On a recent holiday to Santorini I read Leading by Sir Alex Ferguson. Ferguson, who is best known for his management of Manchester United knows what it takes to build a high performing team over a sustained period of time, having won a staggering 49 trophies in 38 years.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the European finale of Inside Intercom - the product event that will visit 12 cities around the globe. As its name suggests, the event, which is packed full of product lessons is organised by Intercom, a rapidly growing US customer communication platform with deep Irish roots.

On the flight home from a recent work trip to Boston I read Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler. Ross who was Director of Corporate Sales at Salesforce.com shares the B2B sales lessons which helped build a predictable sales machine at the customer relationship management (CRM) giant.

There’s been lots of discussion about the recent downturn in the valuation of technology businesses and while it’s more helpful to focus on creating value, rather than fixating on valuations, how do you understand the health of software as a service (SaaS) company? It all starts with understanding the SaaS business model.

At the start of the year my wife and I moved from the heart of the Silicon Docks area of Dublin to Sandycove, a sleepy seaside village in which the first scene of James Joyce’s seminal novel, Ulysses is set.