ServoyWorld 2008 – It’s a Wrap!

I’m just back from Las Vegas where we had our annual developer’s conference – ServoyWorld. Wow! Every year it seems like it’s better than the last – and this year was no exception.

I wanted to thank all the attendees, the speakers and our sponsors (The Support Group, adBlocks, Sybase iAnywhere, IT2Be, Data Mosaic, McGilly Information Systems, STB, Direct ICT, Ambitius, DataBridge and ProjectLocker). I know that taking time out of your business to attend/exhibit at/speak at a conference is something that is not done lightly – and we appreciate your attendance and help in making ServoyWorld 2008 such a rousing success.

I’m always simply AMAZED at all the innovative things people are doing with Servoy. I really get a kick out of seeing how creative people are – and how they are using (and extending) the product in ways that we never even envisioned.

The feedback we get from our customers is the driving force behind this product and this company – and there was no shortage of it last week! It was really cool to see customers doing the “laptop huddle” with engineers, implementation folks and executives. Everywhere I looked there were animated hand gestures (the good kind) and passionate conversations about favorite features, missing features and “why would you ever do that?”

Beyond the terrific speakers (THANK YOU!), the yummy food, the trip to the Las Vegas strip, and the no holds barred Poker Tournament (THANKS ProjectLocker!) – my favorite part of the event was the networking.

I had the opportunity to talk with our long-time customers as well as meet folks who were just evaluating the technology and hadn’t made up their mind if Servoy was going to be right for them (yet!). I met some new friends – and had the opportunity to catch up with others that I only “talk” to on our forum.

I also had the pleasure of moderating our third annual ISV Executive Summit. This is an event we organize specifically for C-level executives who are running software companies that deliver products to end customers. We had a really great program this year – everything from “How to pitch to Venture Capitalists” by Tim Danford from Storm Ventures; to “Using Public Relations to Spread the Word” by our own Brenda Christensen; to “Which Tech Tool is Best for an ISV” by Jan Aleman our CEO; to “Pricing, Retaining and Gaining NEW Clients” by Dean Westover from Choices Software.

Beyond the great presentations – I really enjoyed the interaction and number of questions and real life stories that were shared. We discussed everything from pricing to hosting to the conversion process. We talked about the impact of social media on business, how to leverage outsourced hosting and what the most effective methods were for customer retention in a SaaS model. I simply love hearing how our customers are being successful with Servoy – it’s so inspiring. I also really like hearing areas that we can improve – or areas they’re having challenges in – so we can try to help overcome issues and make the path even more straight and narrow.

I wanted to take a moment to thank our staff. No great event or great company or great product can exist without great people. Personally, I think we have some of the best out there! I really appreciate all the time spent in preparing for presentations, for all the time spent helping debug/evaluate/review customer applications, for being there early after getting to bed late – and for just being yourselves. You really helped make the conference the success it was.

I also wanted to extend a special thanks to Brenda Duncan and Carla Benassi – those hundreds of hours of organization and agonizing over the “small stuff” really paid off. GREAT JOB, guys!

And, finally, for those of you that didn’t have the chance to make it to Las Vegas this year – I hope to be able to meet up with you next year in Europe for ServoyWorld 2009. Watch this space for details…