We want to offer our guests at Business of Software Conference the best possible experience when they attend. We didn’t expect to be taking them to court.

We’re celebrating International Womens Day by sharing this brilliant Lightning Talk from Tania Katan, It Was Never a Dress.

How many entrepreneurs do you know who model themselves, consciously or unconsciously, on Steve Jobs?

By all accounts, Steve Jobs combined incredible genius and an ability to get things done with a personality that could politely be described as ‘difficult’. In fact, many people who worked for him describe him as an asshole.

In his talk at BoS USA, Art Papas shared his journey as founder and CEO of Bullhorn – a company that has grown extremely rapidly to more than 500 employees and nearly $100 million in revenue. He explains why and how he had to refocus his company’s culture back on customer service after facing a similar struggle, and how leaders of organizations can leverage his hard-earned lessons to position their businesses for long-term growth.

Join us to talk about changing company culture or anything you want to ask Art.

Register for Art’s Hangout here

Watch Art’s talk at BoS USA here

Join Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, co-authors of Sense and Respond to discuss the new rules of work and anything else you want to ask.

Software has fundamentally changed the way business works. It’s not simply that software has given us new ways to reach our customers, or new capabilities to achieve our goals. Software has enabled—in fact it demands—a new way of working. Organizations that seek to thrive in the digital age must examine their core management practices. So much of our management practice was created in the industrial age and not all of it remains useful in the face of software.

Managers and leaders inside and outside of the software world need a new set of principles for the next century of work.

Register for Josh & Jeff’s Hangout here

OR… to get you in the mood, here’s Josh and Jeff’s Lightning Talk from BoS USA 2016.

From growth arrogance to customer-centric culture Art Papas, CEO, Bullhorn

In this talk, Art Papas shares his journey as founder and CEO of Bullhorn – a company that has grown extremely rapidly to more than 500 employees and nearly $100 million in revenue. He explains why and how he had to refocus his company’s culture back on customer service after facing a similar struggle, and how leaders of organizations can leverage his hard-earned lessons to position their businesses for long-term growth.

Every fast-growing organization experiences growing pains. The most difficult and complex challenge for leadership is maintaining an excellent experience as the business scales.

Customer centricity is easy for a small startup; the company’s founders are often intimately involved in every key customer engagement. However, when meeting sales quotas, achieving profit margins, and running your business by the metrics becomes more important than delighting your customers, you stop hearing about customer complaints simply because you don’t see them anymore, and your entire business is at risk.

Your customers become easy targets for the competition and your positive momentum in the market slows.

Slides, Video, AMA & Transcript below

Have you heard the Agile Parable? Do you want to explain tricky concepts and make them sticky? Find out how with Clarke Ching, Agile Lead at Royal London.

Clarke Ching is an expert in Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints and  author of ‘Rolling Rocks Downhill’, an Agile business novel that never mentions Agile and, ‘Rocks into Gold – The Agile Parable.’

Clarke Ching, Agile Lead, Royal London

Clarke is an expert in Eli Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints – he has to be in his role as Agile Lead at Royal London, the UK’s largest mutual life and pensions company with over 5,000,000 policyholders and 500,000 members.

Clarke wrote, ‘Rolling Rocks Downhill’, an Agile business novel that never mentions Agile and, ‘Rocks into Gold – The Agile Parable.’ Clarke’s aims to make software developers happier in their work – making IT profitable is the first stepping stone. He is passionate about Agile, but not a zealot.

Slides, Video, AMA, Notes & Transcript below

We are seeking two people to fill two exciting sales and marketing roles at BoS.

We run some of the best regarded conferences in its fields. We have a well-established event programme with a plan for future growth. The current vacancies are:

• Sales and Marketing Director
• Marketing Assistant / Executive

How to apply

For either role please send us your CV and covering letter, which should include evidence of why you would be suitable for the role. Both roles will be based in Cambridge, UK.

Please apply here

Have an eye to selling – even if you don’t want to sell.

One of the key things that came out of this discussion is that having an exit strategy in mind isn’t just about wanting to sell your business.

Almost everything that has anything to do with exit strategy as you build and grow your business will add value in the long term – having clear processes and documentation, ensuring contracts are clear, developing new products and markets etc will all mean your business runs better and should you be in a situation where you want to sell, they are in place.

Having to make those things happening at the last minute as you try to go through a sales process is a killer.

Wise words from Bridget Harris, Founder & CEO of YouCanBookMe in this Hangout with Peldi from Balsamiq, two organisations with a commitment to doing things another way. Bridget, discussing the tools that they use everyday to facilitate remote working was referring to using email as a communications tool. She said the company only really uses email for external communications as in her view email encourages the wrong type of behaviours in teams – hoarding of information etc.

This was a wisdom filled hour. Rewatch the Hangout below or see the original talk and talk transcript that sparked this discussion.

Great Hangout with Strategyzer’s Alex Osterwalder on defining, building and prototyping company culture. Hear more from Alex at BoS Europe 2017 on “Understanding the Jobs Your Customers Want Done“.

Guy Mucklow, Co-founder, PCA Predict

Guy and his co-founder Jamie Turner founded Post Code Anywhere in 2000. Like many self-funded, profitable businesses, they had a steady stream of investors knocking at their doors but never had any interest in taking the money or selling. Last year, they were considering how they should grow a big data startup, Triggar, they had started together. Should they fund the startup with the profits from PCA Predict or sell their profitable business and use the funds to focus on Triggar? Initial conversations with an investment bank about strategic options turned into offers for the business and months later they were a whisker away from selling PCA Predict for close to $100 million. Guy discusses why they pulled out of a deal costing them a significant amount of money and time, the danger of being sucked into a process (albeit willingly), and why he feels that keeping the business was the right decision for shareholders, customers and the team.

Slides, Video, Notes, Hangout & Transcript below

Join Alex Osterwalder to find out everything you want to know about Business Culture and how to get it right.

Note the new date!

Join us FREE – Tuesday 24th January, 17.00 GMT.

Join Bridget Harris, (YouCanBookMe) and Peldi (Balsamiq) to discuss remote working and more…

Join us FREE – Wednesday 25th January, 17.00 GMT.

Michael Pryor, CEO, Trello and Paul Kenny, Ocean Learning.

Michael Pryor is CEO of Trello, the tool that helps entrepreneurs organise their businesses and lives. He’s also the co-founder and President of Fog Creek Software, sits on the board of Stack Exchange.

In this interview, with Paul Kenny, Michael talks about some of the things he got wrong building Trello and discusses the reasons things went wrong as well as what was done to get it right.

Video & Transcript below

Congratulations to the team at Trello. Today it was announced that they have been acquired by Atlassian for $425 million in cash and stock.

The best Lightning Talk never to grace the BoS stage…

Join Bridget Harris, (YouCanBookMe) and Peldi (Balsamiq) to discuss remote working and more…

Bridget’s, YouCanBook.me has grown since 2011 from tens of customers, to now booking in over 750,000 appointments monthly. Watch Bridget speak at this year’s Business of Software Europe on investors, remote working, inclusivity, hiring and more here with notes and transcript.

Peldi runs Balsamiq, home of easy mockups, with a team of great people spread around the globe. Here he is talking about growing up, reluctantly, at last year’s BoS USA. Both Bridget and Peldi are longtime friends of BoS and both have a passion for building businesses that dare to be different.

Thursday 24th November, 1600 GMT

My First Lightning Talk – Jessica Hall

Jessica Hall blogs about her experience at BOS USA 2017 where she gave her first terrifying talk – find out how she survived the experience!

Thanks, Jessica for sharing your speaking premiere!