Business of Software 2008

Justin Standard: 1. I think the "All Keynote" style is VERY effective. 2. Maybe adding a third day is a way to bring an "open spaces" or "un-conference" approach in. I do agree: the high quality of the attendees seems ripe for an un-conference. If you did add an un-conference portion, you could probably drop the table sessions.

Carl Schmidt: A few folks I talked to were also pretty excited about having more time to chat and meet folks. I found I just didn't have the time to meet everyone I wanted to. Adding a third day, perhaps optional, might be a good way to please both crowds, those in favour, and those against.

Corey Reid: I loved the "single stream" nature of the conference -- I don't want to lose that. It was great at the end of each day that we had all basically had the same experiences and could talk about what we'd been through. But I agree, a little more time to review things with other attendees in a slightly more structured way than just drinks at the (awesome) party would have been welcome. I really enjoyed the table session but felt it was a little too short to really get much actual conversation going. We were just warming up at my table when it was time to go! A table session each day would be great, and maybe make them more like an hour or even longer. A couple more creative sessions like the pecha kucha would have been welcome, too.

Justin Standard: I will provide my notes if you add a wiki. By the way, Neil, will the video of the sessions become available to conference attendees at some point?

Neil Davidson: It's going to take a few weeks, but we'll put *some* of the sessions videos online (it really depends on the wishes of each speaker).

Neil Davidson: OK, I've set the wiki up. Hopefully somebody will seed it with some content: http://wiki.businessofsoftware.org

Justin Standard: Great idea with the link, Portman. Here's mine: http://beta.stackoverflow.com/users/92/justin-standard

Portman Wills: I knew I recognized you from somewhere!!! The unofficial S.O. Faq!!

Justin Standard: This goes for everyone who've tried S.O. Look for my bright orange hat if you want to meet up at the reception tonight and chat about StackOverflow. And post a link to your user profile if you're in the Beta.

Rick Rubin: Delia So and I are driving in from Montreal.

Christian Dandeneau: Winnipeg, Manitoba has at least 1 software company and we're here.

Jody Stocks: Jody from Tucows in Toronto here, looking forward to meeting everyone

Giles Thomas: Thanks, Kevin. I've just spent a while on the MBTA's website trying to work out whether the Silver line is a bus or a train, and was beginning to despair of ever finding out ;-)

Oleg Proudnikov: Silver Line worked great for me.Thanks for the tip. It is just as easy to get back to the airport. The fair has gone up to $2 :-) But the service is superb.

Fred Guanzon: My flight gets in around 5ish - I'll be there.

Corey Reid: My flight gets in at 10:30 but if there's any nite owls around I'd love to join in. Besides, I love hanging around in hotel bars trying to get total strangers to talk to me.

Dharmesh Shah: Checked in and on my way down. Might need to break off a small group for those interested in dinner at Aura (hotel restaurant). I'm starving and have a long night ahead...

Melissa Tan: Hey there, I'm interested. Chris Baker recommended Legal Test Kitchen on another post, which looks good.

Portman Wills: We've been in no-Internet land (i.e. inside of an airplane). Legal Test Kitchen sounds grand. Cell phone is 703 485 5590 for anyone who wants to meet up around 7:30 pm. Restaurant: 225 Northern Ave Boston, MA 02210 (617) 330-7430

Mark Stephens: I'm flying in from UK monday night as I arranged to see a potential client on tuesday afternoon (grab the opportunity). So I'll be around. If you have some free time, the Boston Aquarium is well -worth a visit (I've promised my children I'd get some pictures of the penguins). MArk

Jerry Jalenak: I've checked in to the Seaport - if anyone else is already in and would want to meet up in the lobby, I'm sure we can find something to do. If anything, we can start Neil's tab in the bar!

Todd Venhaus: I haven't made "the leap" yet, but I'd love to hear about everyone's experiences and ideas.

Ian Tebbutt: Ken, Nigel etc - I'm in mid leap - the road runner moment when the cliff is behind you, not sure whether you'll fall or not. I'm willing to share experiences, beer, and war stories. My best experiences so far come from communication - don't hold back, seek out contacts, mentors etc at every opportunity.

Dave Bernard: Ken - I'm just starting my second bootstrapped technology startup, although the market place and offering is completely different than the first. I'd love to discuss with you over a beer (or two).

Neal Rayner: My two pennuth.... We're very pragmatic about what we choose to use, cherry picking from the various methodologies out there. Agile agilists as someone else pointed out. TDD, Standups, Continuous Integration, story tracking. We've got the technical "software build" running well for every project as we are careful to hire developers who are interested in making it work. In fact that's a key point to this process once you know the direction you want to persue, hire people who are somewhere similar on the learning curve as you are, and who want to grow with you. Getting testers and analysts sitting physically with the team also brings huge rewards - if the testers are helping developers write better tests they get to play with the interesting problems when testing iterations. The most difficult piece of the puzzle as you've all found is trying to bring the business face along with us. Building trust can be a slow painful process. Once there is some trust that requirements are not a one-off contract, things smooth out. Getting the key people in the testing and analyst role mean you build this trust quicker. We haven't cracked the difference between a story and an end user defect to our satisfaction yet, and how it all gets managed together.

