“I sell a product to a market that doesn’t want it, but is forced by law to buy it.” – Dan Meyer

Watching his talk, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to the way the Business Intelligence concepts and methodologies have traditionally been presented to non-techies.  Is it just a matter of complex tools?  Or is it deeper?

“The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill”  – Albert Einstein

Meyer references this quote by “the man”, Albert Einstein.  Can you think of how B.I. manages the formulation of data schemas, hierarchical data models, nesting, etc?  Bust open a textbook or Wikipedia, read it, then ask yourself, how engaging would this content be to someone who:

1. Lacks initiative

2. Lack perserverance

3. Lacks retention

4. Has an aversion to word data problems

5. Eagerness for formula reporting output

Meyer highlights these factors as being emblematic of his captive audience in the classroom.  I’ve made a couple of adjustments to tweak the context to that of B.I.  If you don’t agree that these factors apply equally to the vast majority of business users of B.I., please speak up.

Advances in technology are creating the ability to put the tools into the hands of the end user.  Our technology is proof of that; however, we still have some serious work to do on the owner’s manual.

For example, How would you deconstruct the process of building a data hierarchy to facilitate creation of a Data Mart?

I’ve recently started volunteering with Junior Achievement teaching business concepts to 5th graders.  You can see the attention of my little budding capitalists wax and wane throughout the session.  They haven’t yet learned to hide their expressions so when they “check out” it’s pretty obvious. But I’m glad for it.  I know exactly when I need to inject some PT Barnum into the act.

Let’s do the same for Business Intelligence.

Here’s Dan Meyer’s suggestions for fixing math education delivery.  Let’s do the same and give Business Intelligence class a makeover.

The Fix

1. Use multimedia

2. Encourage students business users intuition

3. Ask the shortest question you can

4. Let students business users build the problem

5. Be less helpful

I encourage you to watch the whole talk (below):

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Business Intelligence Adds a Dimension to Your Strategy
2. Defining Business Intelligence
3. Crowing about Business Intelligence

Here are a few of my conference observations:

Cloud computing is moving to the forefront of the Sage product strategy. In his keynote presentation, Himanshu Palsule, EVP of product strategy and marketing, called cloud computing one of two major trends to capitalize upon and introduced Sage North America’s cloud-based “connected services” as a key product strategy pillar. Connected services take “the richness of on-premise applications and connect to the reach of cloud-based services.” The launches of Sage SalesLogix Cloud and Sage Fundraising Online are examples of Sage dipping a toe in the “cloud” water (does that make it “rain”?)

Visitors at Indicee's booth at Sage Insights keenly interested in Cloud BI....or maybe Craig was sharing another uproarious story from trade shows past.

Business intelligence continues to gain in prominence within the Sage community. This year’s conference featured an entire presentation track dedicated to business intelligence, analysis, and reporting. And if the buzz at the Indicee booth was any indication, the opportunities for cloud-based analysis and reporting solutions are immense. Business partners outlined the challenges that clients are facing when it comes to creating and updating reports especially when the data resides in multiple systems such as Sage ERP MAS or Sage ERP Accpac and SageCRM. Conversations also revealed that the complexity and costs of typical on-premise BI solutions are often barriers to adoption.

Sage ERP Accpac – still near and dear to me – continues to garner much attention as the ERP of the future (very near future with Version 6 beta just around the corner); the slick user interface and improved workflow continue to impress. Kudos to the product team under the leadership of Scott Zandbergen, Erik Kaas, Alok Tyagi, and others.

The Simply Accounting group under the stewardship of Jamie Sutherland continues to be one of the most innovative teams in the Sage family. They have followed up on the success of Billing Boss, the online invoicing tool, with a mobile payment processing solution called Payment Boss.

Sage continues to be the “partner’s choice” for top vendor–forthrightness, integrity, and accessibility are a few of the words that come to mind to describe Sage. Speaking with fellow attendees and trolling the online forums, common themes are the positive feeling about the Sage team and a real bullishness about the Sage strategy.

A big shout-out to the entire Sage team for pulling off another successful Insights conference. Can’t wait until Sage Summit 2011 in DC.

Keep dialed into this channel for more Indicee news including the upcoming launch of our iPhone & iPad mobile reporting application (incidentally, Himanshu indicated that mobility was the other key trend influencing Sage product direction).

