On Friday before Silicon Beach drinks I had a catchup with the other Webciety companies that will be at CeBIT Sydney over the next 3 days along with Saasu.

The Webciety pavilion focuses on web-based society. It features SaaS web applications like Saasu, mobile web, wikis, web communities, blogs, microblogs and other interactive Internet services which are making our lives increasingly digital and ever easier.

Webciety is a major success born out of CeBIT in Germany. All the Webciety participants are speaking at some point over the 3 days at the Webciety Pavilion. See the webciety speaking program for details. I’m speaking at 11:00am on Thursday the 14th on the topic of:

What will Web3.0 look like?
Web3.0 is in early stages, but the picture isn’t clear. Web3.0 is bigger than the sum of it’s parts and accordingly we have trouble seeing what it is.

I often get asked how a business can minimise the time spent (and thus money) “doing” their accounts.

The first step is to get online to create access, convenience and remove tasks that you otherwise have to do such as backups, upgrades and installs.

Secondly, and more importantly, you need to change your thinking to “generating” your accounts. You accounts can be a smooth, automated pipeline of transactions. It doesn’t have to be data entered.

Many businesses I meet still “do” their accounts while they should be generating them. This is about connecting and automating your accounts using a variety of techniques that are NOT limited to bigger businesses. The reality is that there will always be an element of data entry but it can be massively reduced to a small fraction of your work-flow.

There really is only 3 ways of generating your accounts. Most other methods are a variation on these themes or a hybrid of them.

We are interested in our customers saving time so if you have any questions post a comment or get in touch. We are firstly in the business of selling time savings, secondary to that is the accounting software.

REAL TIME - Straight through processing

“Are you serious Saasu? I’m a consulting business, it can’t be automated.”

Even a consulting businesses where you would think it’s hard to automate you can achieve 60-80% automation of transactional work flow. If you think about it (look at your statements), you pay for the same things over and over. Mobile, phone, internet, rent, electricity, wages etc. Often the frequency is consistent and it may only be the amount that varies. These transactions can all be automated to the point where there is no data entry (constant amount) or a followup edit (change amount). Expenses on credit cards can be captured by importing credit card data and bank statements. You simply clear what isn’t needed and apply account codes to the remainder.

This is the best by far on a cost per transaction capture analysis we’ve done of the variety of methods. We call this “exceptions based accounting”.

Highly transactional business models should automate as much as they can using recurring Sales and Purchases for all your normal recurring revenue and fixed costs. If applicable, connect your point-of-sale (POS), e-commerce website, project management and CRM systems to Saasu via the API or using a Connector. Transactions can occur in real time automatically. Contacts can update across systems. New customers can be created, invoiced, payment processed and emailed paperwork automatically without human cost, resources and risk.

Saasu provides customers with shopping carts, software connectors and payment gateway connections to assist in creating a straight through processing business model.

NEXT DAY - Feeds and Import

This method works well for micro enterprise but starts to fall apart as you grow the business or as your business becomes more technically complex. e.g. inventory, time and project based businesses. It doesn’t scale for complexity or compliance.

Under this method you export you bank statement from online banking and import it into your accounting file. Nearly all accounting systems have this feature including Saasu, Sage and Quickbooks. Systems like Banklink and Xero have taken it a step further by providing a service to do this import step for you on a next business day basis or weekly basis. For micro a enterprise this is about an extra $360 per year above Saasu’s pricing. Bank fees may also be charged by your bank account on a per-transaction basis for data feeds. Feeds aren’t real time but they are convenient and close enough for micro businesses. To a degree you are trusting the bank or card company’s data to be correct.

DELAYED - Data entry

Data entry is by far the most expensive and unfortunately the most common. Data entry should be about exceptions so bookkeeper and accountant skills can be reserved for advice and higher level tasks. A good bookkeeper is the difference between order and disorder, fear and anxiety. Automate as much as possible and have your bookkeeper or admin staff be you assistant CFO to your business rather than spend your dollars on them just doing mundane data-entry that can be done by a computer.

One consequence of the Global Financial Crisis or as they now are calling it the Global ‘Economic’ Crisis is that Foreign Exchange (FX) rates are now very volatile. 10% movements are now common replacing 1% movements. This brings about interesting opportunities for consumers.

