Category Archives: Efficiency

November 3, 2008 Posted in Business, Design, Efficiency, Society 1 Comment

Why IP Protection is Becoming More Irrelevant

By Ben Kepes

Image via Wikipedia How’s that for a linkbait title? Wired reports of ex-cheerleader Whitney Harper (all_American girl, all-American name), who is being pursued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) over some music files she downloaded when she was a teenager. Harper is a little incredulous saying that; I

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October 30, 2008 Posted in Efficiency, Society 6 Comments

Kids and Computers – If Google is Making Us Stupid What’s it Doing To Our Kids?

By Ben Kepes

I have to say I’m a little reluctant to write this post, it’s a subject that inflames passions on both sides of the debate. I was at a conference a few weeks ago where one of the sessions discussed kids and computers – while the session was primarily concerned with

October 28, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, Society 7 Comments

You Know You’ve Made It When…

By Ben Kepes

I’ve always had the firm belief that all consultant were w^#$ers – charging lots of money for stating the obvious, living the fat cat life and doing nothing productive – yep when it comes to consultants I have a pretty “blue collar” attitude. I had an email exchange with a

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October 27, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New business, Strategy 2 Comments

The Best, Shortest Blog Post I’ve Yet Seen

By Ben Kepes

Over on Julian’s blog, J posted a pearler (that’s antipodean talk for a great post) Worlds shortest blog post – "How do you build a world class software product, compete with large players and grow an excellent, loyal user base on a near $0 advertising budget?" It’s fairly easy. Talk,

October 23, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New business, New Zealand, Strategy 4 Comments

A Search Engine? Now That’s Novel

By Ben Kepes

Interesting to spot the New Zealand business interview with new search engine entrant Searchii. Searchii is a new search engine whose stunning point of difference is…. that it comes from New Zealand. Now I take my hat off to any entrepreneur who begins a new venture – it’s hard work

October 21, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, My businesses 6 Comments

Why Not e-dollars?

By Ben Kepes

Awhile ago I was involved with a start up that was trying to create a barter driven system for online transactions, leveraging the power of the community rating, meritocracy and subversion of traditional currencies to both lubricate commerce and cut out a number of the middle men" who add drag

October 20, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, IT, New Zealand, Strategy 1 Comment

What SMEs Really Need

By Ben Kepes

News the other day that the IceLab, part of Auckland incubator The Icehouse is conducting a survey looking at the IT decision made by SMEs in New Zealand. I’ve long been adamant that SMEs in this country share common issues – that age-old saying of "working in the business not

October 17, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, SaaS 2 Comments

CRM Webinar

By Ben Kepes

CRM is a really valuable tool that only now has become available to those on the smaller end of the business spectrum. Zoho is hosting a free webinar on “CRM Best Practices” in a few days. Most of you know that Zoho sponsors the other place I blog, you’ll also

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October 14, 2008 Posted in Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, New business Leave a comment

ISPs Can Work in Niches

By Ben Kepes

A week or two ago Mauricio posted asking ISPs to work in niches in order to differentiate themselves from the norm. His comments related manly to speed and traffic customizations but news from GoDaddy (via RWW) shows that there are other, and cooler ways to differentiate themselves. GoDaddy has launched

October 14, 2008 Posted in Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, SaaS, Society 3 Comments

It May Be (Kind of) Ugly, But It’s What People Want

By Ben Kepes

Well not ugly – just not full of Web 2.0 rounded corners et al. I’m talking about Zoho mail, after the announcement the other day that it’s gone offline with Google gears. I’m an outlier I guess – I use Gmail pretty much exclusively, gave up on the traditional look

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

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