Scott Pledger

Related posts:

1. Wrapping Sage Summit in Atlanta
2. F5 Expo to host Cloud Computing panel April 7, 2010
3. Indicee for 2010 : New look, New product, New offerings

Recently, someone kindly pointed out that B.I. is actually DETERMINISTIC as opposed to intelligent by its very nature…. being just a construct of rules and structure within an IT system.

This comment was brought about through a discussion around creating B.I. solutions, what is a good approach.

The talk actually ended sounding more like a Philosophy class than an IT group.  Inductive and deductive reasoning.  Asking questions.  Treating matters objectively.

Stuff about helping management understand their own strategy by questioning manifest business processes.  In order to arrive at answers to seemingly imponderable business questions.  Things like, “What are your business goals?”

Some Focus Points

- Let outcomes guide decisions

- Let goals guide focus

- Let value guide priority

* NORTH STAR Business Intelligence

The above-mentioned firm put on a talk through TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) in Vancouver last Friday and I was fortunate enough to attend.  For anyone local who is looking to better understand the B.I. space, these monthly meetings are a good start.  The local chapter is fairly “young”, but it’s been growing and I’ve got to say, the meeting was quite interesting.

Some other points that jumped out were:

- B.I. is a technical issue, but success is a human issue

- Always keep the broader vision in mind

- Understand that business processes, definitions, and meanings change over time

- Greenfield B.I. projects have an advantage [over existing systems (i.e. no baggage)]

- Think big picture, work the details

and – Choose for impact!

It appears the growing consensus in this group is that the technical barriers aren’t what is standing in the way of getting good B.I. spread all throughout the organization.  But it’s organizational psychology that sometimes stinks.

There’s a delicate balance that has to be struck.  Top management don’t want to feel like they are being lectured, or questioned.  But it’s education and Socratic inquiry that are required if the end B.I. solution is going to work.

In my view, part of the difficulty is that management doesn’t necessarily have their strategy worked out to the level of detail really required to get a “perfect” solution.  There’s a lot of moving parts regardless of business size.  But don’t look at me I’m just a software vendor.

Do you think I could be counted on to whip business strategy into shape?

Anyway you slice it, I think B.I. and strategy will always be inextricably linked.  As mentioned in the talk, these are tied into part of a feedback loop.

Helpful to remember this stuff.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Business Intelligence class needs a makeover
2. Defining Business Intelligence
3. Crowing about Business Intelligence

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!

Related posts:

1. F5 Expo to host Cloud Computing panel April 7, 2010
2. Reflecting upon Sage Insights 2010
3. Business Intelligence Adds a Dimension to Your Strategy

It’s a busy time.  It can be frantic!

But remember that it’s also a time for reflection.

Lately, I’ve been spending a great deal of time delving deeply into the world of Business Intelligence (B.I.). One of the most prevalent themes within the B.I. space right now is the concept of Predictive Analytics: using B.I. software to use historical information to predict future events. This concept has actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Who wouldn’t want a Crystal Ball?  In the stock trading world, you can look to the guys we call “Technical Traders” as an example of how Predictive Analytics might model.

The point is that everyone wants to look into the future, but remember we first need to understand the past. Looking back on a periodic basis should be a healthy exercise from which insights can be gained. Quarter end is an opportunity to do so.

Move beyond idle navel gazing, the blame game, and compliance for compliance sake. What can you learn from the quarter?

For instance, I’ve been writing in this space for 6 months now.  I took the opportunity yesterday to look back at some of my early posts.  What I learned is that recently I’ve been so engrossed in the B.I. world, I’ve been forgetting my roots.  I’m not a B.I. guy by trade.  The whole point of Indicee is to bring B.I. out of the industry bubble and “to the masses”.  Instead, the B.I. industry has been pulling me into its world!

Time to take a step back.

With that, I’ve pulled a selection of 5 early posts from the vault.  Please share your thoughts!

1. Spreadsheet Nation

The idea was simple enough, write a short post about the role of spreadsheets in organizations.  More accurately, write about the role of Excel in organizations. I’m trying to provide a frame of reference from which readers can gain perspective on what Indicee does.  My thinking was, I could provide a bit of historical context (background of VisiCalc and Lotus 1,2,3 – the original electronic spreadsheets from the days when you actually had to use the word “electronic” in order to differentiate the thing from a paper spreadsheet), then a colourful anecdote about one or two of my favourite “Excel moments”(to illustrate some of the benefits and drawbacks to spreadsheet use), some stats on spreadsheet proliferation, end off with an introduction to the concept of datamarts, and Bob’s Your Uncle, point made.  Readers could use the comfort and familiarity of the spreadsheet concept to relate to the new concept of Indicee.  I figured the most difficult part of the whole exercise would have been choosing just one title for the post.

