The Indicee Blog

Choose Your Own Management Dashboard

by Geoff Devereux on April 30th, 2010

The trend online is for “make it yourself” everything!  It works because the tools are EASY TO USE.

In minutes, you could go into Google Apps and create a blog.  With a few more clicks of the mouse, you could create a place to share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with friends.  Then, you can go to Google Analytics and track the web traffic to your blog.  It doesn’t have to be Google, look at any of the websites you use on a regular basis.

Think about the websites you frequent on a regular basis as an individual.  Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter.

What do they have in common?

They are easy to use and they let you self-select what information will enter your field of vision.

It reminds me of those old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books I read as a kid.  Everyone gets the same book.  And then the reader decides where to let the adventure take them.  Same as the new generation of web applications.  Everyone gets the same framework and then you follow your interests.

Therefore, the framework needs to be big enough to encompass a variety of interests and needs, but the customization has to be easy enough to bring focus to any one individual user BY the user.  As easy as turning a page is optimal.

We’re using this same philosophy to guide our Management Dashboard feature.

A general framework that applies to all users.  But the ability for each user to assemble the information most suited to their purpose as simply as turning a page.  In our time & place, I guess we are more likely to say, as easy as a click.

You can choose from any of your existing reports.  Just click.

A dashboard is all about getting the most relevant, actionable information in front of you NOW.  Simple.  Clear.  Concise.

Have you tried our Dashboards?

Enjoy!

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Filed under: Analytics, Dashboards, Indicee Product, Management Dashboards
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Under The Radar Goes Over Well!

by Geoff Devereux on April 20th, 2010

Occasionally (when warranted), we aren’t above tooting our own horn and this is one of those times.  Last week, Mark (our CEO) was down in Mountain View, CA for a technology conference called Under The Radar.  In the past 3 years, companies selected to present at Under The Radar have gone on to raise over $1.36 Billion.  The organizers work closely with some of Silicon Valley’s leading Venture Capital firms to share information about emerging start-ups and innovators.

With the entire office cheering him on via UStream, Mark brought his A-game and knocked it out of the park!

We were awarded the Judge’s Choice Award for the Analytics category!

It’s a privilege to receive this sort of recognition and we really appreciate it.

As well, we received some very kind words from the panel moderator, Jeremy Toeman - an expert in consumer lifestyle technology:

“I think Indicee’s website did the best job of the presenters now of radically, clearly saying what you do.  Specifically that is… Easy Business Intelligence Reporting.  Boom!  I get it! Done.”

The presentation included a bit of background on our team and B.I. pedigree, the challenges of B.I., the pain of spreadsheets, and the cure!

Here’s the presentation guys:

And the slidedeck:


Indicee_Under_the_Radar_v2.1_nobuild_opt –

And lastly, we’ve fished out some of tweets streaming during the Analytics session:

Enjoy!

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Filed under: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Events, Industry Insights
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The Roots of Business Reporting Technology

by Geoff Devereux on April 15th, 2010

Last week, I wrote a guest blog post for the accounting news website Going Concern.  The post centered on an old accounting book (circa. 1968) that I happened upon in a used book store up in British Columbia’s version of Cottage Country.

Reviewing this relic got me wondering about what technology might have accompanied the practice of accounting detailed in the book.

Ready?

Here it is guys:

And:

That’s it.

But where the principles of accounting have remained substantially unchanged over the course of the intervening years, the same cannot be said for business technology.

According to the timeline provided on www.oldcalculatormuseum.com, the development of electronic calculators really only just started to take off around 1961 (you can thank the invention of the integrated circuit - the microchip).  This was BRAND NEW technology.  Previous calculator technology had been manual.


Manual Calculator; Photo: Christos Vittoratos (via Wikimedia Commons)

By the time this book was written, there were a dozen companies creating and innovating new models and the competition to capture the new market was fierce.  Casio, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Texas Instruments, Canon, and of course Hewlett Packard; all of these guys were battling it out.  Numerous others are buried in technology’s graveyard.

Needless to say, things have never been the same since.

Accounting and business reporting as we know it today has grown from the roots of this technological revolution.

Business technology has continued to grow by leaps and bounds since that time, but don’t be fooled into thinking there’s no room left to branch out.  The fact you are on our website leads me to believe you’re at least willing to entertain the notion of continuing innovation in business technology.  Safe to assume?

The reason behind this little trip down Memory Lane is that everyday here at Indicee, as we innovate for the future, we can’t help but bump up against the past.  Not the ancient history I’ve outlined above,  we’re confronting the incumbent technology.  We’re confronting the stuff that is likely downloaded on your machine today.

