A big, 'thank you' to Mick Bain and Graham Robinson at Wilmer Hale who have generously agreed to support some more scholarships to attend Business of Software next week in Boston. Hugely appreciated by all the recipients, and indeed by us. It is great to see a well-established and respected law firm doing something like that for the benefit of the Boston software ecosystem. 

Mick leads the Wilmer Hale venture group where he advises companies on formation and governance issues, equity and compensation matters, initial- through late-stage venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing and securities laws. Taking a practical business approach, Mr. Bain has helped his clients raise hundreds of millions of dollars in seed-stage and venture capital and has advised his clients through dozens of public offerings and acquisitions.

Graham is a vice chair of the Corporate Practice Group and a member of the firm's Mergers and Acquisitions Group. A good guy to know if Microsoft comes calling.

We look forward to seeing you in Boston next week! Thank you.

Thanks to Alexis Ohanian for pointing this one out. In his words, 'Penguins can be dicks too'. 

Come next week and share stuff. The funny thing about knowledge is, the more you give it away, the more you get back. Bad penguins.

This year, by popular demand, we will be streaming Business of Software live as it happens in Boston. The event, and the stream, kicks off at 9.00 am EST on 24th October from the Business of Software home page – that is this time next week. Best of all, the stream is fre to view.

You can register now and test the stream. You will also receive conference updates but can unsibscribe to those at any time if you wish – REGISTER HERE FOR BUSINESS OF SOFTWARE STREAM. If you are registered, you will receive an email just before the stream starts to remind you.

Please feel free to join in by watching the live stream and following the conference on twitter – #BoS2011.

If you want to show the event in your conference room, or invite others in to watch, that is fine too. Do let us know what you do and feel free to let people know about the live stream.

We are almost sold out now but have a few more early bird tickets have been made available from delegates who are now unable to attend. We have made these available at the rate at which they were sold. To book, use this dedicated registration URL. This will give you the best possible delegate rate available.

You can find out more about this year’s conference on the Business of Software web site and the Business of Software blog.

REGISTER HERE FOR BUSINESS OF SOFTWARE LIVE STREAM

Ouch! Just got the final quote for instruments for the Monday night band. When did everything stop being so cheap in America? 

We might have to switch to plan B…

Looks like we will have to save the bottles from John Nese's soda pop tasting…

In the last hour, a bunch of people who volunteered to lead workshop sessions at Business of Software got an email with a list of the people that are coming to their session.

I have already had one email back from someone saying,

'Why on earth is X coming to my session? They're my hero. What can I teach them?'

As Neil Davidson said in his opening remarks last year, 

"You guys aren't here because you wantto impress the other people in the room. Most of us are here becuase we care about one thing, we care about building long-term and profitable software businesses."

One of the biggest things I took away from last year was how much the 'stars' of the show ended up learning from others. No one has all the answers. That is why people come. That is why they stay and listen and talk with others. That is why they come again, even if they aren't speaking.

Everyone has valuable experience to contribute which is why we wanted to let people offer to share their ideas and passions in the workshop sessions. Don't be surprised when others want to take part!

That is why I love BoS.

BRING IT ON!

Every now and then, you come across an idea that makes your heart jump and your skin tingle. That happened to me a few months ago, when Richard and Anthony pitched a small group of us an idea.

“It’s called DBA in Space”, Richard said.

I don’t remember the rest of the pitch.

 “DBA in Space” is one of those phrases that’s so simple, remarkable and clear that it sticks and it sticks hard.

Sure, lots of people have done much hard, gritty work over the past few months to make it happen. Sure, there’s some small print. Sure, it’s not turned out exactly how we thought. But the essence is the same.

We’re putting a DBA into space:  62 miles above planet Earth, a cat’s whisker above the Kármán line.

It could be you.

Find out more at http://dbainspace.com

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on innovation and growth.

Christensen has served as a director on the boards of a number of public and private companies. He is currently a board member at Tata Consulting Services (NSE: TCS), Franklin Covey (NYSE: FC), W.R. Hambrecht, and Vanu Inc. Christensen also serves on Singapore’s Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council (RIEC), and has advised the executives of many of the world’s major corporations.