I was contemplating something like:

• Confessions of an Excel Jockey
• Fathers of Invention; The Mother of All Spreadsheets
• or Ghosts of Spreadsheets Past
  

What is difficult, complex, or nuanced about that?

2. The Meaningful Scorecard

“Finding the one or two key numbers that drives success in your business, and bringing them to everyone is very powerful in a business”
– Joe Knight, co-author of Financial Intelligence

The inspiration for this post was a management improvement video (13 minutes) posted on You Tube by http://www.harvardbusiness.org of an interview with Joe Knight, co-author of the book series “Financial Intelligence”, Business Owner, and Harvard Business.org blogger.  The central message of the interview was that everyone in an organization benefits from understanding the numbers by which success is measured within a business.  The trick is finding the right numbers.  Particularly in today’s climate hearing about transparency is nothing new, but what doesn’t get as much play is this idea of narrowing the focus on measures of performance.

With respect to the numbers: Thanks to technology, we now have ALL the numbers available ALL the time. Reports have become super-robust because they can.  Although there’s an argument for providing surplus information and letting the end user choose which parts to digest, there is also a great danger.  Knight argues that providing less information to end users can actually produce better business intelligence.  The process of asking the questions and finding the underlying systems within an operating group can enable a more focused, effective approach to providing reports. First, understand the work flow and underlying system of work for operations groups; then, develop measures around them.  It’s easy to say, but when was the last time these conversations have taken place in your business?

“Business is like a game, and if you don’t understand the finances, you’re basically playing a game where you don’t know score”
- Joe Knight

According to Knight the emphasis should be, and this is where the interview really resonates with me, on providing a small number of operational metrics in a simple way and providing them to everyone.  He rightly points out that the people receiving this information probably don’t want to be accountants, and have little or no interest in double-entry accounting “no matter how exciting it may appear to be”.  For Accounting and Finance guys like us, it then becomes an exercise of translating Business Intelligence into Practical Intelligence in the reports we create to achieve an optimal value.  It would be like one of us attending an advanced physics lesson.  We would get way more out of it if someone simply dropped an apple on our heads.  Sometimes less is more.

3. Sun Tzu’s Cash Burn

The Art of War, Chapter 2: Waging War

“Sun Tzu said: In general, the strategy for employing the military is this:

If there are 1,000 4-Horse Attack Chariots, 1,000 Leather-armoured Support Chariots,
100,000 Mailed Troops, and Provisions are transported 1,000 li, then the domestic and external campaign expenses, the expenditures for advisors and guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, and providing chariots and armour will be 1,000 pieces of gold per day.

Only then can an army of 100,000 be mobilized.” *

* Sawyer’s translation

As an accountant who has worked in a bunch of technology start-ups; when I read this, the first thing I do is try to extrapolate Sun Tzu’s Quarterly Burn Rate.  It’s a bit tougher to try and calculate Cash Zero date seeing as, if the campaign is successful, you will have gained “the masses of All Under Heaven” – AKA “priceless”.

After spending a fair bit of time getting to know Indicee lately, the next thing that naturally came to mind was whether Sun Tzu’s Accounting system ties to his ERP system.  If he has Pieces of Gold in one system and Numbers of Men in another, he could be spending a ton of time cutting and pasting reports in Excel to get his Departmental Salary Breakdown by Headcount!

4. Bringing Design Thinking to Accounting and Finance

Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success.

(There are number of definitions out there, but I think the above serves the purpose)

There’s a lot of Buzz around the concept of Design Thinking at the moment.  A great deal of content has been produced, but I’m not sure how much has been directed toward the accounting and finance community.  During the past 2 years for us, listening to someone talk about “radical innovation” usually entailed mostly hand-wringing and, well, … expletives.  It’s understandable to have missed some of this.

So, I’m not sure how much about the topic has filtered in.  Maybe that’s a good discussion point for the comments:

• How much of the Design Thinking paradigm has filtered into the accounting and finance community?
• How applicable is this school of thought to accounting and finance?
• Do you believe there is a place for Design Thinking in accounting?

