Success in business is about preparing for the future. Entrepreneurs have to balance the expectations of raising funding and running the day-to-day operations while keeping their eyes on the future. Setting objectives, strategies and structures, knowing your markets and customers, and understanding and developing your capabilities as a company are all key factors to growth.

Laura Merling connects a vast network of technology leaders, innovators, and financial capitalists on a daily basis as the executive director of SDForum. Professional development, making the right connections while staying ahead in the technology space, and creating less complicated solutions for your business are keys to success.

MySQL has become one of the premier open source databases, demanding a need for greater protection and high availability. As MySQL takes on a greater enterprise role, businesses need to grapple with the larger issues in the industry. In order to build applications that help grow businesses and nurture individual skills businesses need to examine their current work.

In this session Merling, as a leader in the emerging technology space, will give business leader strategies to stay one step ahead in the open source industry. She will also give a case study that examines how MySQL has been implemented in a real world setting and provide insight into their success and failures. Businesses will leave this session with an understanding of how knowing their market, setting objectives, and staying at the forefront is the only way to grow their business.