Corey Reid: "Building trust can be a slow painful process." Absolutely. But really, how could it be any other way? I find keeping expectations realistic especially critical in the early stages -- repeating again and again that progress will be slow, that we need to pay attention and adjust our process as we go along. People are always skeptical of new things, and rightly so. I just try to engage enough faith to TRY it out for a few iterations, during which I spend my energy pointing out what's getting done that wasn't before, and taking in suggestions and making sure participants see that their suggestions are getting heard. Feeling like you can control a process goes a long way towards accepting a process.

Daniel Weinreb: We produce regression tests for everything, run large sets of tests automatically each night and send email to everybody who committed a change since the last successful build saying that they may have broken the build. We also run overnight performance tests to catch any slowdowns that have been introduced that day. We do a great deal of refactoring and even re-architecting, even in our core component which is 500KLOC (of Common Lisp). We work very closely with our initial customer (Air Canada), even unto the level of the two CEO's. We are instituting a somewhat more formal task-tracking system, designed by the engineers themselves; it looks very good to me but we'll see how it works out. We don't do pair programming, but we do mandatory code reviews.

Devan Sabaratnam: Are they playing at Fenway Park?

Steve Jones: I'm going as well. I have a ticket, arriving at the hotel around 5. Be happy to share a cab over. Steve Jones (sjones@sqlservercentral.com)

Zakir Hemraj: I would love to go (and I don't have tickets yet). I just went to Yankee stadium this past Saturday for the first time, and going to Fenway would be the icing on the cake for this trip! I'll be in the hotel around 5 as well. Look out for me:)

Brian Leach: I want to come back with a notebook full of ideas, things to try, and peers I can stay in touch with.

Steve Jones: Ideas on how the software business is evolving, what it can do well and what changes we might see over time.

Dharmesh Shah: Hoping to have rich discussions with people that are interested in the *business* of software. I think I'll be in the right place for that!

Josh Grob: One question that I think would be interesting is whether it is just as important to build a strong community of the users around one's product as the product itself? I know that there is a strong correlation between the quality of a product and its ability for it to build and sustain a community, but I am really trying to get the importance of giving one's users a forum where they can engage with other users, and have new, fresh content. If that is of importance could you name a few tools for the users that are most haves (i.e should we always create facebook groups, myspace pages, etc. for the product)? Side Note: This question may have a bent toward consumer based products, but hopefully it still applies to B2B. Thanks, Josh

Steve Jones: What does Seth think about SQLServerCentral.com, Simple-Talk.com, similar to JoelOnSoftware.com as communities that engage customers in a more subtle way. Is that a good idea for a software company to build a community that is related to, but not directly built on, their software?

Christopher Baker: Devan - Not too far from Jury's is the Copley Place Mall they have several kid friendly places (mostly chains like: Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza Kitchen, Chili's, and 2 Legal Seafoods) Nearby also is the Top of Hub restaurant on top level of the Prudential Center, Boston's second tallest building - the views are great. Might be a bit pricy/fancy for dinner with your kids, but I took mine there a few years back one afternoon for drinks/desserts and they loved it. You will pay for the view. A little bit further away, a nice walk up Newbury Street is Tapeo, a great tapas restaurant. It's one of my favorite local places - great food and lots of fun. Further away in the opposite direction (you might want a cab) is the Quincy Market area. Lots good restaurants of all kinds, outdoor seating and street performers to entertain the kids. My kids are 9, 6 and 4 - if we think of anywhere else, I'll let you know.

Oleg Proudnikov: Dewan, Chris gave some great insights, something only a local can do. Visiting Copley Place is on my list and I would not mind trying Tapeo myself. Coming from Australia you may like to eat outside and have a nice park and water to look at. My wife and I were in Boston last July when our son turned one. We were looking for a place to have a birthday lunch for him. We settled on an outdoor cafe outside Marriott-Boston Long Wharf, right next to the Aquarium. It is informal, lively and faces a very nice Christopher Columbus Park where, at that time, lots of kids where hanging out on the grass. Some teenagers were impressing their peers with athletic performances. I really enjoyed watching that. Not sure what it will be like in September... The atmosphere was very relaxed. This is likely because this part of the hotel faces away from the Aquarium. The service was very accommodating.

Christopher Baker: Oleg - I think you are talking about Tia's. Good idea for lunch, but later at night it turns into much more of a bar scene (or at least it used to years back when I used to go there!). If you go to Tapeo, everything is good - I've ordered almost every item on the menu. Tthe Sangria is great, but if you've got a group you should also order a Parron of Cava!