5. Ghost of Software Salesguys Past

We are greatly influenced by our experiences.  As a child, the hand reaches out to a hot stove only once.

The last couple posts have talked about legacy issues; legacy IT systems, legacy education.  Today I’d like to talk about another actor in the Legacy IT Show, the classic software salesman (circa. 2004).

This guy (above) may or may not be selling software, but does the song and dance sound familiar? I’ve sat on both sides of the table. Listening to salesguys pitch software to me as a purchaser, and doing the accounting & finance work in a company selling enterprise software.  Software, as an industry, is still an infant relative to most other industries; and with youth, comes growing pains.  Here’s the story on both sides.

Listening to pitches, sitting through demos, taking notes only to be asked by a Director, “what would it cost if we just built our own?” was crushing.  Or, hearing about how easy a rollout will be (“it’s like lego”) and then, months later, hearing about how it won’t do all that stuff we thought it would do.  Did we send out that cheque yet?

On the sell-side, working with salesmen who could barely operate a computer or use excel well enough to complete an expense report.  There was one colleague who seemed to continually be calling me from the middle of a war zone, god bless ‘em.  The path to hell is paved with good intentions, indeed.

Over the years, I think we were selling more than software. We were selling a dream. And the dream was that somehow this product would magically work and fix all reporting and organizational problems. Presto!

———————————-

Again, let me know your thoughts guys! Do these posts help? Hurt? Are you indifferent? Keyboard froze? Are you “reflecting”?

Let me know!

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Spreadsheet Nation
2. Business Reporting ≠ Dishwasher Job
3. Running the gauntlet of Year End Business Reporting

The one-day conference is aimed at business executives interested in the latest trends in the online space.  This year’s focus is social media, search marketing, mobile applications, and (our favourite) cloud computing.

Our CEO, Mark Cunningham, will be joining a panel of local “digerati” in the cloud space to share insights into where cloud computing came from and where it’s going!

Tickets are still available! You can check out the Tradeshow, the Sessions, or the Full Meal Deal that includes taking in the Keynote Address on Innovation by Canada’s own Malcolm Gladwell!

Register here.

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. Reviewing the Refresh – A Look Back at F5 Expo
2. Cloud Computing Enables Self-serve BI
3. Is Cloud Computing in your Company Culture?

Here’s my thoughts on the day.

For the uninitiated, Cloudcamps are workshop-based events where the participants decide the curriculum at the beginning of the day.  Then, they spend the rest of the day talking about their main areas of interest with respect to “Cloud Computing“.  This can even include spirited, in fact heated, debate about how one defines Cloud Computing.

For our purposes, we can define Cloud Computing as what Indicee does! We deliver our software online through your browser.  And, our back office exists pretty much entirely on Amazon Web Services (EC2).  The Cloud. As a side note, I was delighted to hear that EC2 generously donates computing time to University of British Columbia (UBC) students to help build for the future.

That said, like a cloud, the definition is definitely nebulous and within the tech community it’s a moving target (to say the least). On Saturday, Dave Nielsen (Clouderati), stated a good working definition, I think.  Cloud is 1) managed, 2) self-serve and 3) on demand.  Dave is one of the founders of Cloudcamp.

Cloud is the essence of Software as a service, and we, Indicee, are the quintessential Saas provider.  We get all of our computing power and data storage metered like you get electricity from your local utility.

Destination Cloudcamp

So far over 15,000 people have participated in Cloudcamps worldwide.  The events are organized as an “unconference” which means, in short, Embrace The Chaos.  The organizers basically provide a blank canvas (within the context of Cloud) and with the help of an impromptu panel some topics are generated to fill up the breakout sessions later in the day.

Everyone involved brought their A-game so we were able to have a lot of fun collaborating on what the day would end up looking like.  The list of “official” organizers is here, but the cool thing about an unconference is that we ALL became organizers.

In the end seven sessions were defined:

- Intro to Cloud Computing
- Cloud Management & Interoperability
- Designing for the Cloud & Best Practices
- Cloud Computing for Large Enterprises
- Security, Privacy, and Trust
- Scaleable Data Management (SQL vs noSQL)
- Enterprise Integration

If I can, I’d just like to pick out one thing from each of the sessions I attended to give you the flavour of the day.  Looking at my word count, I’m already pushing the bounds of net-friendly postings.  For more info, you can check out the Flip Notes from the day here.