This was highlighted recently when I was looking around for Ben10 Watches for my two boys, Mr3 and Mr5. The US Dollar (USD) price I would have to pay when converted to Australian Dollars (AUD) at an e-commerce portal was almost the same. The two currencies were nearly equal. Within weeks the AUD had changed dramatically versus the USD by 40% as the commodity markets imploded. Accordingly my online price to buy in USD had nearly doubled when I calculated the AUD price equivalent that I would be paying.

At the same time the Kmart retail price in AUD’s was unchanged and on a currency adjusted basis was extremely cheap. So Kmart, the offline retailer, was giving consumers the opportunity to avoid that foreign exchange loss. You could be simplistic about this and say that Kmart buys and sells at the same price and is currency neutral but the reality is quite different. Kmart is in competition with online shopping e-commerce portals. While currency makes Kmart prices cheaper then consumers like me will buy in person at their stores but if the reverse occurs I wouldn’t hesitate to buy online via an e-commerce transaction.

Accordingly Kmart is allowing consumers to cherry pick their prices. It is the right but not the obligation to buy at the cheaper price. In essence, a free option while stock lasts. This produces a negative pricing environment as they keep giving away this free option to consumers. Maintaining static pricing in the face of volatile currency movements is now a significant issue for them. While currencies moved 1% it wasn’t noticeable.

The big problem for Kmart and others like them is two-fold. Firstly they need to decide how much currency they need to hedge against their purchasing. In effect they are increasing their activity in a non-core business called “currency trading” which historically most businesses aren’t all that good at. It’s not their fault it’s just not their core business.

The second issue is that the technology to deploy and implement price change on the store floor isn’t implemented in Australian stores that I know of. You can’t simply swap out millions of RFID Barcode prices attached to garments, CD’s and Ben10 watches.

So the online stores have a distinct advantage over the offline stores born out of their capacity to adjust prices quickly as FX rates change. The online stores will continue to out-compete Kmart and the likes in volatile FX markets by facilitating this retail price arbitrage now made possible by e-commerce.

What does this mean for your business and what it is that you sell?

We have launched a new Saasu Product Blog in order to help our customers and followers get the specific content they want from Saasu. You can find the Product Blog at productblog.saasu.com (subscribe). Our soapbox opinion and ideas around business, technology and simplification in life will still be found in our Simplify Life Blog at saasu.com/blog (subscribe).

The Saasu Product Blog Will Contain

1. New features and upgrades
2. Voucher Codes for Saasu and Partner products
3. How to’s
4. Connector previews
5. Case studies
6. Using Saasu in the web ecosystem

Why not just have one blog?

Blogs and their content are becoming targeted so consumers of content can choose exactly what streams of information they want to receive. It’s a time poor world we live in. If you want all the Saasu content then just subscribe to both using your Blog/RSS Reader of choice. (What is RSS? | Don’t have a reader?)

I attended a fantastic EOTW conference in Perth, Australia last week (Twitter hash tag #EOTW08). I met some inspiring people like Derek Featherstone the FurtherAhead.com accessibility Gu (A leading Guru) who is also a keen triathlete. I also did a workshop with Google JS/jQuery Gu Cameron Adams (aka The Man in Blue). It was also great to meet Matt Patterson from Freshview (Saasu’s email marketing system). Thanks Matt for the T-shirt!

Many thanks to AWIA for a great event and inviting me over to speak and attend. My talk was about ecosystems, and if there is one ecosystem you must join if you use technology in your business then it’s AWIA.

Here’s my preso I did at the conference which I have posted on slideshare.NET

Saasu was one of the Top 10 Web 2.0 businesses mentioned in Smart Company magazine and website.

It’s always always nice to get a mention but when it’s along side some great companies we look up to like Atlassian and RedBubble it feels great.

The article points out Saasu’s strong growth in new business from offshore. Australia is where we began but as we internationalise to support more zones this is changing very quickly to be an global software as a service business in online accounting software systems.

What things can you do in your business to make it fun for your customers?

Back in 2000 we drew up some plans to make an accounting system a bit like a Monopoly board. The idea being that as your business assets grew you would see an image of you factory grow. Your sales pipeline would expand into a bigger pipe as revenue grew. We wanted to bring some fun to accounting which can otherwise be a tad boring.

Due to the conservative nature of accountants (a good thing, they are just trying to protect their customers in many cases) we decided to hold off on that approach. Another reason was the difficulty in dealing with animation in web interfaces back then while meeting targets on load time for screens. We were also trying to avoid pagination. Pagination is where you show 1-50 of 7,000 transactions as an example and then provide buttons or links to show transactions 51-100 etc. Pagination can be really annoying for customers as we discovered during our user experience surveys.