In retrospect, it’s easy to see the value an innovation like the electronic calculator brought to the workplace.  It’s easy to look back and immediately recognize how important this innovation was for business.  Had you been there at that time, you would have jumped on it!  Would you not? You would have jumped on it and tossed your old, manual calculator in the first dumpster you could find!  Right?

Yet, this sort of reaction is rarely the case when new technologies come to market, isn’t it?  When new technologies show up isn’t there normally a great deal of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD)?  Isn’t there normally a great deal of resistance to change?

What’s your view?

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Filed under: Accounting, Technology
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Reviewing the Refresh – A Look Back at F5 Expo

by Geoff Devereux on April 9th, 2010

This past Wednesday was the 1st F5 Expo in Vancouver. The event was billed as a conference for business executives on changing technologies in the online space. In retrospect, I think it’s fair to say the inaugural F5 was as much about finding its own identity as it was about technology.  You can’t grow without growing pains.

Overall, it was a very good event and shows a great deal of potential for the future!

The event was attended by 1000+ enthusiastic area business people.  It was a highly energized crowd and everyone was keen to learn and connect.  The conference really highlighted for me something I’ve noticed the past few years in Vancouver.  There seems to be a… realization, for lack of a better word, that NOW is our time to shine.  I think the organizers very successfully keyed in on this, no pun intended.

The line up of speakers and panelists was fantastic.

Tod Maffin, noted strategist, technologist, author, and speaker opened the show.  Although I missed the talk, based on the tweets I saw, I can only characterize his message as a cautionary tale.  I think Ferris Bueller said it best, “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

And Malcolm Gladwell closed the show.  Another cautionary tale, you can find details of his talk on Techvibes and the Vancouver Sun.  I think he sums up nicely when he says, the internet is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I managed to make it to 2 panel sessions.

The first was on Cloud Computing where our very own, Mark Cunningham, contributed to a discussion on the technology.  Mark was joined by Howie Wu, CEO of Layerboom and by Ryan Storgaard, Microsoft’s Director of Cloud Services Strategy.  The moderator was Rajan Sodhi, VP of Marketing for the hosting company Peer 1.  Mark commented to me afterward that there probably should have been 2 Cloud sessions.  One that dealt with Cloud for Business Users and one that dealt with Cloud for Techies.  The result would be two very different discussions.  And I think that nicely sums it up.  You can find some of Indicee’s thoughts on cloud here, here, and here.  If I had to pick one thing from that a Business User would be wise to take away from the session, it’s Howie’s explanation that Cloud “turns fixed costs into variable costs”.

The second session I attended was a panel on Avoiding Start-up Pitfalls.  This was a bit self-indulgent on my part seeing as I work for a start-up and have worked for a bunch of start-ups over the past 5 years.  The panel was comprised of Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite - the Twitter client, Danny Robinson, Managing Director of Bootup Labs - the incubator fund, and Michael Fergusson, CEO of Ayogo Games - social and mobile gaming, and moderated by Carisa Miklusak, co-founder of SoMedios - social media consultancy firm.  This panel definitely wins the prize for best soundbites at F5!  Here’s a sampling (I’m paraphrasing a bit, still waiting on my tricked-out recording device):

Danny: Equity is rarely a 50/50 deal with co-founders. Have the conversation early when you have nothing to lose.

Michael: The CEO has to be the top salesperson in a start-up.

Ryan: Kill your customers with a dull pencil (avoid the customization trap).

All: Business plans are dubious at best.

Danny: Take the cheapest money you can get.    

And: It’s not the firm who funds you, it’s the partner at the firm.

Michael: The worse possible outcome is a lingering death.  If your start-up is going to fail, make sure to fail well.

This last point reminds me of a recent Globe and Mail video of Mark Evans interviewing Roger Martin on innovation.  According to Martin, “to innovate you have to court failure”.  Roger Martin is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto.

You know, this may actually sum up the whole conference.  To innovate you have to court failure.

We would like to sincerely thank the organizers of F5 Expo, and all the participants, speakers, sponsors, and everyone who helped make this event possible.  You guys did a great job and have continued to step up and take risk in order to bring out the best in Vancouver!

For more reviews from F5 check out:

Gillian Shaw: iPad apps: Made in BC

Middle Child Marketing: F5 Expo Review

Kiwano Marketing: Best of Social Media Metrics

Flickr: Jeremy Lim

Twitter: #F5Expo and #F5cloud

If you know of other URLs with F5 reviews, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Enjoy!

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Filed under: Cloud Computing, Events, culture
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