Session #1: Cloud Management & Interoperability

Troy Angrignon kept a blistering pace through this lively roundtable in order to get through the points in good time.  The question of Vendor Lock-in was the overriding concern by a wide margin.  IT-guys are uber-paranoid of being held hostage and having their data held hostage.  It makes sense.  Once bitten, twice shy.  IT has a ton of baggage from the last generation of computing.  I don’t have the hubris to say “it’s different this time”, but I would say the issue is less difficult in a Cloud world than it was in the client/server world.  I hadn’t realized how intense these concerns were.  Good to know.

Session #2: Designing for the Cloud & Best Practices

Without being too facetious, my main takeaway is probably that I was in the wrong session.  This one was more of a how-to with respect to understanding the technology layers that make up a Cloud App; when to expect bottlenecks, and what to do about them.  Looking at the Flip Notes I think the Large Enterprises session would have held more value for me.  Know for next time.  Trevor O and Dave did a good job, it just wasn’t my bag.

Session #3: Scaleable Data Management – SQL or noSQL

I was really looking forward to this session because it had the potential to turn into an epic nerdfight.  All it would have taken is the presence of one militant, dogmatic ideologue on either side of the debate.  Unfortunately, our group was exceedingly rational and brought nuanced and balanced views.  My friend and colleague, Ryan Prociuk, really showed his chops on the subject bringing a ton of knowledge and experience to the group.

I won’t burden you with the gory details of this one.  Suffice to say, database are not one size fits all.

For now, just know the complexities of SQL (Structured Query Language) could be compared to writing macros in Excel. Tricky.  Here at Indicee, we prefer to let users ask questions using plain English.  It cuts down on the angst.

The highlight of the session, and indeed the DAY, was clearly Dave’s anecdote about running 50 million users on only 1 Oracle database.  It takes a fair bit of “wizardry” to pull something like that off.

Like the saying goes: “Plan for failure”

Aloha

It was a great day.  To everyone who came out, good on ya.  To everyone I was able to connect with, good times.  And to the sponsors, thanks. Leave a comment!

Meeting of the minds

Great local art in the Venue foyer

Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. F5 Expo to host Cloud Computing panel April 7, 2010
2. Vancouver Welcomes the World to the 2010 Olympics
3. Reviewing the Refresh – A Look Back at F5 Expo

Last week, we were talking with Cheni Yerushalmi, co-counder of Sunshine Suites, about Measuring What Matters.  I think the main takeaway, from an Indicee point of view, is that the company’s Financial Reports were deemed much less important to the running of the business than were Operational Measures.

Today, we’ll move away from some of the broad philosophical implications of the question, “How do you measure success?” that we tackled with Cheni and move into the practical side of what measurement tools are being employed in mid-sized businesses and what measures are considered important in a conversation with MAKE Technologies CFO, Wendy Van Donkelaar.

MAKE Technologies Inc. is a Vancouver based software solution provider that analyzes and modernizes all three aspects of legacy enterprise applications: business processes, source code and data. MAKE’s modernization platform, TLM, helps their global customer base to reduce the cost & risk required to maintain and modernize their mission critical systems.

Wendy Van Donkelaar is a Financial Executive and Chartered Accountant with over 20 years experience in the technology sector.

I was interested in getting her take on the role of I.T. Systems for keeping tabs on the health of the business through the use of reports and KPIs.  What I found was, 1) she is strapped for time just like every other Finance Manager I’ve met over the past 10 years, and 2) she employs a number of tools to get the answers she needs to effectively manage the company’s finances.

So, here’s the Q & A:

1. How do you analyze operational performance? We use SFA [Salesforce Automation], SA [Simply Accounting] and excel spreadsheets to analyze performance.
2. What are the critical operations KPIs? Net new license and services revenues, Sales Funnel growth, Professional services utilization and G/M [Gross Margin], # of partner deals, # of presales presentations per quarter.
3. Do you analyze results on a project-by-project basis? Yes using an excel spreadsheet we are currently evaluating project management systems.
4. How is the Finance function changing/evolving with the onset of new technologies? The function has changed from one of historic information gathering to one of predictive analysis.
5. How do you view the role of spreadsheets in your line of work? Used for summarizing weekly Dashboard metrics and Board reporting.
6. Has your view of spreadsheets changed over time? How so? In my past, spreadsheets where often used for gathering and collating data so that analysis could then be performed.  It now seems like that step has been taken care of by SFA, SA or ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] tools and I focus on smaller sets of data for analysis.