In 2004 we started using AJAX (it didn’t actually have a name back then) which gave us the speed and flexibility to create a more designed interface and a better perceived speed experience for customers. We still use AJAX extensively in Payroll where editable data sets are smaller but you won’t see it as much in screens that have large editable data sets because it begins to become cost rather than a benefit in load times. The customer experience might be nice but if the screen load is slow the customer will just want to throw the computer out the window.

AJAX still has issues in this area but they are slowly being worked around. New browser like Google Chrome will allow AJAX to be used right across data heavy applications as it is a very efficient in dealing with JavaScript (the J in AJAX).

Being a fan of Wordpress for blogging I really like their spam removal experience. When you click delete it turns red (like slaying the spam dragon) and then slides away off the screen. The destroy feeling is quite good. Gamers amongst you would like it. We implemented this idea back in 2005 into our Payroll and Invoicing modules (without the blood effect).

We are started to work on some UI design changes to give customers a bit more fun in the screens but as always the accessibility will be the controlling factor given our mantra of ensuring the keyboarders aren’t compromised in anyway.

If any of you have suggestions or examples of animation for deletion, creation, edit etc. just let us know as we will be working up our changes to reports and transaction searching/listing over the next few weeks.

Photo credit: Cowbite

If you’re a business owner I recommend attending conferences. The trick is to pick the eyes out of them. I only go to about three a year as either a speaker or a sponsor. So ruthless choices are required. My picks are Barcamp, Edge of the Web and CeBIT.

Edge of the Web is coming up in November (Perth, Australia), brought to you by the Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA). It is designed for business stakeholders trying to create next generation business practices that utilise the web. The people behind Edge of the Web recognise that technology and the web are an integral part of the business model. So often I see business people who think their business is “what” they do rather than “how” they do it.

Nearly all businesses are hybrid technology businesses these days,
they are part technology company and part product or services. The “how” is all about technology.

I’ll be at the conference talking on SaaS (Software as a Service) as an Ecosystem for businesses to operate in. Having your business in the cloud is becoming an integral part of an effective “how” component in your business. Some smart cookies (and coincidently good friends and customers of Saasu) will be there also such as the Madpilot, Myles Eftos and Millstreams, Adrian and Rosemary Lynch. I also hear that Jordan Brock and his 5 Senses Coffee with be there. 5 Senses was at a recent Barcamp, and the coffee experience just made it ultra-pleasant between sessions.

If you are not sure if this applies to you then consider a sole trader services business as an example who has a large portion of what they do dependent on technology. Getting the books done, preparing marketing material, email, franchising, scheduling, managing inventory, procurement, network marketing etc. It’s all about technology.

If you want to get to Perth then Saasu wants to pitch in and help by subsidising the trip a little through a cheaper Saasu subscription. Just use voucher code AWIA-EDGE when you renew or signup to Saasu NetAccounts. We will add 3 months to your business file renewal date once we confirm you have registered for the conference*.

Edge of the Web is on 6th and 7th of November, Perth WA. AWIA members $395, non-members $450.

ASIDE: If you aren’t already an AWIA member then get on board. Saasu did and never looked back. We are now on their committee and can honestly say it has been a great expereience dealing with some amazing web savvy members and receiving so much businesses through our membership.

If you have multiple business files in your subscription it will be pro-rata calculated. Offer ends 6th November 2008. One voucher at a time sorry. This offer can’t be used in conjunction with any other offer.

There is a short-sited view in business that over servicing customers is bad business. Service is a cost is often the cry from management. Some of the behaviours around optimising customer service even aimed at sending customers away to your competitors that fell below your cost of servicing hurdle. Other strategies included forcing people to self serve as much as possible to the point where humans only got involved if anger was imminent. Even the training of staff in customer service roles was about minimum necessary customer assistance in the hope that less customer service head count would be needed for businesses over all.

I have never believed in that philosophy. My late mother, Robyn Lehmann, taught me the lessons as a teenager about customer service. She ran a bakery/newsagency (interesting business model for another post) and I have a photo which I keep close to me of her in a business suit behind the counter serving customers. She raised the service bar beyond most people I have met in business and that bakery was a screaming success. She spent time with her customers and it was authentic time, not time to get sales. A genuine interest, the sales just followed accordingly. Her influence extends deep into the Saasu service ethic.

