Excellent Conference Networking Tips

What are some of the best conferences that you have been to? What have you got back from that conference? Technology, Management, Productivity …..hmm…may be partially yes but the best thing to get back from conferences is a network. That is exactly why there are breaks in between, extended lunch hours, evening cocktails etc. And here are many of us who were thinking that lunch is for lunch and the coffee break is to wake me up from that boring session.

Here is an aggregation of some of the best conferencing strategies.

How to Use Business Conference Programs for Networking

How to Network at a Conference

How to Network at a Business Conference

How to Network at a Conference

and

27 Things To Do Before a Conference

Get Motivated!

Read these interesting series of motivational thoughts, I would keep updating this post as I stumble upon others

If I am good I could add years to my life
I would rather add some life to my years
And life is really what you make it they say
I can’t even make my mind up today
- Spiritualized,

Bob Parson’s founder of Go Daddy!

Are you a small organization animal? Another one bites the dust!

I was reading an interesting post on the how the MySQL founder, David Axmark, has decided to quit Sun because he cannot live up with the whims and fancies of a larger organization.

This is what he had to say

I have thought about my role at Sun and decided that I am better off in smaller organizations. I HATE all the rules that I need to follow, and I also HATE breaking them. It would be far better for me to ‘retire’ from employment and work with MySQL and Sun on a less formal basis.

I too have been a victim of such moves in the past and keep coming back to smaller organizations. Just wondering, what is so different in a smaller organization which keeps us motivated, involved, tied together, give us work satisfaction and a work life balance.

The larger organizations would have to start thinking on these lines, but then, on the flip side, if is was all there in larger organizations then there would be no MySQL.

People – Building a Great Software Company – Part II

In part-I we looked at the essential components of building a great software company. In this part we would look at the people factor, which in my view is the most important factor for success.

One important quote from the Good to Great [G2G] book is that “Executives who ignited transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus, then get the people to take it there. Instead, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off) and then figured out where to drive it.”

This shows the importance people have in any company and more so in the software industry because it is a people driven. People drive the ideas, innovations, processes etc etc.

So what kind of people should a software company look at and what should be the process?

Building a Great Software Company – Part I

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reading “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. Well, it is an amazing book and Jim Collins does a lot of research to find out what makes a company go fro good to great. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to take his company from one level to the next or to potential job seekers who are looking for their kind of employers.

This book got me thinking into the direction on what would it take to make a software company really great. My thoughts are specifically targeted towards the small and medium software companies because there I see a lot of scope for putting the thoughts into action.