As my mid afternoon appointment got cancelled after I arrived in London, I have been blogging and organising the speakers and website for the NW Start Up 2.0 event. I just secured the third and fourth speakers, Robert Wakeling, Founder and CEO of Wadaro and Mark Birbeck of X-Port. Later today, I will be attending my first mashup event in London organised by the Vecosys boys. I will be meeting Mark for the first time. We chatted on Skype for the first time today. Yet he agreed to be a speaker. Internet is great. Web 2.0 stuff is even better for networking!

North West now has a startup/investment gathering (thanks to moi! – will keep this free as long as I can) and has many technology based gatherings. What it seems to be missing is a mashup type event!

1.  Does anyone think it is a good idea to explore the possibility of holding mashup events every 3 months in Manchester?
2. And if so, are you willing to pay £20 to £30 to attend an event (I/ebdex can’t run everything free – there need to be a ROI somewhere down the line!)
3. Or does anyone else wants to organise this type of event?

By the way, I need to check the ownership/copy rights associated with "mashup" and this may be owned by Simon Grice! Simon continues to support NW StartUp by donating webspace on his etribes platform.

Not bad for an afternoon’s effort!

Tags: NW StartUp 2.0, mashup, Wadaro, Vecosys, Robert Wakeling

Just a quick note to say that the next NW StartUp 2.0 event will be held at KPMG Manchester, sponsored by KPMG. The objective continues be to bring software entrepreneurs and investment community under one roof. Doors will be opened at 18:30.

Programme:

• 18:30-19:15 – Networking

• 19:15-19:45 – Speakers

• 19:45-20:15 – Q&A/Panel

• 20:15-21:15 – Networking

Then move to local bar for continuing with networking.

Speakers (confirmed)

• Anish Kapoor - CEO of Yuuguu
• Ed French - Investment Director – Rising Stars (Enterprise Ventures) 

Promotional sites:

• http://www.etribes.com/startup20 – this would be the key site. I am waiting for Simon Grice to activate registration screen.
• http://upcoming.org/event/154621/ – you would still need to register on etribes once the registration screen is live
• and this blog

Please do spread the word.

Tags: NW StartUp 2.0, entrepreneurship, startup, KPMG, Manchester, Anish Kapoor, Ed French, Yuuguu, Rising Stars, Enterprise Ventures

Paul Walsh, CEO of Segala has come up with a cunning plan (reminds me of Blackaddder!) to increase traffic to his blog. But in the process, he also wants to help his so called blogger friends increase traffic to their blogs. And I am the first sucker!

Hey readers, here is a chance for you to win an iPod on March 2nd 2007. All you have to do is submit a comment to this post, that’s it. So, here is how it works. If this post has a higher word count than any other entry in Paul Walsh’s viral game, one of my commentators will be picked out of a hat. Naturally the comments must make some sense and they must be contextual. The winning name will be pick out of a hat by Paul Walsh at Segala.

So all you have to do is keep adding comments to this post. Good luck!

Tags: Viral blog game, Paul Walsh, Segala

Can you describe yourself in one word? If so what would it be? Think before you type it in. It may reflect:

• Who you are
• What your aspirations are
• What you do
• What you have achieved
• Your wins and losses to date
• Risks your have taken
• Your wealth
• etc etc.

For me, it has to be “opportunist”. Please also give justification – why you think you qualify to use the word you have chosen to describe yourself.

My explanation: the concept behind ebdex Document Exchange is not my own. I came across it. Refined it. And decided to create a business. Right now, I am also working on other opportunities.

Update (counter):

So far:

• Helper – 1
• Instigator – 1
• Opportunist – 1
• Quarterback – 1

Tags: Silly Game, Viral Blog Game

Here is the full story from Accountis’ blog (uncut):

We recently carried out a short e-invoicing survey on behalf of one of our clients. Out of about 400 potential suppliers interviewed the vast majority were very keen to adopt EIPP and make the switch from paper to electronic to receive e-purchase orders and send e-invoices. We spoke to key decision makers on e-invoicing, mainly Finance Directors, and most of them were aware of the benefits associated with e-invoicing and were happy to start sending e-invoices if requested to do so by one of their customers.

