Best I can hope for from NW StartUp 2.0 and OpenCoffee Manchester

This is quite obvious but I thought of spelling it out. Conversation is great, but there must be objectives and expected outcomes from all these events I am engaged in. The ideal moment for me would be:

  • A new product was launched
  • A new company was formed
  • Seed capital was raised
  • By individuals who have never met before until they came to one of these events

Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Is that too much to ask! I do not think so.

I saw Rhys demonstrating his Web2oS at OpenCoffee Manchester. I saw the interest both Paul Robinson and Ed French had! What could be the outcome?

Paul spoke about co-working. Philip Hemsted and I showed interest on his Wiki. I have met Paul before, but it was the first time Philip met him. Everyone was interested in the idea. What an opportunity to test ideas? Do you have an idea that you like to get free unbiased review on? OpenCoffee Manchester is the place to be.

There is another similar conversation taking place between two people who met for the first time at one of these events – no investors approached yet, but these individuals are talking seriously with few other people. Sorry can’t reveal for the time being.

Wow!  Do you know any other positive outcomes! Am I asking a lot? You bet I am!

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Saul launches OpenCoffee Club

Much awaited OpenCoffee Club has gone live on Ning. I have requested Saul to add Manchester to the growing list of locations. Current locations include:

May I request you to register at following links:

  • OpenCoffee Manchester @ upcoming.org – You will be able to see a list of forthcoming events. Please register as you wish. We need good regular turn out before I can demand free muffins from Starbucks!! Now that should be enough to get you going!
  • Official site (aggregator) @ Ning

If you are a blogger, please use the following tags in your blogs (without any gap between Open and Coffee), especially for Technorati:

  • OpenCoffee
  • OpenCoffee Manchester

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Citizendium from Co-founder of Wikipedia

Citizendium is a competing wiki to Wikipedia created by one of Wikipedia’s co-founders, Dr. Larry Sanger. My regular readers know how I feel about Wikipedia. So Citizendium once populated would hopefully be my first reference point. This is what Forrester has to say.

Josh Bernoff, a vice president at Forrester Research, said he sees a place for Citizendium on the social-media scene, and noted that corporations are extremely frustrated with Wikipedia’s policies. "Companies have had real challenges getting their perspective on the facts addressed in Wikipedia," he explained. "You can file a complaint but there is no real protection against inaccuracies." Although Bernoff said he is sure that no one would want to read on Citizendium only what companies want told, he said there is room for more balance. Bernoff, for one, is betting consumers will appreciate having a choice. Of course, that doesn’t mean Citizendium won’t have challenges of its own in separating fact from fiction. "If you try to develop another way to define the truth it’s also going to have flaws," he said. "There is no automatic truth algorithm in the world."

Watch out for my own Wiki! I am looking for a host at present. Does anyone has a preference for a particular platform? MediaWiki looks better than pbWiki.

References:

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Oracle launches site for ISVs

Oracle today notified its Independent Software Vendors (ISV) of a new web site to facilitate the engagement with its ISVs. The site can be accessed through here. Extract from the official notification…

There are many different ways in which you can work with Oracle. This new information portal is designed to help you to understand how you can work more effectively with Oracle in the UK, maximise your sales and marketing opportunities, ensure your business is based on the latest technology, register for events and workshops, get all the latest news relating to the ISV programme in the UK, as well as being able to provide us with your comments and suggestions.

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First OpenCoffee Manchester

7 people turned up for the first ever OpenCoffee Manchester. Let’s have a quick look at these individuals:

  1. Ed French (Rising Stars)
  2. David Hawdale (Hawdale Associates)
  3. Manoj Ranaweera (moi!)
  4. Paul Robinson (Vagueware)
  5. Philip Hemsted (Yuuguu)
  6. Philip Oakley (Into Vision)
  7. Rhys Jones (Accountis, Sanoodi, Web2os)

Except Paul and David, others have supported me before by attending NW StartUp 2.0 events. David was really the new face as I meet Paul monthly at North West Digital Communities chaired by Manchester Digital Development Agency. Many interesting areas were discussed, among these:

  1. David – scalability – how do you scale a consultancy?
  2. Co-working – Paul is passionate about setting up space in Manchester City Centre to create an environment for startups. Click here for his wiki. He also spoke about Vagueware, a platform for undertaking open source projects. Watch the space! This could be big if he gets the support he deserves. I am for one is very much interested in exploring ideas Paul’s contributors have from a commercial angle.
  3. Rhys spoke about his new company, Web2oS and demoed offline Google calendar. Paul got very much hooked into the idea. Read what Rhys has to say about Web2oS. So Rhys is a blogger after all!

Special thanks goes to Rhys for attending all the 3 events (2 x NW StartUp 2.0 + 1 OpenCoffee Manchester) I held so far. Anybody who might complained about the early start – here is real commitment – Rhys travelled from Bangor! Can you beat that! Philip travelled from Birmingham and Ed also travelled lot more miles to be there, before anyone else turned up.

Please take few minutes to visit Paul’s coverage of the event, which is far more exciting than what I have written here.

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Introducing Deskcom – A French EIPP Player

Ads by AdGenta.com

Deskom is another innovative electronic document exchange, allowing seamless exchange of structured documents between Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Deskom has further developed their solution to include invoice factoring module, assisting with supplier working capital management. Advanced functionality provided includes validation of documents, document matching, on-line payments and on-line factoring. In addition, it has a facility to scan and index paper documents as well as print using outsource partners (a hybrid model)

Pasrel API allows users to configure various steps and sequences in the document exchange process (work flow).

Customers include GMAC Commercial Finance, the users of the on-line discounting module. Deskom has a special relationship with SAP France, in which, SAP France has chosen Deskom as their preferred e-invoicing solution provider for France. In 2003, Deskom announced the opening of a UK office. However, I cannot find current UK address on their web site. So it seems they only have a office in France. It would be interesting to find out their growth strategy, given single operation centre. Their web site certainly could do with a new face lift!

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Local VC launches a wiki and blog to help startups!

Local VC, Ed French of Rising Stars (Enterprise Ventures) has launched a wiki, Techgain.net Tech Start-ups Wiki. According to Ed:

This wiki is intended to serve as a repository for information and advice for Technology Startups, particularly those based in the UK. Please feel free to edit the contents and improve it for those who come after you. You can find more information and thoughts on my blog techgain.net

Now I did not know Ed had started a blog. Its refreshing to see a local VC finally taking a positive step to reach out. Unfortunately, two attempts to leave a congratulatory comment failed.

Ed also spoke at the recent NW StartUp 2.0 event. He entertained the audience with following slides (actually the 4th slide!):

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