Real-Time Economy Community - New ideas

Letter to Santa Claus

Bo Harald — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:15:32 GMT

Europe

17.12.2008

Dear Santa,

We have been really nice, technology-neutral and hardworking Experts this year and look forward to you bringing us a few presents to play around with in 2009.

The first wish is a book - more precisely a handbook. We namely wrote a letter to the EU Commission in July and asked for Equal Treatment of paper and e-invoicing (from VAT-angle) and a bit to our surprise but certainly to our joy we did get it. Now it is naturally up to all the member states to join in with transposition. We do feel that you can help the local VAT authoritative to do it and us Experts with wise guidance so that our Code of Practice in the coming EEI-recommendation (kind of a handbook) will describe how enterprises real easily can move to e-invoicing and not loose sleep over fear of not getting VAT refunds. We may have some challenges in passing the SME-test when we depict how they can make Tax Authorities and others happy by either reassuringly describing business processes or use a range of tools to store and protect their financial data. You may have heard about digital signatures - it is one of those tools.

The second wish is a standard - more precisely a common and global standard that will fulfill both the needs of SMEs (being easy to use) and their frequently very large and sometimes bully trading partners who have a need for lots and lots of data elements. Santa's helpers in UNCEFACT's TBGs have been working hard on CII2.0 but we have not yet seen the full results and are a little anxious. We do realize that we have a pile of standards already, but this one we would really promise to use especially in relation SME-traffic and between service providers.

The third wish is good will - more precisely to service providers - so that there will be lots of them (also banks - despite them having hard times now) - and that they will form networks and provide the interoperability with help of reformatting and verification services. This to make our vision that one contract is enough for sending to and receiving e-invoices from everyone will become real.

The fourth wish is bravery - more precisely to invoice receivers - so that more of them will join the rapidly growing elite who have declared e-invoicing mandatory (in markets where service providers have ramped up their tools and networks) and charge transparently for more expensive paper or invoices otherwise in unstructured form.

We have heard from your native country that it was easy to get most of the enterprises to sign up for e-invoicing - but that the steep rise in usage did not start to happen until recently - much aided by aforementioned actions by progressive invoice receivers. You can always make it clear that there will not be any presents to those in finance departments who resort to change resistance.

We really look forward to your presents - not so much for ourselves really - but for our brothers and sisters in European enterprises who have to fight so hard for their daily bread these days.

Many thanks in advance.

Bo Harald

On behalf of the EU Expert Group on E-invoicing

You are of course not yourself, due to the nature of your activities, sending any invoices. You do not receive any invoices either - we are sure - as your business case would then appear challenging. But as paper invoices have no future anywhere there is a good chance that the supply of wrapping paper can be further improved.

Phenomenal Learning

Eric Davidove — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:45:32 GMT

How might we employ Web 2.0 technologies in order to improve the learning experience in a corporate setting?

Web 2.0 technologies enable the development and delivery of phenomenal learning. Learning is naturally a social experience and comes about primarily from discussion, collaboration, sharing, practicing, and feedback. Watch this podcast to understand what I mean by Phenomenal Learning and a way in which we can employ Web 2.0 technologies to the learning experience.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=70cwZxosGe0

Us Now

Eric Davidove — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:44:33 GMT

I attended a film screening of “Us Now” in London on 10 Dec 08. UsNow is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet. directed by Ivo Gormley, the film takes a look at how the web is changing the ways we organize ourselves. using examples such as 35,000 fans running ebbsleet united football club online and the bank zopa, where everyone is the bank manager, ‘Us Now’ explores whether these online participatory networks could deepen our democracy and even transform the way that countries are governed.

I created a movie to capture the film screening event - it is not the documentary.

My movie is on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YRYtoMPevBo

To learn more about the UsNow documentary go to: www.usnowfilm.com.

The movie was thought provoking, inspiring, and timely. For good reasons, the film maker was unable to capture stories from many countries and cities and most of the people speaking in the film are from the UK. The film does a good job of showing the potential of Web 2.0 and mass collaboration. I walked out with many new ideas and renewed energy. I created this blog (my first one) after seeing the movie. That says a lot!

