Neville Hobson does an excellent job outlining the way paper.li works and what it can mean for communications: …the newspapers you create with Paper.li aren’t about the people in your community who tweet but rather what they link to. I was explaining it to a friend yesterday when I saw that he clearly couldn’t see the remotest value in something like this: he thought it was about publishing people’s tweets. Once he understood that... 

When I started AccMan I learned early on that one of the key tricks to success is about giving things away. 80% of what I know I give away in public blogs. Whether that 80% is worth something is a moot point but it is the 20% I don’t talk about in the public domain where I make my bones. I go further. Very often I will point to others via links as people who are adding value or inspiring my thought stream. It works on the principle that... 

While I tend to concentrate on professional services firms a couple of questions were raised this week that got me thinking. The last two days I’ve been out in Silicon Valley in analyst briefings with Workday and SAP Labs. Workday is noodling over and endeavouring to redefine the meaning of work. One of its trains of thought goes like this: in any organisation, it is not how many are working that matters but who is working. It’s... 

Online Surveys – Zoomerang.com As promised, I started the podcast series late last week . Some of the back channel feedback I got was interesting. I’d much prefer that people put comments on the blog. I really don’t mind if you don’t like something as long as you’re not personal about it. There’s a difference for example between: ”That intro was a bit tacky. Can you come up with something a bit more... 

Towards the end of last week I was approached to take a peek at a review copy of a new book: Spiraling Up . (PDF preview) Catchy title aside, it talks about the things that distinguish top performing professional services firms from the average. Three statements caught my attention: Almost every firm says more or less the same thing. And clients have stopped listening. How true. The other week I talked about cookie cutter websites, comparing... 

As I prefaced a few weeks ago, I’m starting a series of podcasts with people I find fascinating and those who are doing great things as innovators. It will be an eclectic mix designed to broaden the mind and to help professionals think about different aspects of what it means to be a professional services provider in the 21st century. Last week I recorded a conversation with my long time friend and colleague Vinnie Mirchandani. Regular... 

Mark Lee has a post about XBRL where he says: Clients will only agree to paying additional fees if they perceive that additional work is being done and that this benefits them in some way. Tagging company accounts for the taxman, using iXBRL tags, is going to be obligatory from 2011. It seems that plenty of accountants have yet to determine exactly what they will be doing to ensure that their clients’ accounts are …  Read More →

I don’t know how many times I’ve read alarmist material that says Gen Y, millennials or whatever they’re now called are going to change the workplace beyond recognition. It’s nonsense. All of it. As my starting point I found this piece from Read Write Web going back to 2008 where it starts with: Gen Y is taking over. The generation of young adults that’s composed…  Read More →

TechCrunch Europe is reporting a deal between KashFlow and Barclaycard that sees Barclays developing a pilot e-billing scheme for its customers. According to TCE: As for KashFlow itself, the email makes mention that the company usually charges £15.99 + VAT a month for its service but that Barclaycard is “waiving” the charge for pilot merchants. It’s likely that in turn KashFlow is doing the same. The accompanying FAQs also makes clear... 

AccountingWeb has an intriguing contest going on to discover the most progressive firm in the UK . It’s intriguing at multiple levels. The firms get to pitch yet with one exception have provided no links to their site The pitches vary widely but are mostly generic as Mark Lee would put it They are all tiny firms – what happened there? They are invited to answer questions on the website …  Read More →

Adrian Pearson pinged me yesterday asking if I have any data points into UK attitudes towards the profession following this piece from Rick Telberg where he quotes: “If we think the pipeline for future professionals is small, the pool of future clients is miniscule,” says  Jim Boomer of Boomer consulting . “Just as the next generation of workers will require new strategies, so too will the next generation of clients.” The analysis is... 

Following on from my change the world post , colleague and occasional collaborator Ray Wang asked me to look at Personal Log: The 7 Tenets of Building a ‘Star Analyst’ Firm . Anyone who is thinking about restructuring their practice or going for the creative destruction model needs to read this. I remember meeting Ray in Pasadena just about the time he was ready to jump from Forrester to start building Altimeter. He looked awful.... 

One of the underlying themes of this blog is the notion that those who read it want to change the world. They are a relatively small but important number who disrupt for the broader good. If you’re thinking about the upcoming holiday period and are a disruptor or perhaps you’re curious then I’d suggest getting hold of The New Polymath by my friend Vinnie Mirchandani. I’ve talked about Vinnie’s book before but now... 

Regular readers will know that my good friend Vinnie Mirchandani has a book coming out: The New Polymath . Like all struggling authors, he wants to get the most publicity possible. In a world drowning in information it is really hard to get your head above the parapet. I know this. I get a stack of email every day asking if I will talk about this or that company/technology/story. I take up very, very few of those ideas. Why? Many just don’t... 

In what I hope will be an occasional series of interesting and slightly entertaining podcasts, Nik Butler aka @loudmouthman agreed to give me a two minute elevator pitch on what he does and why you should hire him. That 2 mins turned into 11 mins but heh – who’s counting? As background, Nik is one of those people who, if you’ve never met them before, seems utterly nuts. His opening and closing Tweets are at once incomprehensible,...