Monthly Archives: June 2007

23/06/2007 Posted in Business, Society, Strategy 1 Comment

Comfort for Jim Donovan…

By Ben Kepes

It’s official – we’re better off hiring baby boomers than gen y-ers! The speech was a little tongue in cheek but it does beg the question whether we have the option to ignore the gen y demographic. I know they’re annoying, have no loyalty or sense of duty but I’m

22/06/2007 Posted in Branding, Business, Design, Economic Development, New business, New Zealand, Strategy 3 Comments

HB media/House of Travel magazine

By Ben Kepes

Now here’s a business that exists in a traditional industry, yet is managing to find novel solutions to gain and maintain viability amidst the threat of new competitors. The guys from HB, publishers of Idealog, media are publishing Inspire magazine, a travel mag. Now what you ask is innovative about

21/06/2007 Posted in Business and the Environment, New Zealand, Society 3 Comments

Carbon neutral? No time soon

By Ben Kepes

Up to date results (well if you call up till 2005 up to date) show that we’ve been increasing rather than decreasing CO2 output. While Aunty Helen might wax poetic about NZ becoming carbon neutral it is interesting (and obvious) to note that at the same time as economic activity

21/06/2007 Posted in Business, IT, New business, New Zealand Leave a comment

Going easy on Xero

By Ben Kepes

Rod emailed me today inviting me to visit Xero HQ and see some of the downtrack development stuff to allay my concerns regarding the Xero product offering. This is an offer I’ll surely take up ASAP. Rod’s email also got me thinking that some people out there may be misconstruing

21/06/2007 Posted in Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, New business, Society, Strategy Leave a comment

Let’s devolve a little

By Ben Kepes

An excellent post by Wil Schroter here that relates to what Jim and I have been talking about with regards design of software and services. Wil astutely suggests that rather than redesigning the product to fit the norms and paradigms of “those who don’t understand”, we should be encouraging those

21/06/2007 Posted in Business, Design, IT, New business, Strategy 2 Comments

Initial thoughts on another SaaS accounting package

By Ben Kepes

Following on from my previous post about the breadth of product offerings in the SaaS accounting space, this morning I’ve been having a play with SaaSu’s NetAccounts and I have to say that it’s nice. Clean and tidy with a logical set out. Net accounts is not yet customised for

20/06/2007 Posted in Business, Design, IT, My businesses 4 Comments

The Accounting SaaS space is getting busier…

By Ben Kepes

Lance Wiggs posted about a SaaS accounting service he found in the states – Lance’s post can be seen here. I always said that I had concerns about the revenue expectations articulated in the Xero IPO and whether or not the product constitutes a sufficiently unique selling proposition to gain

19/06/2007 Posted in IT, New Zealand, Society 1 Comment

Broadband? You can’t handle Broadband!

By Ben Kepes

The coolest names blogger in the country, Mauricio Freitas, posted here regarding some less than savvy users who he has had some correspondence with. For those who can’t be bothered reading his post – the crux of the issue is that there are lots of semi (or not even) computer

19/06/2007 Posted in Blogging, Society Leave a comment

Update….

By Ben Kepes

Subsequent to my post yesterday about the pitfalls of readily available semi-personal information, and following some strong advice from my wife (who tends to be somewhat cautious in matters such as this), I’ve deleted my CV from my blog. As she said if people want to know more about me

18/06/2007 Posted in Blogging, Society 1 Comment

Some pitfalls of instantaneous and far reaching communications…

By Ben Kepes

So here is a “hypothetical” situation for you…. Person A leaves a comment on person B’s blog. Person C contacts person B making some claims about person A’s past. What to do? In an ideal world person B would give person A the opportunity to respond and, in the event

The Author

Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. More on Ben

Subscribe to the Blog

 Subscribe - Posts for all authors

Enter your email address and we'll send our posts to you: