Check out http://www.resilientfutures.org/2008/06/what-can-we-learn-from-the-wa-gas-crisis/

From that post:

On June 3 a massive gas explosion happened sparking a gas crisis in the state at Varanus – a small island off the North West coast of Western Australia.

About 30% of WA’s energy supply was dependent on the pipeline from Varanus for their energy needs.

Perth is now on energy rations, with large business told each evening how much energy they have for the following day. Casuals are being placed on standby and large mineral processing plants have been shut down – which are the powerhouse for the national economy.

Alan Carpenter, WA’s Premier went on television this week in an unprecedented call for people to reduce their energy consumption – heating, appliances and shorter showers to keep the state’s economy going. The WA Chamber of Commerce has said that as many as 10% of Perth businesses could go out of business as a result of this.

The author, Todd Davies, goes on to discuss in detail the importance of building resilience into organisations so that they can resist shocks more easily.

Whether you call it resilient thinking or plain old fashioned disaster recovery planning, there is a whole area in which online reputation management comes into play. Resilience in reputation is dependent upon the appropriate role that companies play within the communities they work within. Companies that give back generally have stronger brands, attract more staff, are much more highly respected - and tend to be more profitable, and no doubt resilient. One of the things I will be talking on soon is PR 2.0 (See my speaking page for when).

A recent email that has been doing the rounds indicates very strongly that a reckless lack of maintenance by Apache created the disaster, and with a number of photos from the site, would make some - maybe many - people think it is credible. I do not have the facts to form a view - but from a reputation management viewpoint, neither do the general public. Coupled with some recent press from The West Australian indicated that this disaster was predicted 4 years ago, the view is that a bunch of people must have let their eyes come off the ball in a way that is simply unacceptable given the knock on effect.

Back to the point of the post - PR 2.0 effectively is the approach to managing issues online. How do social media come into play? How resilient will your reputation be should an event happen? How do you react particularly when reaction to an event gets near tipping point?

Like all disaster recovery planning, you need the scenarios and responses determined and practised well ahead of time. Communication planning is the same deal. We have seen remarkable little from the company in terms of hands on response. Again without facts, can an audience be blamed for assuming the company may not care?

Whilst at CeBIT there was plenty of discussion about content management systems and in a session I sat in there was a discussion about the difficulty of getting them to work appropriately. Indeed I spoke with someone prior to the session who was about to implement their 3rd tilt at content management in 4 years…. clearly this is a challenging area to get right.

The presenter was pretty strong on all of the challenges and problems with implementing CMS - and even though many of those issues exist organisations have really very little choice - they must implement a content management system to meet various record keeping requirements and retain sanity. Our Perth team at Ross has assisted 5 organisations in Perth implement CMS successfully and in two cases the pages being managed is north of 8000. Without a CMS you are history.

But what about the lower end of the market? Whilst there are plenty of open source systems (I don’t have any personal experience with them other than Wordpress), the big challenge is getting the software out of the way of the communication.

So, when my son’s junior football club (the Kingsley Junior Football Club) asked me to help them with a website (more correctly, my wife who is on the committee told them I would do it!!) here is what I did:

1. Created a new in stance of Wordpress at Mediatemple (which is where I host this blog) and setup the MySQL database. Fortunately the Wordpress instructions are very good (get the detailed instructions, not the overview). Fair bit of mucking around here, but would be much, much quicker second time around.
   There is a load of hosting providers for Wordpress. Mediatemple does have a one click install of Wordpress - but it is an old version. With the various warnings in the market at the moment about the risk of not keeping Wordpress current, you need to log in manually and follow instructions to update the appropriate files by FTP
2. I found some Wordpress designs that had elements of what I wanted in the design
3. I then sketched up (yes, using old fashioned but very efficient technology - a pencil on graph paper) exactly what I wanted and where
4. Reach for your favourite web designers (in my case, the guys at Bam Creative) and I provided them with a formal brief of what I needed. I also provided them with the log in details so they could upload and test the template. After some tweaking we were all set. This was set up with left hand and right hand Wordpress widgets
5. Add Flickr widget - create a new Wordpress widget and paste the widget code you get from the Flickr site. Fiddle with the size settings until you get what you want.
6. And ditto with the right hand side.
7. Once all done, put in your Google Analytics code and you are away at your test domain.
8. Migrate your domain (this is currently sitting with a different registrar but will be moved -big tip, make sure that the domain details haven’t been lost, it is a real pain to migrate the domain)

So, all up the site we were trying to emulate in the WA Football League would have cost circa $20k to $30k. We got this one away for under a few thousand dollars and around 50 hours of my time. The Club is now managing and adding the content, and I think it looks pretty good. The latest edition of Wordpress is easier to use, and well worth considering….

Thursday 22 May 2008 was the big day of Transaction 2.0 and Techramp. What a hoot….. up at 5.45 having worked on my content until 1am, quick run in the gym to get the blood moving and off to CeBIT by 7.30 to ensure everything was honkey dorey and to meet Ivan Kaye from Business Strategies International at 8am.