Despite an overall positive response, there were a few who expressed concerns, mainly to do with compatibility or processing issues. They feared that e-invoicing may not exactly mirror or integrate with their existing paper-based process. However, in most cases we had a simple solution for any issue/question raised and with a little education we were able to highlight the real flexibility and benefit of sending e-invoices. I though it may be interesting to go through some of the issues raised by the suppliers interviewed and explain how they can be addressed:

Q. We don’t want to change our existing finance system.
Q. It will be a pain to implement e-invoicing just for one customer.
Q. Our invoices are printed on headed paper, will they look the same?

Q: We don’t want to change our existing finance system.
A. You don’t have to. E-invoicing works alongside any existing system so you don’t need to change the way you do things currently. At its simplest, you can login to your customer’s e-invoicing portal to create and send an e-invoice by filling in and submitting an online form. You can also generate e-invoices directly from any software package such as Word, Excel, Sage, QuickBooks etc. by printing to a special e-invoicing printer rather than your usual office inkjet or laser printer (click here to see how this works). Finally they have the option to create and send e-invoices direct from an existing ERP system finance package using one of the available plug-in modules.

Q: It will be a pain to implement e-invoicing just for one customer.
A. E-invoicing is simple to set-up and easy to use – it actually takes the pain out of invoicing for you and your customers. Users of the Accountis system are pleasantly surprised at how little work is involved in setting up e-invoicing, and the immediate benefits far outweigh any minor inconveniences during set-up (see the “benefits of sending e-invoices”). Also, once you are sending invoices to one customer, why not send all your invoices this way? Have you discussed e-invoicing with your customers? You may be surprised at how many of them would actually prefer this option if it was offered to them. More and more businesses are using Accountis everyday, so it’s possible that some of your customer’s may already be processing financial documents in this way.

Q: Our invoices are printed on headed paper, will the e-invoices look the same?
A. The will look exactly the same. All e-invoices are set-up to mirror your paper invoices in every way. They can exactly follow your corporate layout and style, and include any additional features such as special contact details or marketing messages. So instead of printing to your usual printer, why not save paper, ink and other resources by selecting the virtual e-invoicing printer instead. This automatically generates a digitally signed e-invoice and sends it to your customer over the Internet in a matter of seconds.

Thanks Susan.

Tags: Accountis, e-invoicing, EIPP

EIPP (Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment) is not part of EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment), nor is EBPP part of EIPP. It is wrong to generalise. The term "bill" is used within the B2C context (requiring very little information on consumer, if any) whilst the term "invoice" is used within the B2B context (requiring details of the buyer – satisfying legislation such as EU Invoicing Directive). If you are looking to generalise, then use the term ExPP, as has done successfully by Bruno Koch of Billentis in promoting ExPP Summits for the last few years.

My previous attempts to create a definition for EIPP was deleted by so called moderators of Wikipedia. Here is the sentence from Wikipedia that annoyed me:

Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) – also known as ebilling or Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) – is the electronic delivery and presentation of statements, bills, invoices, and related information sent by a company to its customers.

Whoever wrote above did not bother to check the Wikipedia definition for NACHA which says:

NACHA develops operating rules and business practices for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network and for electronic payments in the areas of Internet commerce, electronic bill and invoice presentment and payment (EBPP, EIPP), e-checks, financial electronic data interchange (EDI), international payments, and electronic benefit transfer (EBT).

So much for consistency! Copy of this will be added to Wikipedia Discussion Page

References:

• Wikipedia Sucks! No it doesn’t!
• Article 1 – What is e-invoicing or EIPP?
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Bill_Presentment_and_Payment

Tags: Wikipedia, EIPP, EBPP, Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment, Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment, Bruno Koch, Billentis

Paul Walsh (speaker) from Segala and Katrina Delargy (attended the last event) from Tiyga and Aventura just convinced me to attend the mashup event which will be held on 22nd Feb 2007 at London. The Vecosys boys (Sam and Mike) have taken over running of mashup events from Simon Grice. Simon’s company remains a key sponsor in addition to sponsoring the website. Programme include:

6:00 pm – Registration, Tea & Coffee

7:00 pm – Speaker

7:20 pm – Q&A

7:30 pm – Panel & Discussion Session

8:30 pm – Networking & Drinks/Food

Panel moderator is Sam Sethi from Vecosys. Speakers include: Paul Walsh from Segala, Hugh McLeod from gapingvoid.com, Mark Birbeck from X-Port and Tony Fish from AMF Ventures. I have only met Paul and Sam before. It would be a pleasure to meet Hugh, Mark and Tony. For detailed information on speakers, please visit Vecosys.

