Real-Time Economy Community - Most promoted ideas

Visualization of the SME financial situation

Tatu Kuivalahti — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:29:28 GMT

Entrepreneurs and management of SME’s are often lacking through knowledge of the finance and accounting. They are typically highly professional in their business and services but they haven’t had time to study accounting. This is the reason why there is a need for much more powerful online visualization tools for SME key financial figures. The F&A is not rocket science. It is possible to simplify and concretize the key performance indicators for SME’s so that the entrepreneur can figure out with a single screen what is the actual situation of the business at the moment. But of course, electronic, online book keeping is prerequisite for all this.

Electronic bookkeeping for SMEs?

Teemu Arina — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:46:55 GMT

What is the easiest way for a small businesses to switch from paper-based bookkeeping to fully electronic bookkeeping?

The finnish law requires that all invoices/receipts are kept for 6 years and the books need to be around atleast 10 years. How can a small business make sure that the books are around such a long period with any chosen technology?

During the transition period, what to do with old bookkeepings that are still in paper-form? Is there an ecological way to dispose books that are old or otherwise being digitized? Are there any services available for quick and safe disposal of old books?

What's Your Financial Paper Footprint?

Maria HyytiÃ€inen — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:03:51 GMT

Calculate your financial paper footprint.

This is the result for a person who receives 10 paper bills in a month. What do you think of this?

Paper	1,5	kgs of paper saved
Water	121	litres of wastewater prevented from discharging into lakes, streams and rivers
Gasoline	4,2	litres of gas saved by not mailing your bills, statements, and payments
Greenhouse Gases	27,2	kilograms of greenhouse gases avoided
This amount of greenhouse gas is the equivalent of:	95	kms not driven in your car
	1	trees planted (and grown for 10 years)
	0,75	square metres of forest preserved from deforestation

eInvoicing Widget

Tatu Kuivalahti — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:20:33 GMT

Why not to develop a simple widget application for both PC and mobile phones which would allow SME to create their invoices wherever he/she is. Of course this wouldn’t work for those businesses which requires background work to gather information for the invoice but for many one-man entrepreneurs it would work well. The key benefit would be faster delivery of the invoices which in turn could have extremely positive influence to cash flow.

Increasing participation in conferences with technology

Teemu Arina — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:16:59 GMT

The typical conference is still the same: rows of seats and a sage on the stage. Everyone listens to the guru for 30-45 minutes and then it's time for a few minutes of questions & answers. The day is full of such sessions and you have a rushed coffee break somewhere in between wher you try to "network".

Now, imagine that we have all of this technology and how it could be used to improve a traditional conference like this:

Live streaming: streaming the event to the web
Virtual conferences: online presentations and recordings
Webchat: providing feedback through the web
Blogs: live event coverage by the participants to the participants
Wikis: editing the conference site together with the audience
Backchannel chat: using WIFI or mobile phones for conversation and questions during a presentation
RSS: streams for other online services to better distribute what is happening at the conference
Social networking: people could post their profile and otherwise provide means to link with people coming to the conference before, during and after the conference
Discussion forums: having conversations during and before the event

Some benefits of all of this technology:

Using technology to extend the physical event to the web: using blogs, wikis and virtual conferencing tools the conversation, interaction and presentations can be extended over boundaries of physical space
More monetization opportunities: selling recorded sessions, sponsor space online, paid subscriptions and other means to utilize virtualized content
Much more poeple can attend, too

What else comes to mind?

Organizing doctoral studies in Aalto under information economy or service factory

Matti Rossi — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:16:34 GMT

One idea could be to have a group or session to discuss how to organize doctoral studies under these themes into larger projects or/and graduate school. This could then form a critical mass for obtaining funding and becoming a center of excellence in research.

Starting points could be common projects and a facility to meet other researchers within the area.

Proposal for a research topic: future internet

Jyrki Wallenius — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:09:08 GMT

I propose that one of the four topics in the seminar should be devoted to future internet. The small group would discuss research ideas concerning the new ways of working and applications on the Internet (e.g. social networks), traffic congestion problems, information overload, and the naissance of information markets. Ideas welcome!