Christensen is an experienced entrepreneur, having started three successful companies. Prior to joining the HBS faculty, Professor Christensen served as chairman and president of CPS Technologies a firm he co-founded with several MIT professors in 1984. In 2000, Christensen founded Innosight, a consulting firm that uses his theories of innovation to help companies create new growth businesses. In 2007, he founded Rose Park Advisors, a firm that identifies and invests in disruptive companies. Christensen is also the founder of Innosight Institute, a non-profit think tank whose mission is to apply his theories to vexing societal problems such as healthcare and education.

Professor Christensen is the bestselling author of five books, including his seminal work The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997) which received the Global Business Book Award for the best business book of the year, The Innovator’s Solution (2003), and Seeing What’s Next (2004). Recently, Christensen has focused the lens of disruptive innovation on social issues such as education and health care. Disrupting Class (2008) looks at the root causes of why schools struggle and offers solutions, while The Innovator’s Prescription (2009) examines how to fix our healthcare system. Four of his five books have received awards as the best books in their categories in the years of their publication.

A guest blog post from John Knox. Moving Average.

A long time attendee at Business of Software, this year he has generously sponsored a scholarship for young entrepreneurs to attend the Business of Software Conference in Boston (24-26th October).

Deadline is MIDNIGHT PST TIME TODAY!

Business of Software 2011 Scholarship

A guest blog for Business of Software from Ricardo Sanchez, leader of Ontechies.com out of Austin who is organising, alongside Jason Cohen and Zuly Gonzalez, the, 'Practice your pitch workshops' at Business of Software in two weeks. (Some tickets still available if you are quick).

Ricardo Sanchez:

Would you like to pitch your startup to a group of people and experienced entrepreneurs? Good news! The Practice Your Pitch workshop organized by two bright entrepreneurs (Zuly Gonzalez and Jason Cohen) and myself will give you that opportunity at Business of Software 2011.

How It Works

Four lucky startups will have the opportunity to pitch their startup to the workshop audience. The startups will get their undivided attention for 5 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of open & honest feedback from entrepreneurs who have been there before. 

We will select the four startups before the date of the workshop in order to give them time to prepare their pitch. If you are interested, signup for the Practice Your Pitch workshop and contact me.

Why Participate

If you are a startup looking for funding or for people to work with you, then you need to have a good elevator pitch and there is nothing better to accomplish this than by practicing and getting feedback from other entrepreneurs. That is what this workshop is all about.

If you are just starting, finding the right name and logo, a perfect domain name, the right color scheme for your website, etc. is probably in your priority list. However, talking to people about your idea, asking them for feedback and being prepared to pitch your startup should be one of your top priorities. An opportunity to talk to a potential investor or potential co-founder could happen at any time and you want to be prepared with a good elevator pitch when the opportunity arrives. This workshop will help you with that.

In summary, having the ability to communicate efficiently with people and explain what your company does is key to success. Practicing and polishing your pitch will help you greatly with this and we are here to help.

Sounds interesting? Make sure you sign-up to present at the Practice Your Pitch workshop today and be one of the lucky startups to pitch and get valuable feedback from the workshop audience and from smart entrepreneurs that have been there before.

See you soon in Boston at the Business of Software Conference 2011!

Ricardo D. Sanchez

http://ontechies.com

See you in Boston at Business of Software.

Paul Kenny gave the single best talk about sales and software I have ever heard at Business of Software 2010. The audience of die-hard techies turned business people agreed. If you involved in any sort of technology business, software, hardware, whatever, you should make some time for this. It will increase your revenue and profit or your money back.

What a great thought.

We had a lovely note from John Knox, founder of Moving Average Inc, who develop mobile applications for the Android™, iPhone®, and iPad® mobile devices, who has been a long time attendee at Business of Software. He has clearly been putting what he has learned to good use and in the spirit of helping others he wrote,

"BoS would have been a life-changing experience for me right out of college. I was hoping that you folks might already have some potential candidates. 🙂 If it's not too late, can I help contribute some funds?"

John, thank you from all of us. What a great thought. We want to make your scholarship money available to four founders of software businesses in the Boston area who are: able to attend the event on October 24-26; are less than two years out of college or didn't do college because they wanted to do something entrepreneurial; are unfunded; would not otherwise be able to attend Business of Software.

If you fit the criteria, and would like to come, please email me directly by October 11th at mark @ businessofsoftware . org Tell us what you are doing and what you hope to get out of coming. We will be in touch on October 12th to get the winners signed up.

A great thought from Auren Hoffman, CEO of Rapleaf in his blog, Summation. Go and read the full post, the table is just a taster.

