Monthly Archives: January 2010

Next Generation Broadband Access – Building the Case for Regional Investment

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On 15th Jan, I attended an Insider Breakfast event held at Bridgewater Hall hosted by Michael Taylor and his team. Read Insider – Morning with who’s who of Manchester Corporate Sector for my coverage of the event. Following on from there, I am running an event on the Next Generation Broadband Access jointly with DC-KTN. Event details are below and I hope you will be able to join us on the 22nd Feb at eOffice Manchester. Please visit DC-KTN to register for this free event.

This event gives you the opportunity to have your say on what the future of Broadband services should be in the north west, a highly topical subject at the moment in the light of the “Digital Britain” report. Whether provider or potential user of this new level of broadband service, we would very much welcome your views and feel that you could contribute greatly to the success of the event. At the same time, this provides you with the opportunity to shape the future of broadband to meet the needs of your business

BACKGROUND

As the speed of broadband has risen over the past ten years, services available have also kept pace, with email and web browsing giving way in bandwidth terms to music downloads, live TV, interactive gaming and peer-to-peer services. In turn, it’s these new services that have also placed higher demands on broadband access for higher download speeds and increased mobility. It is becoming clear that current mainstream access speeds, whatever the operator or technology, are unlikely to be able to provide the variety and quality of service that consumers will require in the future. A number of operators are beginning to invest in improved access technologies (fibre to the home and WiMax, for example) but there is not yet a clear business case either for a particular technology or for investment overall, nor is there a clear view of the services that users will require once the higher speeds are available.

THE FORUM

With 73% of people now feeling that broadband is as important a utility as electricity or water the views of users about future services are important. This forum provides broadband users the opportunity to hear about the future for broadband access and services and to give input on their interests and needs. This event is one of several being held in regions of the UK and the output will be used to inform service providers, government and regulators about the services and packages that people will want as higher-speed access becomes generally available. Our presenters will set out their view of the future for broadband technology and services. Participants will then be invited to join the debate to help to formulate a view of the future landscape of services by joining one of three facilitated workshop groups. The information recorded from these groups will be combined with output from other regions and will be used to inform the industry debate on the technologies, architectures and industry structures needed to deliver future services.

Programme: 

Chair: Philip Hargrave, CEO DC-KTN

12:30-12:45 Registration | tea and coffee
12:45-13:30 Lunch and networking
13:30-13:40 Introduction | Philip Hargrave, CEO DC-KTN
13:40-14:10 How to deliver 10Gbit/s…or perhaps not? | Ian Vance, Amazing Communications; Chair of the UK Government’s Photonics Leadership Group
14:10-14.30 Manchester: United Digital City | Shaun Fensom, Chairman Manchester Digital and Consultant to Manchester City Council
14:30-14.45 Policy changes we need – John Ridd (yet to confirm)
14:45-14:00 Refreshments
15:00-15:45 Facilitated Workshop groups: Benefits (Dennis Kehoe – AIMES) | Commercial (David Ashmore – Metronet) | Performance (James Blessing – ISPA)
15.50-16.30 Reports back, plenary discussion & close
16:30 Close

The DCKTN and Northern StartUp 2.0 are jointly hosting this event in Manchester

Northern StartUp 2.0 Website is Under Attack!

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For the last five weeks, Northern StartUp 2.0 website has been under attack by spammers. The spamming was related to opening accounts, about 5 every hour, which has resulted in over 1000 new accounts. Less than 1% of these accounts have actually added any comments, but if they all did, the site will be overwhelmed by spammed comments.

Here are some facts about the site:

  • Drupal 5.3
  • Accounts are needed to comment

Based on various suggestions via Twitter and from Ixis IT (previous website development team) and CTISN (current website development team), following changes were made:

  • Captcha
  • Recaptcha
  • Mollow
  • Akismet
  • Must complete all 12 fields to register with tricky new feild to catch the spammers
  • Admin must approve account creation – all new accounts are blocked but this activity creates additional emails for me to address

None of the above had any impact on spam account creation! All of us are running out of ideas and wonder whether you have any further thoughts on this issue. All help is most welcome.

Don’t forget, the issue is not to identify which is spam and which is real, but to stop this happening altogether.