1. The net has had a huge leverage effect on the power of word of mouth

In the old world if you upset a customer they might tell a handful of people. This new world can result in them telling 100’s or 1000’s as they post their upset on a forum, blog or comment section of an online article. The reverse good word leverage also applies. Happy customers will tell the world through email, blogs, forums and the old fashioned way in person. In essence they have more leverage to spread the word than ever. Good and bad. They are your new age sales team.

2. Service is a Sales Channel

I have written about this before but in summary service allows you to have conversations. These conversations are an opportunity to learn about your customers experience in dealing with your business, it’s people and it’s products. Companies spend lots of money trying to find this information out through market research, surveys, focus groups and the like. You have the power to turn what is often thought of as a cost into a learning experience and a sales channel.

3. If business is about problem solving where do your find out what problems exist?

Customers will tell you their problems, they hold the keys to your business success. Just one little idea or problem can highlight a big business opportunity that can be used across your customer base. Your customers are smart and savvy. They operate under a commercial survival strategy. They see the world through a different set of glasses, from the other side of the counter. Their problems are often different to what you perceive them to be. Customer service is a channel into ideas and problems that you can solve for one customer which then could be leveraged and used for many.

4. Keeping it fresh

Continual contact keeps your business relationships alive. Much like calling a relative every now and then. People love to be loved. People are more likely to think of you and your products or services when you keep in contact at that next point of referral that comes along.

5. Just because you should

Life isn’t just about the money, it’s also about doing the right thing. Money is a bi-product of doing the right thing. Sometimes it isn’t, but mostly it is.

I was going through my e-mail this morning and noticed that I use the “Starred” feature in Gmail to remind me when I promise something to a customer. At Saasu we have started tracking promises using Saasu activities.

I guess as business people we all probably have some room for improvement in fulfilling on promises. Are we tracking our promises well enough? To-do lists capture many of them but what about those fleeting promises that are actually bigger than you think?

You would think all businesses would be great at tracking promises. Especially since most people are very worried about what people think of them and their business. Integrity is probably one of the most important values in a business.

The reason our businesses are less than perfect at keeping and tracking promises is because our businesses a built on people. Those people are only human, they forget, make mistakes, run out of resources to deliver on promises etc. So systems can help with this problem.

At Saasu we track defects, support and feature requests daily. All of which are promises. When we miss promise dates I personally feel it so we are always trying to improve on the system. Sure we could stop promising but that’s just a cop out. Our customers are paying us money to develop, improve and keep ahead.

Create an Activity type called Promises in Saasu.

One way we are doing this is by using Saasu activities to start tracking Promises. You can do this also. Create a Tag called Promise and give it type Activity. Put all your promises into Saasu as Promise Activities. You then have an easy way to list/print/track your promises, due dates and attribute them to the right people.

Anyone got any other ways they track their promises, work or personal?

Pic: Discoodoni on flickr.com

Many customers and partners have asked for simple pricing. So we listened.

We have wanted to free up the restrictions on how many users you add so you help us spread the word. We also want to enable you to have the advisors, bookkeepers and employees and other people you need to help you run your business without having to upgrade each time.

• You no-longer pay for users. Just select how many business files you want.
• You can keep adding users as long as you don’t go too crazy (see fair play).

What’s not in these plans?

Enterprise customers have the higher levels of storage, transaction volumes, and features such as group payroll and e-commerce. Enterprises are charged at higher rates. To find out more about Enterprise features and pricing contact us.

Damn this is cheaper than when I renewed recently!

If you paid recently and you feel the value from these new plans is better just create a help ticket and we’ll give you some free subscription time so your feel better!

Let the frenzy of marketing lessons begin.

Sydney finally has her own Apple flagship store. It is enormous. Right on one of the city central intersections it looks like a lighthouse at night. You can’t miss it.

Sydney is the world’s best city by brand (2 years in a row on ABC), lifestyle (8 years out of 10 on CNN) and especially so now for geeks and business owners since it is also home to Saasu HQ.

The lessons here for marketing any business are fascinating. Focus. Quality. Clarity. Consistency.

Only days after 5,200 Apple geeks meet in San Fran for their WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) when Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone 3G (watch video) will be 36% faster than the latest Nokia and half the price of iPhone today ($199 from $399), Jobs also confirmed that 98% of iPhone users use it for the web, as predicted in this blog ages ago the iPhone platform is a major structural change to the world of web access.