What does it all mean, man?

I’d like to highlight a few things in Wendy’s responses that, in my view, have a profound impact on all of us.  Call them sweeping generalizations if you must, but I see these responses as indicative of the typical situation for those of us working in mid-sized companies doing the accounting.

First, we’re living in a multiple-systems world.  By and large, when we are producing reports we are doing so by gathering data from various systems and collating that data into a cohesive picture of the enterprise.  The systems tend to operate independently of each other.  And inevitably, excel becomes the default aggregator.  Is this your experience? Make a comment!  What systems are you running and how do the systems integrate?

Second, inside the business, operations reports trump financial reporting any day of the week!  Check out the answer to question #2.  Of seven measures given, only one is truly a GAAP number.  Compliance dictates spending a great deal of time on Financial Reports, but these don’t provide actionable data in the same way that things like capacity utilization, or net new business, or sales pipeline does.  Share some of your operational measures in the comments!  What’s the focus in your workplace?

Third, predictive analysis has become mainstream.  There was a time that this topic was reserved for B.I. technicians, I.T. analysts, and academics.  More and more it’s becoming a practical requirement from management.  So, how do you management your predictions?  What oracle are you consulting? How many tea leaves must be read?  How can we know the future?

Let’s get some comments going!

Related posts:

1. Bringing Design Thinking to Accounting and Finance
2. Accounting for Interdepartmental Language Barriers – Accounting and IT Part 2
3. Accounting for Interdepartmental Language Barriers – Accounting and IT

Last time, we were talking about how to “Think Like a Reporter“.  My goal was to convey the importance of asking good questions in order to figure out how things actually get done and what the critical elements are in your business.

Today, I’d like to take it one step further and showcase an interview I was fortunate enough to secure with Cheni Yerushalmi, the managing partner and co-founder of Sunshine Suites in New York City.  In the interview, I’ve tried to apply the principles of good questions in order to create an environment that’s conducive to storytelling.  Then, getting out of the way and letting Cheni tell his story.

The other key point I would like to offer up as a takeaway from this experience for all of you is to stay alert for opportunities to expand your networks and your knowledge base.  This interview would not have happened had it not been for: 1) Cheni’s willingness and his courage to put himself out there, 2) the enterprising, public invitation from Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of Wine Library TV and author of Crush It, and 3) my recognition of the opportunity and taking action.  These are all voluntary actions.  How can you ever bottle up this mix of bravery, curiosity, inquisitiveness, openness, and indeed playfulness that’s required to create something out of nothing into a “formula” or a “job description”?  This stuff doesn’t show up on your desk with a neat little bow on it, conveniently labeled and packaged for consumption.  You have to create it and I think that’s a useful lesson.

Instead of existing in a constant state of “beware”, move into a state of “BE AWARE”.

Back to the point, we are talking with Cheni Yerushalmi from Sunshine Suites in NYC about business, entrepreneurship, recognizing opportunity, and the critical measures that determine success within the business.

I’ll summarize and paraphrase some stuff here to keep the wordcount net-friendly, but feel free to look for some of Cheni’s other recent appearances here, here, here, and here for more great content.

Sunshine Suites NYC with Cheni Yerushalmi

What is Sunshine Suites?

Sunshine Suites is an office community in New York City specifically designed for entrepreneurs to get out of the house and network with other entrepreneurs in a cool environment.  Sunshine has 2 locations and houses roughly 600 businesses and 1400 entrepreneurs at any one time.  Far from being just another co-working site, Sunshine is serious about creating community!  In addition to a place to work they offer mentorship, events, gym memberships, affordable healthcare, and even access to a timeshare in Vermont’s ski country!

The types of businesses incubating within Sunshine runs the gamut, “every company under the sun”, as Cheni and his partner Joe will sometimes say.

What motivated you and your partner, Joseph Raby, to start the Sunshine Suites?

Sunshine Suites was the result of the frustrations experienced, as an entrepreneur, with the lack of both affordable office space and community support available in the city.  It was the realization that “there must be a better way”.

Leveraging each other’s strengths, as all good founding partners do, Cheni and Joe took the initiative to create the tool that they wished they had when starting out.