Update 1:

With an immediate effect, account creation has been suspended. If you wish an account, please get in touch with your phone no. and email address.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience

Best regards
Manoj

Tech CEO Round Table Discussion

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I (NS20) hosted a round table discussion yesterday at Horwath Clark Whitehill’s offices in Manchester. This was an by invitation only session with no none tech CEOs. Prior to the kick off, Ed French of EV Group (venture capitalist) dropped in to have coffee, and later on, Steve Livingston from HorwathCW dropped into join the conversation.

The participants were:

  1. Duncan Stockdill – Javelin CRM
  2. Katrina Delargy – Tiyga
  3. Craig Taylor – Thingymail
  4. Richard Francis – Makeurmove.com
  5. Manoj Ranaweera – edocr.com
  6. John Brickley – Whamoosh.com

Whilst the contents of what was discussed remains confidential, there are few issues worth bringing out in summary form:

  • Venture capital – one company is actively looking for capital, one do not want capital and others do, but feeling not ready to pitch.
  • Invstment readiness – everyone except the company who does not want capital, felt that an investment readiness programme would help them give the confidence to pitch and take venture capital seriously
  • Boot strapping – it came out some of us are experts at boot-strapping. There were lot of ideas exchanged including how to survive with small grants
  • Tool kits – More and more of us were using free and low cost  SaaS products to increase operational efficiency
  • Cash collection – paypal was seen as the worst solution for cash collection. Credit card payment seem to be the way forward, but recurring payments seem to be causing problems for some.
  • Everyone was willing to help each other.
  • Lack of a full management team seem to be a problem for most except in the case of one.
  • Some felt survival was the first objective, but all agreed that the focus this year is revenue growth.
  • All agreed the opportunity was worthwhile repeating

I (NS20) will be looking to host another simiar event in April. If you are interested in attending, drop me a line for consideration. Rules, if you are looking for them, here goes…

  • My decision is absolute, but I can be bribed – beer is not sufficient!
  • You must be generating revenues (that means clients and not advertising) and have a commercially available product
  • No NDA will be signed
  • What is discussed will remain confidential except a summary output such as above
  • It will help if you are a paying member of NS20

Insider – Morning with who’s who of Manchester Corporate Sector

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As Michael Taylor, Editor of the North West Insider introduced me at the yesterday’s Insider Breakfast event, “where’s Manoj, a short chap, ah there he is”. Luckily, Sean Fensom, Chairman and Digital Veteren of Manchester Digital later came to my rescue as he is shorter than me. At this point, I felt a whole lot better, having cocked up my earlier question to the panel, which Dave Carter, Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency responded by saying that if we want help, talk to the VCs. Unfortunately, there are only two VCs in town (EV Group and YFM Private Equity). They are as risk-averse as hell, unless its their ideas (sorry guys – bit unfair I know! Julian, loves your rough 2010 look!). Later, Michael tweeted the following, perhaps thinking he offended me (no chance there, Mike)

@manojranaweera #ff top chap. Loads of energy, ideas and charming eccentricity

At least, Michael has been consistent in there. This is the second time, and the only person to my knowledge to call me eccentric. As you can see from the thumbnail (first one), at least I am with good company (2nd paragraph right hand).

The North West Insider May 2009 - Editorial - A Special Plea Insider Digital Event Report 15 Jan 10 Manchester Vanguard House Brochure

Ok, those who were misfortunate enough to miss the excellent event organised by Insider Digital Team, which was well attended, here (second above) is a Twitter Report courtesy of moi!

What I also realised is that there are some hard networkers in Manchester, whom you would see attending many of the city’s key events. Here is a list in no particular order:

  • Phil Jones – UK Managing Director, Brother – a man who thinks we still need a printer (actually I own two)
  • Awan Moneeb – a man in demand – Chairman of Manchester Chamber of Commerce
  • Graham Bond – Baker Tilly – must find a way to do business with Graham as he is everywhere!
  • Steve Bennett – ex IoD – nice chap!
  • Tom Cheesewright – a man who keeps changing brands, And Digital

I would like to share some of the discussions I was part of, if that’s OK with you:

  1. Manchester Digital – has a desire to connect with all the technology based groups in the city. This aspect is currently managed by NWDC (chaired by Andrew Disley), which I am a member of. Other than NS20 and Manchester Digital all other members of NWDC run software user groups except for GeekUp (Andrew’s baby!), which is a collective of software developers (and friends).
  2. Sharp Project – I am yet to have a proper chat with Sue Webster who runs Sharp project, but question remains whether she has ambitions to open up her well-funded facilities to product-based technology companies that NS20 champions.
  3. Creatives and NS20 – This year, NS20 will put effort into building stronger relationships with other organisations. RedVision promised to give me an insight to digital media – I must follow this up!
  4. Broadband issue – This is currently a hot issue in Manchester, and it would not be right, if I do not poke my nose into this discussion. In addition, being a partner and a tenant of Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus (DSIC), I would like DSIC to be a major stakeholder in this discussion, due to DSIC hosting a Media Access Point, the forthcoming Vanguard House (third thumbnail), and current 85 or so high-tech tenants. I also believe that Northernnet and other stakeholders have not engaged with the business community in sufficient context to understand their needs. I have been promised through twitter that marketing of Media Access Points will commence next month.
  5. Insider and NS20 – There is a desire to do something together. I just wish that respective parties (one being me!) sit down and firm up what, when and where? Talk is cheap, only actions matter! (Take the hint Mr. Taylor!)

Based on some further discussions outside the Insider Breakfast (I enjoyed it, let me in next time as well Michael!), there are few other areas I need to poke my nose at (when would someone pay for all these nose poking is not clear):

  1. Building a VC culture. It seems the city has ambitions to attract VCs from elsewhere to setup base here. Did you know that NS20 brought VCs from Internet Capital (New York, USA), Advent Partners, DFJ Esprit (twice), Eden Ventures, Seedcamp, Difference Engine/North East Finance, Doughty Hanson to Manchester without any public sector spending? The responsibility for this activity seems to be given to a specific body (not sure which part of this was confidential so better not spill out the beans in case they did not know it themselves). Plus they wish to make existing VCs less risk-averse! According to Steve Livingston, most of the VCs that comes through his accountancy practice are not interested in technology companies. If Manchester wants NS20′s help, we will be happy to help in educating the VC sector.
  2. Businesses and IT. It seems that some non IT businesses are bit fedup of hearing too much about the city’s focus on creative media. And they seem to be in the dark about how to take advantage of new technologies to improve their bottom line. Sounds like an opportunity for NS20. I think there is a way we could address this whilst helping our budding tech entrepreneurs. More to come later.

As usual, drop your thoughts here please.

3 Day Conference in Manchester Showcasing local and international software companies?

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Just an idea at this stage, but have approached a group of early stage companies in the USA to sound it out.

The objectives:

  1. Promote companies and products – an exhibition
  2. Build partnerships with startups from Manchester (edocr.com, JavelinCRM, others), London and rest of the UK
  3. API Explosion – Get the tech community involved
  4. Tour of local tech hubs for those thinking of setting base in the NW
  5. Get the public sector involve, so that we can explore incentives for setting up

Perhaps a three day event:

  1. Day 0 – Check-in to hotels
  2. Day 1: Registration, local tours, Dinner
  3. Day 2: Exhibition and Conference, Dinner with VCs
  4. Day 3: Catch-up, discussions with public sector, etc etc etc
  5. Day 4: Return flights

I think Sep/Oct would be better to give me time to plan properly. If you think there is merit in doing this, let’s start talking.

Salesforce.com Integration Options

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Sales leads – new revenues for you!

It probably does not come as a surprise to those who are misfortunate enough to follow my tweets, that we, at edocr.com have embarked on a major programme to deliver real measurable value to an existing asset you have, but probably was never trully aware of its full potential until now. Yes! we are speaking about the documents (pdfs) you produce daily, weekly, monthly and/or annually to communicate with prospects, customers, suppliers, shareholders, government, authorities, and anyone else that you need to communicate with, without dilvulging confidential information.

Among these documents are the traditional sales and marketing collateral, but there are other documents produced for operational and regulatory or any other purpose that could equally be applied in the right environment to generate interest that will lead to new prospects for your products and services.