In case you didn’t already know Saasu works on the iPhone and the iTouch, it is the full web application, not a cut down one. So you can do everything on the iPhone that you can do on any desktop or laptop.

Jobs also announced that iPhone 3G will be in 22 countries on July 11 and a total of 70 by year end. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the current 6m iPhone users go up to circa 100m+ by end 2009 (another blog on why another time).

If you go to the Apple Sydney store opening it is 5pm tomorrow (less than 36 hours ago the construction boards were up, now there are loads of apple geniuses running around and customers sleeping outside in line so they are first in tomorrow. TV and other media are already circling. The saasu team will be there of course to answer questions and do the odd demo. While I was there recently the kind apple crew gave umbrellas to those waiting in impending rain outside - well done gang.

Saasu.com is the best value accounting SaaS on the Mac in the world, we love the Apple iPhone too.

So we are offering 3 months bonus FREE to anyone signing up to a paid saasu netaccounts subscription for this week only. Just type APPLEROCKSSYDNEY when you sign up.

Note to Apple environmentally aware staff, please lobby your light house marketing guys to use efficient bulbs (if you don’t already) or turn off those lights when you go home pretty please.

Oh, and a bit of gossip to finish, something else is happening at 5pm tomorrow too. BRW the esteemed business review weekly magazine is launching their special Web 100 edition. Saasu might get a mention…

Imagine the Oscars for geeks. It is great winning awards, but even better to win the most hotly contested award two years running. The CeBIT.AU Business Advantage Award is given to the product or service that provides a clear, immediate and outstanding business benefit to its users regardless of industry segment and spans hardware and software.

A BIG thanks to all the customers and partners who have helped us build an even better application over the last year. Your subscription dollars are hard at work in Saasu Labs.

What CeBIT had to say

The Software as a Service business model swept major categories in the prestigious CeBIT.AU Business Awards 2008, taking the most contested categories and marking SaaS as the hot technology currently in the sector. Saasu.com was nominated for three awards and won the CeBIT.AU Business Advantage Award – arguably the most prestigious of the event – with its Saasu.com accounting package. Saasu.com was also a winner in 2007, with its integrated Net-based financial system that has seen enormous growth since the company exhibited at CeBIT Australia last year. Full CeBIT press release.

More SaaS ecosystem winners

Our friends over at eWay took the CeBIT.AU Excellence in Technology Services Award. eWay is a payments gateway provider. Congrats to Matt Bullock and his team. The eWAY payment gateway service provides secure Online payments and Mail Order processing of credit cards in real time via the Internet.

IPscape won the CeBIT.AU Excellence in Communications Award. IPscape has a Software as a Service product for contact centres. Congratulations to Simon Burke and his team. IPscape provide a SaaS product for contact centres typically less than 100 seats. Like Saasu they take care of upgrades, hardware and maintenance. Services that simplify the way contact centre technology is priced, delivered, and supported.

Photo Credit: CeBIT

The Saasu foundation which donates part of our profit towards charities. One of the charities we support is Kiva, who empower people with micro-finance.

Kiva help developing nations from the ground up. They don’t donate cash, they lend it to entrepreneurs (we relate to these guys!) to help them start a business. Teaching them to fish for themselves (so to speak) rather than throwing them a fish.

One of our first loans on Kiva was recently repaid. Kiva is a great service if you want to make a difference. The best thing is the funds are repaid and then recycled so the model is not only proven to work (impressive statistics on field partners) but it keeps on working.

See how your subscription to Saasu made a small difference to one guy via the Saasu foundation.

Kiva is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit in the US.

Saasu further supports the non-profit, education and health communities though the Saasu DISC program. So if you know anyone in those segments tell them to give us a bell so they can get their free or discounted stuff.

I did some work in Cambodia (in Takeo province outside Phnom Penh) a few years ago as part of some other stuff and they have had a rough time over the years so it is nice to see some progress. Although, with only 3 in every 1,000 people having internet access, that progress is very slow (read about it on Reuters AlertNet).

But don’t just take our word for the fact Kiva do a great job, they also recently won a prestigious Webby which is very cool.

Saasu also had some more praise recently. Our good fortune continues in the form of customer feedback and and also globally recognised industry awards.