So, what would you say to people unfamiliar with the NYC start-up scene?

Historically, the NYC start-up environment has been difficult but it’s improving.  During the heady days of the Dot-Com’s there was interest from investors and lots of money flying around, but not much of an infrastructure to support the companies.  Since the bust, it has been a slow process of building that infrastructure and creating an environment better suited for start-ups.

A couple great examples of groups supporting this infrastructure are the New York City Economic Development Corp and the Coalition of Office Space Providers.

The message coming out of New York right now is innovate and build partnerships because right now nothing is being taken for granted.

How do you measure success at Sunshine?

Feedback from the community is most important.  Of course, we keep track of revenue and occupancy rates, but these numbers don’t provide any context that we can act on.  Obtaining real feedback from members through regular surveys provides a more accurate gauge of whether or not Sunshine is living up to customer expectations and provides direction that’s actionable.  Fortunately, entrepreneurs don’t tend to be shy about sharing their opinions so we know exactly where we stand.  It’s particularly important for the ongoing success of the business since 70% of new memberships are created through referrals.

How do you balance the qualitative elements relating to feedback with the quantitative numbers side?

The business model itself isn’t very complicated.  We know the model works and, being a “for profit” business, we need to keep track of the numbers.  But, revenue is not the overriding consideration and the numbers can be misleading.  Our success is more accurately measured by the happiness of our community.  We like to think of this as a place where we help each other to succeed.  For us, it’s better to look at something like, how many companies have we been able to graduate from Sunshine? We also work with entrepreneurs who want to be more active in the management of the programming.  We call these guys “Shiners” and it’s this level of engagement that tells us we’re doing something right.

You mentioned companies “graduating” from Sunshine Suites; is that a formal process?  Is there a ceremony or what?

It’s funny you mention that.  We’re working now to create a more formal process and you should see something in Entrepreneur Magazine about it in the near future.  Entrepreneurs who have “graduated”, our “alumni”, tend to stay active at Sunshine, providing mentoring to other entrepreneurs.  As well, we provide workshops, panel discussions, and bootcamps.

What do you see for Sunshine Suites in the future?

We are looking at expansion.  We would like to expand into other cities, but we want to be careful.  Every city is different.  They each have their own ecosystem and it’s important to know the environment and the people in order to provide something of value.

Distilling the meaning in relation to Indicee

So, how do we relate what Cheni told me to what we are trying to achieve at Indicee?  Simple.  The most important performance indicators for the business DO NOT come from the financial reports.

We all know the requirements for financial reporting.  A full set of financial statements are crucial for dealing with banks, tax authorities, and investors; but it’s like Cheni said, these numbers lack the context that’s needed to guide meaningful actions on the part of managers.

Using Indicee increases the contextual meaning of your numbers and guides action in that way, beyond the financial statements.

Your customer’s happiness is not an Income Statement line item.  The path to knowing your customer comes from looking at operational measures; things like behaviour, feedback, distribution, and consumption.  This requires building the additional dimensions into your reporting structure to capture these things.

Final thoughts and random words to live by

Working within a start-up environment and having worked for start-ups in the past, I fully appreciate and applaud what the Sunshine Suites community is doing.  I would also point to other great examples out there such as TechStars, YCombinator, and our own local BootupLabs and Network Hub doing great work incubating companies and providing mentoring in order to tilt the playing field a bit in favour of innovators and disruptors who will create the next generation of market leaders.  You could even look to mainstream media and programs like Shark Tank in the US and Dragon’s Den in Canada and the UK as a means of educating and illuminating what goes into building companies. You have to look past the TV-silliness, but it’s there.

I encourage anyone who is interested in this stuff to get involved.  Check out a networking event, look for people to follow on twitter, talk to your local politicians and get talking to each other.

During our conversation, Cheni told me about when he and Joe were last in Vancouver.  The two of them flew into YVR with 2 bicycles in boxes, they assembled the bikes in the airport, then rode from Vancouver all the way to Tijuana, Mexico.  He went on to tell me that he never buys a round trip ticket when he’s on vacation.  He buys a one-way ticket in order to stay open to the opportunities that present themselves. I think there’s a great lesson in that philosophy and it exemplifies what being an entrepreneur is all about.

Enjoy.