Or by the way, does anyone plan to get the last train to Manchester? If so, please drop me a line.

Tags: Vecosys, Segala, Tiyga, Aventura, mashup, etribes, grapingvoid.com, X-Port, AMF Ventures, Sam Sethi, Paul Walsh, Tony Fish, Paul Walsh, Hugh McLeod, Mark Birbeck, Katrina Delargy

I just came across Footy 24/7, a cool football aggregator of news, blogs, videos and images from official sites, fan sites, youtube and flickr.  It provides one large RSS feed for each team allowing fans to subscribe to one central source rather than many sites. 

Currently the largest UK football news services like Newsnow does not aggregate any media and order top stories simply by the amount of clicks, Footy 24/7 allows user to vote with a basic +1 Digg-style system. Community functionality is in place to allow users to discuss and comment on articles, private messages and buddylists. According to the brains behind the site, planned updates include a light mobile version and a supporters directory integrated with Google maps. Wow!

Tags: Footy 24/7, youtube, flickr, newsnow, Digg, RSS feed, Google maps

I have recently traded emails with Andrew Bartolini of the Aberdeen Group (Research Director, Global Supply Management) regarding his latest Benchmark Report entitled “E-Payables: Advancing Accounts Payable Automation.” This report will highlight drivers influencing the payables transformation, deployment best practices, and recommendations for improvements.

Please spend 10 minutes taking the survey to benchmark your A/P performance. The survey will be available until 1st March 2007. Andrew has promised to give a free copy of the report to all respondents.

The survey can be accessed through here. Its not every day you get a free report from Aberdeen Group, so please do support him. If you are a vendor, please do ask your clients to respond to this survey.

Bit about Andrew (taken from Aberdeen’s website – edited to remove duplication):

Andrew Bartolini is a Supply Management professional with rich experience in Strategic Sourcing, Business Process Transformation, and Software Implementation. As a leader at several solution providers, Bartolini managed the design and implementation of Strategic Sourcing and Procurement processes for retail, manufacturing, energy, technology, transportation, defense, and finance companies. He has also managed strategic sourcing projects exceeding $500 million in total value across a broad range of direct and indirect categories. His recent focus has been in identifying and leveraging world-class technologies to achieve operational excellence within the procurement function of Fortune 500 companies. Bartolini has also held a series of sales, marketing, and business development roles for leading technology companies and has a background that includes extensive transactional and analytical experience while working in management consulting and investment banking. He joins Aberdeen from Ariba, where he was most recently a Senior Manager in its Consulting Practice. Bartolini holds a B.A. in Economics from Holy Cross College and an M.B.A in Finance from Indiana University.  Prior to Ariba, Bartolini worked for Commerce One as a Senior Business Strategist and member of its Strategic Sourcing Council, reporting to the Office of the President.

Tags: Aberdeen Group, Andrew Bartolini, e-payables, accounts payable automation, survey, benchmark report

Accountis News: Accountis Supports 3rd European EXPP Summit

Accountis just announced their support for the 3rd EXPP summit, which will be held at the Millennium Conference Centre, London on 10-11th September. This event is organised by Bruno Koch of Billentis and will no doubt attract vendors and users (including those thinking of adapting) of e-invoicing, EIPP and Document Exchange solutions.

Accountis Blog: New XML.org site for ebXML

Susan (of Accountis) broke her silence for the first time in 2007 by blogging about the the launch of OASIS ebXML’s new community website. ebXML messaging is central to Accountis Solution. Accountis has withdrawn their architecture diagram from their new website. Let’s see whether I can convince them to release an updated diagram!

Tags: EIPP, e-invoicing, EXPP, Accountis, Billentis, Bruno Koch, EXPP Summit, OASIS, ebXML, XML.org