On top of the many great comments we get every day for our latest release(see below), we have also been nominated for and listed as finalists for three awards at CeBIT 2008 some of you might remember last year we won the big one

Three of my all time best customer testimonials recently are (paraphrased) -

• We chose Saasu over Netsuite on price (mid market customer)
• We chose Saasu over Zoho on features (small business customer), particularly Saasu Catch
• We chose Saasu over MYOB on ease of use and because it is online (small business customer)

This demonstrates at the coal face the Saasu productivity and cost benefits. Our unique delivery model is really performing for businesses and individuals.

Now for the fun stuff. Saasu has made the finals for three CeBIT 2008 awards -

• Business Advantage Award - Saasu.com is a finalist and made the final 5
• Excellence in Technology Services Award - Saasu.com is a finalist and made the final 4
• Platinum Award for Export Excellence - Saasu.com is a finalist and made the final 2

Thanks to all of those who support the Saasu foundation via our products. Congrats to Kiva and Boun Kim Loun. Oh, and fingers crossed for the CeBIT 2008 awards.

Internet failures (also known as digital brown out) can happen anywhere. The recent and very topical Bankstown cable break incident is a good reminder to keep your Business Continuity Plan (BCP) up to date. This was a Sydney event affecting 5,000 people ore more but obviously can happen anywhere.

One of our much admired customers, Working Solo’s Leah Maclean* posted on the event and made some good points so we thought it was time we let you know our thoughts on the topic.

What can you do when the Net goes down?

There are a surprisingly large number of ways to deal with the Net being down. It’s interesting how humans quickly find efficient solutions to problems that face them in business. Being a SaaS company, web connectivity is very important. If the net does go down it isn’t totally crippling, it’s just inconvenient because there are lots of options to deal with it these days.

If local wired internet access fails in your business try these steps -

1. Go wireless, most businesses have a USB wireless internet dongle or a WiFi internet account for sales purposes anyway
2. Go to the cafe, most businesses have a cafe nearby that offers their own (or sponsored) WiFi access or an internet cafe as per those used by the backpacker community
3. Go home, most people have cable internet at home now or if not at home then a close family member
4. Go to a partner, most businesses have close trading counter-parties that they deal with who wouldn’t mind you using a desk for a day
5. Go to a serviced office, spend a few dollars and get access at a bureau or a few weeks at a serviced office, they are surprising inexpensive
6. Go to your IT provider and ask them to lend you a desk and a net connection or recommend somewhere

Your fault or theirs? Thank goodness for SaaS

The above list translates to many alternatives as a result of having your data with a high quality SaaS provider because it is usually the subscriber (i.e. you) that has the problem. Sometimes, very rarely it is on the SaaS provider’s end because one of the connections to the NOC (network operations centre/center) fails. This is usually not an issue though because most of the tier one NOC’s have redundant links into them from different directions by different carriers in hardened cable carriers to different Telco’s and then once it gets to the Telco each of them has multi routes to their peer Telco’s too.

A good SaaS provider has meshing resilience. This meshing prevents any single (or multiple even) breaks impacting the total service. We wrote about our amazing strengths in this area recently.

As Transaction Cross Docking (TCD) becomes more common place (because it makes so much sense) this stuff is crucial because it will be global distributed connected communities of millions not just thousands that are impacted.

All this compares well to the old world where you had stuff on your local server and a power or Telco outage to your premises meant no business no email and moving your server the old way - with a forklift!

* Working Solo’s Leah Maclean works with small business to grow their confidence and their success. Leah is a design and technology advisor to clever business women who want to do more and know more in the online world.

Just a quick note to say thanks to all our blog readers!

The saasu blog is now in the top 0.32% of all blogs on the planet.

Our site is in the top 1.84% by traffic globally.

We have also popped into the first page on Google globally for some search terms.

In return, please accept our humble ‘video link gift’ below in addition to our earlier free CeBIT tickets.

Google strategy insights

It’s definitely worth watching this little gem. A unique bit of insight about how the gurus at Google are thinking on business strategy, product and customers. It came out some time ago but it’s still completely relevant for nearly all business owners today. It’s not just a tech thing.

It’s a video of Seth Godin speaking to a bunch of Google insiders on some strategic topics close to our heart. Seth is one of our favourite bloggers. We have written about his other important work previously.

Thanks again for your support. You are helping us build a truly global product that makes lives better. We can always do better though, so help us by giving feedback on what you want us to do.

Only one month to go! It is that time of year again, Cebit is coming to Sydney 35,000 wild business and technology people from around 60 countries in a frenzy of new and cool stuff in one place.