"Here are some things that will be less valued in the future and some things that will be more valued:

Reminds me of Seth Godin's answer to a question from the audience at last year's Business of Software Conference where he stated baldly, (no pun intended but now I come to think about it):

"If there’s any job that could be written down, it gets done by freelancer. Because if we can write down exactly what we want, why on earth we need a brilliant person to do it? We get a competent person to do it. There are no competent people that work at our company."

Business of Software 2011, Boston, MA, October 24-26^th 2011 https://businessofsoftware.org For people growing sustainable, profitable, software businesses. If you book by 13th October and use the code, BoSAug, you will save $350 on the full ticket price.

This is a great talk because it explains why ‘company culture’ is an important thing in any business, the five principle kinds of company culture, and what you can, and cannot do to manage company culture successfully.

Bio, Video, Notes, Slides & Transcript below

What is context, what is core?

“I have to say if I have, to be in a business during this economy, I would want to be in a software business. A service led software business. Because it’s the most flexible. It’s the most, it can run to value faster than anything else on the planet.”

Video & Transcript below

Seems that Cambridge England is sending more people to BoS this year than are coming from Boston. That might just be something to do with the fact that Red Gate and the BLN, who run the event, are Cambridge based. By the way Toronto, you rock! Thanks for makeing the effort!

Fantastic to see Moscow, Sydney, Christchurch, Dublin, Tartu, Edinburgh and other places so well represented. Bring it on!

As Business of Software has developed over the years, more and more organisations have asked how they can sponsor the event.

The simple answer is we have never taken sponsorship at the event as we have always been concerned that it will change the nature of what we are doing. Business of Software is the antithesis of the kind of event I went to recently where a dull session ended with the announcement that after the break there would be the, 'sponsor panel'. This consisted of four marketing/sales managers from the largest sponsors of the event talking about something. I don't know what, and neither did 180 of the 200 or so delegates who chose to carry on networking while the panel blew its course. This kind of thing doesn't do a sponsor any good and it doesn't do anything for the reputation of an event.

There has to be a better way of running and sponsoring events. Sponsors ultimately reduce the cost of events for delegates. We want to find a better way to help make Business of Software sustainable in the long term, help interesting organisations reach get known by our delegates and readers and allow us to invest in the long term future of the business. We think that is a good thing for everyone.

Organisations want to sponsor Business of Software because we have an extraordinary group of decision-making delegates and a blog that is read by people that matter. We want to let more people to share the learning from Business of Software and have been considering the possibility of live streaming the event this year.

This year, we are going to offer a single option for sponsorship of Business of Software. Sponsors will never have control of the content of the event. If you would be interested in raising your profile at Business of Software, please get in touch. We don't sell speaking slots, but we would love you to help us spread the BoS word more widely and raise your profile. 

Business of Software Sponsorship Package

• A sponsoring organisation gets two conference passes.
• BoS will make an additional ticket available to a worthy startup CEO in the sponsors name. We can help match you with a startup if you can't find one.
• Sponsors will be offered the option of having a pop-up stand at the conference in the drinks area. Please note, this is NOT an exhibition area and would not be a stand with personnel.
• Sponsorship $$ will be made available to pay for the livestreaming of Business of Software.
• Sponsors will be recognised in the sign up process for livestreaming.
• Sponsors can put their software in the App Sumo bundle.
• Sponsors will be recognised in a blog post on the Business of Software blog. 

• Sponsorship of Business of Software will be $11,500 to include conference passes.

Please contact me directly if you would like to discuss further mark.littlewood@businessofsoftware.org

Date and venue: October 24th-26th 2011 at the World Trade Center, Boston.

Workshops: Running on Monday afternoon and Wednesday lunchtime/early afternoon. List of workshops here. Long list with details of Monday workshops here. Long list with details of Wednesday workshops here. Help with workshop registration here.

Want to make music with the BoS BOS Big Band on Monday night? Sign up here.

Business of Software 2011 on LinkedIn and Lanyrd.

Accommodation: The conference hotel is the Seaport. There is very little space left so act soon or you will be relying on AirBnB.

Please take a moment to let others know you are coming and add your name to the LinkedIn and Lanyrd event pages. You will be able to see who else is coming and identify people that you want to spend time with at the conference.

We also have a BoSConference Twitter account where you can follow latest news about the event.

You can also follow a list of some of the #BoS2011 attendees. If you are coming and want to be added to the list, send a message to @bosconference.