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The weather was warm, the people were outstanding. The 3rd annual SugarCon conference was a great experience, and a lot of fun to be a part of. SugarCon is SugarCRM’s annual developer and partner conference that’s held in the valley. I always enjoy a break from South Dakota cold this time of year. SugarCon is a place where I’m surrounded by people who hold a lot of the same ideals on how better software will make a major impact on business.

I was privileged to speak on a panel for the partner track at SugarCon, and got some excellent feedback about what we’re doing at DataSync, and how it fits into Sugar’s channel program.

The conference had an very polished feel this year – Sugar obviously understands its market space extremely well, and has assembled a solid team and group of partners (which we’re excited to be a part of!). This year’s conference was obviously slanted towards selling in a bad economy. However most partners, like DataSync, haven’t seen a downturn in business. Open source is a tremendous value play in today’s marketplace.

Conference Highlights

• John Roberts (SugarCRM’s CEO) opened the conference with a brief discussion of SugarCRM and how it fits into the global move to open systems and cloud computing. His perspective on the distribution model of software, and how flat the world actually is with open source is a good reminder for everyone.
• Jonathan Schwartz (Sun’s CEO) announced Sun’s upcoming cloud computing initiative. Details were scarce, but the overall push of the message was engaging open systems and the cloud. I was surprised that Schwartz chose to use a conference like SugarCon to announce such a large initiative – a major endorsement of open source and SugarCRM. It’s worth noting, however, that Sun doesn’t actually use SugarCRM, they use SalesForce.com (reference here). Still trying to figure out why Schwartz has been doing keynotes at SugarCon the last couple of years…
• Jim Fowler (CEO – Jigsaw) delivered what was, in my opinion, the best keynote of the conference. He understands open information like no one I’ve heard. Watch for his company to go places.
• Mark Leslie (former CEO of Veritas and board member at SugarCRM) – This guy understands the sales model at startups. Ramping sales is something every startup (including DataSync) is confronted with every day. He had some great strategies for doing it effectively.
• The sessions – SugarCon had some great sessions about its platform. My favorite session was done by Amie Dolittle, VP of inside sales at Sugar. She did an outstanding job articulating how Sugar uses it’s own platform to automate and streamline sales processes.

Overall the conference was a great experience. As with all conferences, the contacts I gained were the greatest benefit. I’ll be cruising back to San Francisco next month for OSBC (Open Source Business Conference), another great open source conference. Drop me a line if you’ll be at OSBC and I’ll make an effort to connect.

I love big, audacious ideas. Ideas that could quite possibly change the world in their own way. As a result, I surround myself with people who have similar big, audacious ideas. We spend a lot of time discussing how to make our Big Ideas happen. The problem with our Big Ideas (and probably yours) is that it takes a lot of time and energy to accomplish our Big Ideas, and there’s a lot of things we need to do to make our Big Idea a reality. A good example is the company I run, DataSync. It’s going to take us 5 years and countless hours to make our Big Idea a reality.

The main issue at stake is how to break your Big Idea into manageable, daily tasks. The problem about us humans is that we can only think about things in small pieces. Trying to solve a giant problem all at once simply can’t be done. Our brains choke on that. Instead we must break down big challenges into manageable task that each help (in their own small way) to accomplish our Big Idea.

So the solution is to break your Big Idea down into a detailed plan. The plan is a roadmap to getting from where you are today to where you want to get. In theory the whole process is simple. Doing it is complex. Here’s how I break down my Big Idea into tasks I do each day:

1. Define your Big Idea – My most prominent Big Idea is DataSync Suite, the software package we’re building. Make sure your big idea is big and challenging to achieve. Otherwise it isn’t a Big Idea.
2. Define ‘current state’ and ‘desired state’ – Practically define where you’re at, and where you want to be at the end of your Big Idea. We call this “current state” and “desired state”. Be specific.
3. Define projects – This high level view will get you to your desired state, so organize them according to the impact they will will make on your Big Idea.
4. Build out milestones – Break each project down into “milestones”, or required achievements to accomplish the project successfully.
5. Build out tasks – Break down each milestone into manageable tasks that can be accomplished in less than a few days.

Note that #5 is broken down far enough to actually accomplish in a given workday or a few workdays. That means you’ll be able to wrap your head around them.

The five steps I outlined above seem simple enough, but how do you actually keep track of them, and measure progress? I’ll take each section and offer some tools that will help.

1. Define your Big Dream – Mind mapping software such as FreeMind will help here. Make sure to have a date in mind to accomplish your Big Idea, otherwise you’ll have nothing to shoot for.
2. Define ‘current state’ and ‘desired state’ – Generally a good, concise document will accomplish this. Maybe a powerpoint. Probably both. You should be able to communicate your current and desired state concisely and with enough detail to define areas that need work.
3. Define projects – I’m a big fan of using a “strategy map’ to do this. A strategy map asks tough questions including the impact, effort, project goals are. Based on this info, you then make a judgement call on what the priority of the project should be. See an example we use here.
4. Build out milestones – This is where you bring in project management software. Base Camp, SugarCRM, activeCollab and others will help you out. Use something that fits what you’re working on. At DataSync, our engineering department utilizes ‘agile development’, so they use a special homebrew application. Use what works for the project you’re working on.
5. Build out tasks – This is where your solution varies widely. If you’re using project management software, use the task management built in. If you don’t use project management software or that software doesn’t do what you want, pick your own solution. Many people I know use OmniFocus. I am a BlackBerry junkie so I use ToDoMatrix, and I couldn’t live without it. The key is to find something that works for you. Make sure whatever tool you pick allows you to set the following: area, priority, and date due. Those 3 indicators should reflect what you defined in your milestones and strategy map.

I want to point out that no one software application is right for everyone, and no one software application will do it all for you. Managing your time effectively requires constant reassessing of values and making sure your day to day tasks are aligned with your Big Idea. Every minute you spend working on tasks that have less than maximum impact on your Big Idea, the slower it will take to get there. Many folks get so distracted that they never achieve their Big Idea. Don’t let it happen to you. Look at your Big Idea, strategy map, and milestones often and make sure you stay on track. I do it every day.

As I mentioned at the top, I haven’t figured this whole problem out yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress. I would welcome feedback and ideas on how to do this more effectively.