CeBIT is THE International Trade Show for Information Technology, Telecommunications, Software and Services. In other words, if you want to geek-out or get a real competitive advantage for your business you will love it.

Last year was good

Last year Saasu won the one and only highly prized ‘excellence in innovation platinum award’ for our flagship product NetAccounts. We were going to insert lots of other blatant boasting and superlatives here but thought that was probably more than you can take already.

This year will be even better

This year there will be something like 750 exhibitors from 20+ countries.

This year we will be speaking at the conference in the Transaction 2.0 section, chairing a session and of course exhibiting.

Best of all, as part of the Saasu foundation work we do, Saasu will be the sole green sponsor for the event, we are making the venue carbon neutral for the event for EVERY EXHIBITOR just so we can say we did our bit. Gold standard of course.

Special Bonus (or two)

As a special bonus you can register free as a friend of Saasu just quote code SAASUCA08 and you will get in free which is a fairly substantial saving off the normal door price of $40.

If you visit us at the show you will receive an extra month on your subscription for new and current customers! We will be asking all our visitors two questions - what do they like most about saasu today and what would they like to see in our coming releases?

You will also be able to see our latest release demonstrated and talk to the experts about your needs, wants, desires and passions in the field of financial management success.

Finding Saasu at CeBIT

So do drop by stand S45, on the main aisle right next to our mates from salesforce.com (in case you have been living in a cave and hadn’t already heard, saasu integrates instantly with salesforce).

We are smack bang in the middle of the main business-software/e-finance/CRM section which takes up most of halls 4 and 5.

Want to know more?

We thought you might so here is a taste of what you will see, watch the videos or read some more
from the CeBIT marketers -

CeBIT Australia 2008 is the largest and most important business-to-business technology event in the region. Join 35,000 business professionals at CeBIT Australia this year to understand, analyse, sample and select the right technology solutions for your business’s future success.

Finding the right solutions has never been easier, CeBIT Australia is organised into 30 show floor categories – ranging from CRM, VoIP, e-Marketing & Search Engine Optimisation, Web Applications to Open Source – making it the number one stop for business professionals seeking the competitive advantage.

* 150 FREE show-floor Seminars
* International Keynote Speakers
* Business Networking
* Interactive Panel Sessions
* 6 High-Level Conferences
* 750+ Solution Providers
* 5000+ Technology Experts
* 30 Show Floor Categories

Visiting CeBIT Australia 2008 will teach you how to make your ICT investment work for you

* Get more out of your website
* Unleash the power 2.0
* Retain your top talent
* Discover online trading
* Slash your communications costs
* See next-gen CRM systems
* Learn about Green IT

And much, much more… most importantly you will arm yourself with knowledge that will give you the power to take your business to next level!

See you @ CeBIT Australia,
20 – 22 May 2008
Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre,
Darling Harbour

Saasu is connecting to Professional and Social Networks (PSN) including; LinkedIn, Myspace, Facebook, Bebo and Orkut. The beauty of SaaS is it enables these types of advantages.

In the contact screen you will see new icons you can click to check out your contact in various social networks covering over 200 million people already.

I’ll concentrate on LinkedIn today since it is the most professional centric network. Professional and Social Networking really is a far too simplistic simplistic way of describing LinkedIn.

Here are some observations we’ve made in recent times. We would love comment on these points as we believe this has ramifications for product development in Saasu applications. A lot of them relate to the fact your research can be anonymous but connections are permissioned.

If you need to know more about permission, start with Seth Godin because he wrote about it early and well. Permission marketing is changing the world.

Keep track of people you know and like

The simple and best reason to use LinkedIn. You know where people are as they move from one job or city to another. It can be everything from an online business intelligence assistant to an international (or local) research tool to an online CV/resume or yet another contact database. Best of all is it doesn’t stop there, you see who knows who.

Research accelerates the ‘getting to know you’ process for new contacts

LinkedIn closes the knowledge gap you have about candidates, employees, prospects, partners, suppliers and customers. This enhances the legitimacy of the contact. It accelerates you along the getting to know you curve. It can help move you a bit further ahead at your first face to face meeting because you already know more things you have in common, locations, employers, clubs, education, sport and more.

Get personal by de-institutionalising contacts

For a long time companies have not wanted to share ownership of customer and prospect relationships with their employees. These relationships have been owned by the company. LinkedIn allows employees (especially professionals with an eye to having their own business eventually) to de-institutionalise their contacts, taking back some of the dollar value from their employees balance sheet back to their own. A two edged sword of course. Transparency is the biggest winner.

