help you build better software and companies.
This got us thinking about how much company culture is performative vs deep-rooted and non-negotiable.
B. Pagels-Minor shared a talk at BoS Conference Online Fall 2021 on how people and organizations can be effective and positive allies for marginalized groups in companies, focusing on gender diverse communities.
B. shared an historical perspective, discussed some of their own personal experiences and offered some excellent ideas that would be both practical and useful for any organization that wants to create and maintain and welcoming, diverse and healthy work environment. While the talk focused on gender diversity, much of it is equally applicable to diversity more widely.
They also talked a little about their current role, in product as Games Launch Manager at Netflix where they were also a Global Lead for Netflix’s Black and Netflix’s Trans employee resource groups.
It was notable how excited B. was about working in an organization like Netflix, that has a well discussed culture and was so committed to supporting diverse groups of people in the organization.
Shortly after the conference, life changed for B. at Netflix.
At Business of Software we want to make a positive impact to you and your business and not a negative impact on the world, as we deliver the great, inspiring, conferences you have come to know and love.
When we moved our 2020 Europe Conference from in-person to online a lot of stuff happened very quickly. Once the event was over, I was faced with a mountain of unusable merch – T-shirts, bags, notebooks, and cups all had “2020” on them, equating to 1000 items. I was determined that they would not end up as landfill. I had no idea how we could reuse them, I just knew we absolutely had to.
April is riled by this. She discussed why she feels it is so bad.
“I started getting clients come to me, saying, what we want to do is a strategy session and I was like, I don’t do strategy. I do positioning, and they’re like, hey, yeah, it’s the same thing.” April Dunford
April blames consultants in Silicon Valley for propagating the myth that a story that works for VCs will work in a sales situation and for attracting employees into your company. Everything magically happens. “No! No! It’s not the same thing.”
How are vision, strategy, and positioning related?
Jobs to be Done is not new, but it is an underrated tool every level of every business can use to get better at understanding where others are coming from as the view your product/project.
On 8 June 2022, Business of Software are bringing you a one-day conf full of amazing JTBD insights, workshops, and talks from experts such as Bob Moesta, Claire Suellentrop, Nopadon Wongpakdee, and many more.
Once upon a time, back in the last millennium, there were two ways of financing a software company: you raised money from friends, family, fools and angels; or you pitched VCs for funding.
Building long term relationships with high-value SaaS and software leaders
At Business of Software conferences, we aim to make a real difference to the wonderful people and companies that make up our BoS Community. This isn’t something we can do all on our own though – it is thanks to the speakers, supporters, and attendees who come together to help each other grow and succeed.
We try to offer attendees a few things to remember the conference by and make sure that whatever we produce is worth keeping.
The t-shirts, notebooks, pens, books, bags, and more, everything we hand pick is designed to be taken home, kept, and used time and time again. We know that, in general, people value what they receive and we hate to think that things will be thrown away. Sadly, every year the landfill sites across the world get fuller and fuller.
This year at BoS Europe, we made some changes and we’ve been very encouraged by the feedback.