It started with me introducing Jackie Taranto, MD of Hannover Fairs Australia to officially open Transaction 2.0. She was telling me prior to the introduction about some of the things that she was involved with to try to grow the industry and the work that Hannover has done in this regard. A down to earth dynamo is a good description.

Then I introduced Paul Slakely of Google to talk about cloud computing, interesting topics that ran for an hour with all the questions from the people that attended. Great speaker who was very candid about where this is going. Make no doubt about it, Google is going after providing a huge range of services for businesses. Nice to be able to tell him that Gilad Greenbaum and I collaborated on a Google Spreadsheet to set up the conference.

Then Transaction 2.0 split into 2 rooms with me chairing Techramp. First up was Jason Calacanis who promised to convince everyone that they should fire everyone that is average and good in the business, and how he had mathematically proven it. Got people thinking (intentionally controversial) and he has spent a lot of time thinking about this topic. Whilst it may sound brutal and a tad unkind, his analogy was sports. We all know that we expect coaches to fire – quickly – average performers and transition your good performers to excellent performers. Watch mahalo – let’s see how he goes. Was fun trying to explain his presentation in 4 minutes at the airport to Richard Giles of scouta

About this point my brother who was in the audience came up to say hello. With a “know this bloke?” I turned to find my father who had surprised me by coming over from Australind in Western Australia to check out the day. Paid full fair to get to Sydney and full freight for the CeBIT ticket. What a huge and wonderful surprise, nice one Dad…

Mick from Polenizer then got up to talk about focus (good book on that, see Focus from the book link above) as it relates to startup companies. Great talk and right on the money for mine.

I felt like I was trying to steer the speedboat from the ski’s with trying to keep the thing to time. The audience strapped themselves in and hung on, and I think enjoyed themselves immensely.

Quick caffeine break and back into it. Txt messages to Gilad back and forth to keep ourselves running during the day (damned if I know where he gets his energy from).

Great panel on user centric design, thanks Ruby, Oliver, Peter and Russ – particularly Russ for seizing the initiative in getting the session off to a good start by flying some questions around to the panel members to get us thinking.

Then we got stuck into Hells Kitchen with Phil from Pollenizer.

Vishal Sharma chaired a panel discussion on Web 2.0 trends, great job and a great panel – Duncan Riley, Gilad Greenbaum, contributions from Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian.

Finally it was time to get onto the final 5 best Aussie startups. 6 minutes plus 3 minutes of questions. Interesting technical startups.

All of the presentations were interesting and showed companies at really different stages of their thinking. I think each one will have gone away with lots of really good feedback and ways of moving forward. All to be commended on having a red hot go and having the courage to put themselves out there. I’m afraid I just couldn’t stretch out the winner announcement ala Australian idol but was pleased to announce Good Barry unanimously

CEO Peter Cooper and Founder and Executive Chairman Marc Lehmann have really zazzed up Saasu, and this is an app IMHO going big time. I first signed up for an account ages ago to check it out after following a link from 88miles.net from MadPilot Myles Eftos - also from Perth - (see my earlier post on that product here).

Saasu is accounting software available as a service. I used to use MYOB when running my own business previously, and frankly that takes quite some time to get to grips with.

The Saasu interface has improved a lot from the last iteration, and if you are in the market for accounting and finance software this is one you must put on your shopping list. Solid .Net infrastructure (our Perth Ross Consulting team also mainly develop in this environment, so we know the environment well) and continually improving the product. 

I was introduced to Peter and Marc by Gilad Greenbaum whilst at Cebit, and got to have a few cleansing ales with them. Marc is formerly from Perth and was here recently for Barcamp. The photos here are at the Awards night at Cebit. For the second year in a row, Saasu picked up an award, so they are obviously doing something right.

I think they are on the money with this offering, so keep your eyes on it.

Over 750 exhibitors and 40 000 attendees. For 3 days the red flags of Cebit own Cockle Bay Wharf and the Sydney Convention Centre. Must say I was very impressed with the sheer scale of Cebit in Sydney – over 40000 visitors over 3 days.

Gilad Greenbaum Director IT, Hannover Fairs, has done a wonderful job in setting up the programme at cebit. A highly professional and well connected guy, with boundless energy. A real asset to CEBIT. 

Day 1 of Cebit included lots of great presentations.

Jason Calacanis was most controversial discussed the practical challenges of thinking big enough and having entrepreneurial spirit engrained into people at a young age.

With some Government people on the panel, he was asked what can Government do to assist businesses. His clear perspective was for them to (politely) get out of the way and just don’t add any barriers. His  big idea – which I really like – is to treat entrepreneurs as rock stars and heroes. Award $100000 per year for big ideas,  one per state and get this into schools. Start young. 

Jason highlighted the divide between entrepreneurs that need to take risks and may have to fail once or twice versus Government is not an environment where the shareholders (taxpayers and citizens) want to encourage risk. The cultures are so substantively different.