Stay fresh reduce your contact half life

Keeping loose contact fresh is quite difficult. When systematised in a social network the expectation of freshness of permission is enhanced. When you hear from someone through LinkedIn your little shoulder devil says “this person is ok, because you permissioned them”. That same communication via phone would sometimes have the shoulder devil saying “Who is this person? How did they get my number?”. Permissioning extends credibility of contact.

Degree’s of separation permissioning

Linked in creates a new type of commercial relationship legitimacy. Invited recipients will tend to accept being network beneficiaries themselves. The established connection has value, an unrealised dollar value. It costs us anywhere from $0.10 to $100 to get a permissioned contact in most businesses so connections in social tools are real permissioned assets. Let’s be honest about this, it’s just good business. Participants in the LinkedIn community can monetise their connections via sales and marketing activities. This is the conversion of unrealised value into realised value because a certain percentage of those interactions result in sale and thus revenue. You are converting your virtual inventory of permissioned contacts into your revenue line. The beauty being that virtual inventory can be resold to, it doesn’t require a cost of goods sold entry to re-acquire another permissioned contact. Don’t think of it just as product sales. It could be a better career, some venture capital, a new partner, and of course selling your product.

Channel Degradation - BACN

If you plan to use LinkedIn for sales bear in mind that there is a direct relationship between frequency and value of the permissioned contact set you have. Your behaviour could become known as a commercial version of spam called BACN. Equally, as more participants use the medium for sales and marketing activities the value of the connections will diminish. You only have to look at the C2C social networks to see how this can happen. Permissioned spammers (BACN) looking for love from your wallet wears thin real quick.

New ways of looking at non-so-new information

Check out the company profile pages on any major company on LinkedIn. You can see who is who and any changes. Recently LinkedIn moved to formalise companies and organisations in their network for the benefit of data rigour, their members and themselves. It was a good move, it cleans up the problem where many users add they workplace to their profile resulting in 100’s of version of that work place where picking it from a list would be better. In short companies and organisations are now centrally managed. A great benefit of this is that the tracking of organisations over their lifecycle will be very accurate versus some of the rubbish you get from old style directory providers Yellowpages and Whitepages.

Gartner, arguably one of the most respected research firms globally has given the iPhone the big OK for use by big companies for their applications.

The link above is kindly provided by Cebit, we are presenting soon at Cebit 2008 and we won the coveted platinum excellence in innovation award there last year.

We commented recently and accurately in this blog on the earth shattering impact of the iPhone web access demonstrated with hard numbers, so this endorsement by Gartner is no surprise to the team here at saasu but it is a huge green light for businesses all around the world, not just the big end of town.

This is another reason saasu made the right decision getting the current release of saasu working on the apple itouch (ipod that looks like iphone but without the phone). See the saasu netaccounts on iphone demo video a happy saasu customer made even before we announced it.

It is also why the new release of saasu includes integration with google maps and hundreds of millions of people’s profiles on the big Professional and Social Networking (PSN) sites. More on that tomorrow.

The whole world is getting more saas-y, not just the big end of town. Now you can run your multi country business on your iphone with the SaaS Ecosystem including Saasu.

For an industry segment that used to be geek central, most of our new sales are now from non-tech firms and non-tech people in those firms.

On a lighter note we now also have a potential theme movie for the Saas industry - Saas Girl or similar in name at least - is about to be released, watch the saasy girl trailer.

We are also working on a marketing idea for saas girl and saas guy but more on that later, anticipation is half the fun.

If you are in business that uses serious amounts of tech on a day to day basis then Barcamp Sydney is a great way to learn from (and even contribute back into) the IT industry.

Barcamp Sydney is a free event for you thanks to the event sponsors. The idea is that you can present for 15 minutes on a relevant topic and also listen to the dozens of presenters over two days. There are some really interesting topics lined up on social media, social capital, web services, coding, community and entrepreneurship. This is just a sample that will occur across 3 or 4 presentation rooms. Pick and choose your interests. I will be there as a presenter on the topic of Productivity 2.0 in business.

Saasu is also a sponsor of the carbon offsets required to make it a sustainable event via our Saasu Foundation

Date: 5th and 6th April 2008
Time: 9:00 am - 5:30pm
Venue: Roundhouse at UNSW on Anzac Pde, Kensington, Sydney.

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