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1. Quarter End Reporting – A Time for Reflection
2. Accounting for I.T. in the Finance Department
3. The Meaningful Scorecard

So why is the first question I get from IT and business executives, “How Secure is Indicee?” Each time I get this question I struggle with whether I should express my “inside head voice” or my “outside head voice.” Logic usually prevails and I take the high road. I know that most of the questions simply stem from a desire to the maintain the privacy and control of their corporate data. What is funny is that most of these executives don’t see the vulnerabilities they face in their current “inside the firewall” methodologies that are, in many cases, far more vulnerable than any of the current cloud technologies used today. Not to mention the huge security holes they have with employees being able email corporate data in spreadsheets and documents to just about anyone.

At the end of the day this debate really depends on which “lens” you choose to look at the world through. My belief is that the choice between using “cloud” or “inside the firewall” is first and foremost cultural. I see 3 cultural lenses most often and these lenses tend to follow Geoffrey Moore’s Technology Adoption Life Cycle curve

1. Innovators Lens – these are the people or companies that are the first to hear about new technology and adopt it quicker than the vendors can produce it. When we talk to the IT and business leaders in innovative companies like this they are near polar opposite to laggards(see below). These are the companies that are trying to find as many ways to push everything they can into the cloud. Indicee’s operations are like this. We live in the cloud….Google Docs, Slide Rocket, Salesforce.com, Version 1, Amazon Web Services, Basecamp and a bunch more. If Stephanie, our sales goddess, tells me her computer spontaneously combusted I don’t have to ask her if she had it backed up. If Craig, our king of partnering, drops his laptop in the moat of Treasure Island while attending a conference I only need to ask how many beer he had. Everything we need is in the cloud, secure and waiting for us no matter what computer we are on. As you can see this lens has a very different view and the scenery is spectacular from my balcony. My advice to these companies….the wave is here RIDE IT!

   

2. Wait and See Lens - “I don’t know about that cloud computing stuff….I know it seems to be hot and people are talking about it but I am just not sure.” This is a common statement I hear from both business and IT people in all sizes of organizations. The indecisiveness is a major challenge for these organizations especially when they dabble in the new technologies but they never fully commit to trying them in specific areas of the business. Instead they burn up endless cycles dabbling while maintaining the status quo of what they already have. These companies would be better served by making more clear and decisive decisions. SaaS services are amazing for doing small projects to determine their viability, they are low cost, easy to get going and if you don’t like them they are easy to kick to the curb. With SaaS and cloud computing you can actually be an innovator while you hold steady on your current course, something that has been historically more challenging to do with traditional enterpirse on-premise software. While the Wait and See crowd tends to take longer to change, they are much more open and receptive to the learning and change than a Laggard is. Wait and See types need validation from others, they need proof, they need trust and they need buy in from the rest of their peers. My advice to companies with this culture..pick something and DO IT! Live the Nike mantra and go for it.

3. Laggards Lens -  I have met and visited with thousands of companies over the course of my career and what I have learned is that no matter how many facts, figures and benefits you put in front of a person(or company) if they are fundamentally apposed to it, culturally, you are probably not going to change their mind. Here is a simple, real world example of a conversation I have had with a Director of IT for $100M sporting goods manufacturing and distribution company: “The Founder of our business is an old school guy…he doesn’t even use email but he does use a phone. There is no way he is going to let us move our data outside the four walls of this building. As a matter of fact he only wants 4 people on the executive team to see any type of corporate data!” And that, my friends, is an exact quote. That is usually my cue to ask, “what is the quickest route back to the airport from here?” I actually like companies like this because I can see the lens they see the world through and I can quickly determine that our company and their company are probably not destined to do business together. Well, until the succession plan has been implemented and the founder has decided to move on. My only message to companies that adopt this type of culture…..have a listen to Bob Dylan’s “These Times They are A-Changin’”
   

So what does all of this have to do with the question,, “How Secure is Indicee?”  The answer is highly dependent on your cultural lens your company looks through. If you are an innovator, you already believe that the cloud is better, more secure and more reliable. It is built into your DNA. If you are laggard, well this “Cloud dog don’t hunt.”  If you are anywhere in between, then you just need to start hanging out with the innovators more often!

So what cultural lens does your company look through?

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1. Cloud Computing Enables Self-serve BI
2. F5 Expo to host Cloud Computing panel April 7, 2010
3. Tourist in Techie Land: Reporting from Cloudcamp Vancouver