Jyrki Wallenius

Essay: Paper books have a challenger in Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader.

Katri Railio — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:56:27 GMT

Paper books are loved for many reasons by book buyers. In general people like to read from paper and not from a screen. For some people the whole reading experience requires holding an actual book and turning pages. As technology develops and more online goods are created also paper books are challenged. Amazon has launched this kind of an e-book reader called Kindle with successful outcome. Kindle is a device that you can use to download books, magazines and newspapers online. One important feature that makes it attractive is the electronic-paper display that mimics actual paper. One aspect to study this subject can be two-sided markets and another that this will eliminate the two possibly biggest expenses that paper books have: printing and logistics.

Real-Time Economy Community wins WSA Finland 2009 award

Tuija LompolojÃ€rvi — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:41:08 GMT

Real-Time Economy (RTE) Community has won the World Summit Award (WSA) Finland 2009. The award was received at the 12th International MindTrek Conference in Tampere, Finland, on 8 October 2008. According to the jury RTE Community rises to the challenge of proceeding towards a real-time economy necessitated by the complexity and uncertainty of the contemporary society.

The WSA was started in the framework of the United Nations (UN) World Summit on Information Society as an initiative from Austria. It is the world's premier contest for excellence in e-content and creativity. The awards honour producers of interactive multimedia and innovative ICT applications and they are the only awards supported by a Public Private Partnership between professional organisations, industry, governments and UN organisations.

e-Content products or ICT applications are entered in the WSA via national contests held in 168 countries. The national winners in the eight WSA categories are submitted from each country based on the national jury process. RTE Community will represent Finland in the WSA 2009 contest in e-Business & Commerce category.

The WSA winners will be announced in June 2009 in Monterrey, Mexico.

More information:
http://www.wsis-award.org/index.wbp
http://www.mindtrek.org/competition/wsa (in Finnish)

Internal & external promotional strategies for adapting e-invoicing

Mazin Yassin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:03:46 GMT

It seems that the strategy aimed at promoting electronic invoicing needs to be analysed through two different aspects; the internal and the external aspect. Each aspect needs to be tackled with different approaches, but with the sole strategy of becoming fully incorporated with e-invoicing.

Internal Enterprises

Before changes are undergoing, it is vital that there is commitment from all deparments, including the upper management and lower level employees. A corporate vision promoting e-invoicing needs to be thrashed out and shared among the employees so it is clearly identified. This requires an internal campaign where the values and vision of Tampere are impressed among the employees. Bearing in mind that there is a desire to have Tampere using e-invoicing in the vast majority of their enterprises, an internal campaign would make this clear at all department levels. Seminars can be conducted, in which e-invoicing is explained, as well as the benefits and opportunities. Bonus systems can be offered for departments that reach a certain percentage of e-invoicing as an incentive for them to adapt to e-invoicing.

Considering that there is a growing trend among companies towards digitalising their processes, it might be beneficial to place some deadline for companies to become fully incorporated with e-invoicing. Similar to how the "digibox" was given a deadline, incorporated by the users and accepted by all, if Tampere City government was to set a deadline of say, 2011 (or 2009 as the Finnish Public sector has recommended), after which they would only accept e-invoices, companies would have ample time and motivation to start the change process.

External Enterprises

External enterprises might also be persuaded through a bonus (discount) system for e-invoicing. In addition, it might be more enticing if extra services were offered for companies that altered their organisation to include e-invoicing. Offering training seminars, or counselling sessions at the initial stage of change, might persuade some suppliers/companies to begin the process of change.

A public campaign would also prove helpful as an indirect push on the external enterprises. For example, if Tampere city were to conduct a "green by 2010" campaign, the public would be made aware of the benefits of e-invoicing, among other things, which might be a further enticement to tempt companies to e-invoicing as a viable, and only solution.

Mazin Yassin

Xiaoxuan Wu