Ask yourself these few questions:

  1. Do you see sales and marketing collateral, as well as operational and regulatory and similar documents as a cost? What if this could be reversed? Documents becoming a profit centre instead of a cost centre contributor?
  2. Do you know how many documents you have produced over the last 5 years for external consumption? Do you know how many of these are available in your web folders, but no one can trully find them through navigating your website. You might be startled with the true figure!
  3. Any ideas about the cost of above? Any ideas of how much revenues you generated as a result of your spend in documents? You may have never wondered about ROI, but shouldn’t that be an interesting figure to talk about?

Without diverting too much from the topic, we at edocr.com are on a mission to turn your costly documents (I am not referring to print costs, but the costs involved in producing them, mainly human resources) into revenues for your company.

As part of this, we have embarked on a major development programme to provide you sales leads from your existing document inventory. At present, we are preparing edocr.com so that we can provide you a tool kit to extract data out of edocr.com with user consent where required.

Integration Options

We believe our role should end with collecting sales leads and then handing over those leads to organisations which can add significant value further upstream. This is where Salesforce.com and its ecosystem, App Exchange comes into play.

Given that Salesforce.com is not the easiest product to integrate with, mainly due to their pricing strategy, we believe we have three options available for consideration:

  1. Traditional web-to-lead forms
  2. API, especially as edocr.com is based on OAuth and salesforce.com now has OAuth capability
  3. App Exchange

Your Contribution

We must accept we are not experts of salesforce.com, but have the resources to implement the integration once we know damn well which one would work for us. I see two options:

  1. Integration with salesforce.com using our resources
  2. An app which will receive the leads from us, but left open for others to integrate to suit their needs, perhaps incorporating further value addition from salesforce.com partners

This is an exploratory article, asking your help in formalising the right option for us. We believe that there will be significant up sell opportunities for all who will get behind us in this venture. We are truly excited to be working with salesforce.com (especially you, Mr. Barker) and its ecosystem, who are well oiled on generating revenues.

The Wrong Pricing – Missed Opportunities

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As edocr.com continues to grow, it has become essential for us to adopt the right tools that will make our lives operationally little bit easier. Now is the time for us to leave spreadsheets and move on to products that will bring structure to a very chaotic environment. Two tools will be key to this strategy of operational simplification.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

We have adopted Contact Manager from Salesforce.com, which is affordable and versatile enough for our needs. And we know that as edocr.com grows, we have a path for increasing the CRM functionality to match with our future needs. In addition, we see salesforce.com as a strategic partner, so it makes sense for us to also be using their products, vice versa.

Accounts

Having used Winweb for a brief period, we are now trialling Xero, a SaaS product from one of our growing customer base. I love the simplicity and the design and yet to fully test it. My gut feel says this is the right product for us. And these days, I put lot of trust in to my gut feel.

Alignment

Ideally, we love our own database of users and customers to be in sync with CRM and accounts products we have adopted. So integration and free availability of APIs are fundamental to achieve this. I have been a keen advocate to see Xero and Salesforce.com establish the ability to data exchange.

It was good to hear from Tony Rule of Xero yesterday that they have infact gone live with the integration

Pricing Dilemma

Let’s take a brief look at the costs involved for one seat license across both products for one year.

  • Salesforce.com contact manager = £36 (we have subscribed for 2 seats)
  • Xero = £144 to £228 – the more expensive option is suitable for edocr.com

Here is the problem. For me to benefit from having synchronisation of customer data across saleforce.com and Xero, I would need to upgrade my account to either:

  • Salesforce.com enterprise (£1,020) or unlimited edition (£2,040) (where API is part of the licence) or
  • Salesforce.com professional edition (£540 plus more) (where API is not part of the licence but you can add it at extra cost).

Conclusion

The combine cost of subscribing to Xero and Salesforce.com now needs to go up from an affordable £264 to over £1000 to achieve integration. This is clearly not an acceptable situation for us. I love to comment more on this aspect, but as I have a half written post on pricing strategies, I think I should better leave it till then, other than to say, at this stage, we would have to operate without synchronisation. Just to add salt to the wound, products like JavelinCRM and Xero can achieve true synchronisation without any additional spend!