Mobile Games

Esko Penttinen — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:52:42 GMT

We analyzed mobile games and found that the consumers value (1) game quality, (2) gaming experience, (3) ease and quickness of setup, and (4) social aspects. To answer to these consumer needs, developers of mobile games can improve the (1) Audiovisual effects, (2) Customer support, (3) Product information, (4) Product comparison, (5) Trust, and (6) Independence of time and place in purchasing process. The gamers were categorized into (1) value seekers, (2) heavy players, (3) casual gamers, and (4) non-players. The paper is available Mobile Games: Analyzing the Needs and Values of the Consumers.

Striving for a real RTE

Juhani Anttila — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:17:54 GMT

I have been interested in finding links between Real-Time Economy and Social Technologies.

I understand RTE as organizations and communities carrying out effectively and efficiently the present duties and regenerating continuously for future challenges. It is essential to understand that organizations are living systems and learning through relationships with its environments. In this context key issues are conversations and language. Almost classical text for this topic is “The Little Grey Book” of Sun Microsystems. It is worth of reading it again. However, I have not seen much discussion or references to this text. Now, social technologies give real opportunities to reinforce “leadership and language” for regenerating organizations for RTE.

Massive progress towards RTE

Bo Harald — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:14:20 GMT

The next step to RTE is as we know e-invoicing. Here we have seen any number of great news - together they mean massive progress.

In Finland: - over 70 000 enterprises signed up in Nordea, over 40 000 in OP-bank, great campaign in consumer invoicing by invoice senders,public sector, banks and TietoEnator, Kesko declaring e-invoicing mandatory, several more on the way, state sector aiming for 100% by end 2009, extremely good growth in usage

In EU: - expert group and EU driving equal treatment of paper and e-invoicing, most countries support it, standardization making good progress with Cross Industry Invoice, midterm report soon out - aiming at 2012 as year when many countries have already made e-invoicing default option Holland launches all-out e-invoicing initiative - e-invoice operators and banks together, Spain progressing very fast - thanks to public sector,

Altogether: Awareness arriving at: Paper invoices have NO Future. A goal in itself for megareasons like:

1. saving over 200 billions in handling b2b + many more

2. potential to reduce CO2 by 2.800.000 tons

and then

3. learning - just in time - by doing e-invoicing - doing other digital transactions

4. saving more from next layers of documents

5, better jobs - productive, more challenging, better paid - must - as working age population will shrink dramatically

6. RTE

Crafting a Fundable Financial Roadmap : A Tool for Entrepreneurs

Risto Päärni — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:03:34 GMT

Writing realistic business plan that predicts correctly 5 years of business success is really challenge.

Instead of Goverment giving Word document and Excel Sheet there should be a service that would give guidance based upon the knowledge of Financial Cluster from the Specific Industry to make better Business Plans with faster time-to-market

As an entrepreneur, steering your startup on the financial path to success needs an effective financial roadmap and a thorough understanding of how it will unfold over the next 5 years

How do electronic invoicing operators create value?

Esko Penttinen — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:28:46 GMT

The operators that act as intermediaries in the field of electronic invoicing (banks and IT operators) differ in the way they create value for their customers. According to the research conducted at the Helsinki School of Economics and Politecnico di Milano, banks focus on providing the market with an inexpensive way to transfer invoice data. On the other hand, the IT operators focus on creating complementary products and services to the e-invoice. In addition to lowering transaction costs and innovating complementary products, the study examined the novelty and lock-in component of the value creation model. The study's findings are reported in the MSc thesis by Timur Haussila and in the conference paper (available at www.hse.fi/rte -> publications) by Penttinen, Salgaro and Haussila.

Presentation: Social Media Developments in the Real-Time Economy (in finnish)

Teemu Arina — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:40:54 GMT

I finally got my presentation uploaded and synced with the slides. The presentation, "Social Media Developments in the Real-Time Economy" is in finnish (but slides are in english) and was given at the Real-Time Enterprise Summit, Finlandia Hall, 6th of October 2008.

The presentation can be viewed here.

Material from the RTE Summit

Tuija Lompolojärvi — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:26:10 GMT

Keynote videos and presentation materials from the Real-Time Enterprise Summit can be found here.