You can check his presentation as well as many others on the Cebit site 

Techramp is an exciting one day session as part of the Transaction 2.0 day at Cebit. There is a great cast of first class presenters.  The speakers are people have been there and have got both the scars and rewards to prove it. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to chair the Techramp sessions.So if you are a startup Web 2.0 business, whatever stage your idea is at now - whether just a concept – or building user base and customers – to making good profits and cashflow - the sessions are designed to address the most important issues you will be facing.  

Entrepreneurial people often like to learn by doing and by asking questions of people that have been there. Techramp is absolutely focussed on the practical rather than theoretical and heavily case study driven. Plus there are panel sessions with loads of time to ask questions and draw on the knowledge and experience of these people that have been along the journey. 

The first session is all about setting the scene – have you got what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how to go about build a winning web business. Is this a road I want to take, and what does that road look like anyway?

The next session discusses the challenges in creating and dealing with rocket growth cycle and marketing a business. It also elaborates on issues such as funding, product development phases and human resource management, as well as technical issues like development environments and project management. Attention will be given to marketing of a new, exciting service or product, and how to get through the “Nuts and Bolts” of every startup (office space, overheads, online billing, hosting and more) - a session every start-up needs as I found it was something that can consume lots of time and distract you from getting on with the main game. 

After lunch TechRamp will get into the some of the technical stuff, with a panel discussion on designing the user experience. This session is so important – if you get usability and design wrong, forget it. Sign up and product ease of use are just critical for to keep sales moving forward and driving satisfied customers. Commercial software where once a deal is done, customers are stuck with it no matter how bad it is. Web 2.0 is much more opt in and opt off like mobile phone plans. Then we will get into the more nitty gritty technical issues, again get this wrong and you are done for.

Transaction 2.0 will be capped with the TechRamp 2008 competition. In addition to recognition, the winning startup will be awarded with an excellent and relevant stack of prizes, on behalf of the TechRamp supporters and sponsors. 

This is going to be an exciting day, and I am looking forward to meeting the people involved. Thanks to Vishal Sharma who will be on the judging panel for the introduction to Gilad Greenbaum, Director (IT) Hanover Fairs… See you in Sydney. 

The Startups Carnival runs from March 3 to 17 2008 and is a great opportunity for those people trying to get a new initiative off the ground in the technology space. With an initial focus towards Web 2.0 / Social Networking but also inclusive of other technology environments, initiatives in green technology, it will be a good opportunity to showcase some of the new great ideas that are on the verge of fruition.

So how does it work? Here is an extract from the Startups Carnival site:

How it works:
It’s an online (web based) carnival, starting on March 3, 2008.
On receiving the applications/registration from various startups/ventures, profiles/information will be compiled in a web format. These profiles /information will be published on the carnival portal, starting March 3, 2008. Three/four profiles will be covered everyday on the portal.

So please keep watching the space and make sure you have got your feeds subscribed as we have some grand plans on this to take it further.

In terms of what participants get are:

• New ventures learn about other ventures and people behind these across Australia.
• We are finalizing Judging Panel of 3 to be announced by Monday Feb 18, 2008. The panel is going to judge all the ventures on originality, simplicity, technology and marketability. They will select the top three. They will also provide some suggestions to all participants.
• We are also working on with some sponsors on offering some form of prizes to the top three ventures and few freebies to others. Once finalized it will be published on site.
• We are also working on getting some famous global bloggers to write about this initiative and people/ventures who are participating.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited as a judge along with Duncan Riley and Ross Dawson

So if you have a venture, then check it out and be a part of it.

I’ve been looking around at some online timesheet tools and Miles Burke at Bam Creative suggested 88 Miles from Mad Pilot

Having looked at a heap of timesheet tools, this looks like a really good tool - and by good fortune developed in Perth.

Some of the features I was looking for included:

1. Web based (a given really)
2. Allow multiple clients
3. Allow multiple projects
4. Allow multiple consultants to work on any mix of the above
5. Provide individual timesheets
6. Provide team reporting
7. Be easy to use
8. Fairly priced

Some new features coming are likely to include additional reporting and adding your own logo to timesheets.

So far I’m impressed and have started using it, worth giving a try….

You can get the gist of medical insurance if you have been through life insurance quotes. However to comprehend something like a cheap car insurance, you will have to read the relevant insurance quotes.

I was viewing Eric’s blog and came across the reference to the One Month App which was interesting project to determine if an application could be built in a month. They have used the Ruby on Rails framework and developed a nice looking cashflow application for small businesses.

Top marks for a clever marketing idea - both in getting some interest in the application, but more so, demonstrating that the guys at Clearfunction have got both a sense of style and an ability to churn out a great new application quickly. And no doubt they have plenty of click throughs to their site and their other products.

So, where are the other applications of this type of approach??  Could we see books written this way? Will we see commercial software sent to the global market for testing? Your comments are welcome, as well as useful links…..

Don’t let my 2.0 pun fool you, this is a seriously good book for anyone interested in how open source and collaborative models are now applying to so many different areas of business.

In one sense you might say that this is a bit of spin on a new flavour of collaborative outsourcing. However there is plenty of discussion on how the various models are being applied and where the innovation exists.

The essence - same of any outsourcing discussion - is in determining the key value you add in the value chain of your product and outsource everything else.

Check it out at