The June Meetup will be about Channel / VAR (Value Added Reseller) Marketing Strategies.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could have other companies sell your software or IT products so you would not have to worry about the bothersome task of selling it yourself? This has been a successful market entry or expansion method used by countless software and IT companies.

What do you need to do to create a reseller network? It is not "Rocket Surgery", but there are some techniques and methods that you should know if you want to be successful in marketing your products with this method. You will learn some of the methods and resources you need in this meetup.

Even if you do not have your own product to sell, there are great opportunities available to those with a good list of buyers or connections that understand the problems of their clients, especially in Japan. We will show you examples of companies that have done this.

The Meetup founder has been traveling for a few months, and is very happy to return to our regularly scheduled meetups again. We hope to see you soon, good times and conversation are sure to be had by all!

2:00 Greetings - Introductions

2:10 Presentation - Channel / VAR (Value Added Reseller) Marketing Strategies

2:25 Feedback / Questions

3:00 Next meeting planning (request for speakers)

Informal networking 3:00 to 4:00

In the February Meetup, we will be having 2 presentations again.

The first presentation for the February meeting is about how to set up a web site using Joomla 1.5 or Wordpress 2.7.

The second presentation is very provocatively titled "How to Fail at Software Development"

First Presentation details:

Joomla is a very powerful CMS (Content Management System) that makes it easy to create a professional website for your business. It is free and open source, and there are many great looking templates available to make it look just the way you want it to with a minimum of effort.

Wordpress is best known as a blogging tool, but many people are using it for their business website as well. Wordpress 2.7 is the latest version, and has many features to make it very easy for even non technical people to set up and maintain their own web site.

In the presentation I (Richard Roberts) will attempt to set up and configure basic Joomla and Wordpress sites from scratch in less than 5 minutes each, and show how to customize them with templates and plugins.

Second Presentation Details:

"How to Fail at Software Development" will be a presentation about "lessons learned" while managing software projects.

This subject has come up in our past meetings, many of our members have faced the challenge of making a successful IT project happen when some of the factors go wrong beyond our control. Some of the common problems are scope creep, lack of a detailed specifications and other woes.

This topic will be presented by one of our most talented Meetup members, Ed Kuiters. He is a very experienced software developer, business owner and entrepreneur. This should be another lively and informative discussion at the Yokohama IT Business Meetup. Tell all your friends, this one should not be missed!

2:00 Greetings - Introductions

2:10 Presentation - Introduction to Joomla and Wordpress.

2:30 Presentation - How to Fail at Software Development

2:55 Feedback / Questions

3:00 Next meeting planning (request for speakers)

Informal networking 3:00 to 4:00

In the December Meetup, the presentation will be about using and selling SaaS (Software as a Service) in business.

More and more software is becoming web based, where all you need to run the software is a web browser, URL, user name and password to use it. Web based software is a perfect candidate to be sold as a service, with the vendor hosting the application and maintaining the servers. We will examine some examples of software being sold in this new way, and discuss the opportunities this holds for the future of computing.

2:00 Greetings - Introductions

2:10 Presentation - Using and selling SaaS (Software as a Service) in business.

2:30 Feedback / Questions

2:40 Next meeting planning (request for speakers)

Informal networking 2:45 to 3:30

In the September Meetup, the presentation will be about using FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) in business.

Is FOSS software ready for primetime? We will look at some of the options available for using free and open source software in business. We will look at groupware, customer relationship management and office productivity applications that rival the feature sets of the commercial alternatives.

2:00 Greetings - Introductions

2:10 Presentation - Using FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) in business.

2:30 Feedback / Questions

2:40 Next meeting planning (request for speakers)

Informal networking 2:45 to 3:30

In the August Meetup, the presentation will be about IT Entrepreneurship in Japan.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to starting and running an IT business in Japan? We will explore the history of IT startups in Japan, as well as the current crop of startups. What are the things that successful companies do that the unsuccessful do not do? We will explore these and other issues in what should be another lively discussion.

2:00 Greetings - Introductions

2:10 Presentation - IT Entrepreneurship in Japan

2:30 Feedback / Questions

2:40 Next meeting planning (request for speakers)

Informal networking 2:45 to 3:30