It really was...a big week for little old Trovus.  Mark Cunnah our latest team member joined, welcome Mark, and wisely went to New York for the week.  I can quite understand.  Working with Caspar and Jon for a few days is enough to drive anyone out of the country.  (ON GUARD!!).  Trovus found itself presenting at the annual APS conference at Whittlebury Hall, near Towcester.  APS recently became a client of Trovus and Caspar delivered the first part of the "clean up" report on aps.advance.com to the CEO's and during the process, I noted something of great interest to us.  Both Brian (Coventry) and Brian (Armstrong) commented on how Caspar had exceeded expectation.  Whilst this is, obviously, a reflection of Caspar's undoubted talents (NO really, that is sincere, the man is Karate Black belt... someone else can take the piss), I think it reflects a serious note that we find we constantly have to work toward overcoming.  My interpretation of both Brian and Brian's kind praise was that it was partly fuelled by a sense of relief that by engaging with Trovus they had taken a genuine first step towards unlocking value from the web and their web presence within it.  This relief is part a reaction to what has gone before, or rather not gone before, and part the excitement of what they believe they can see as a roadmap to turning their web presence into a genuine value adding business tool.

Trovus were also given the opportunity to present a keynote speech at the conference.  The assembled audience of 85 accountancy firms, was for us at least, an interesting group to share our message with.  I think I can sum up one perspective through this combination of exchanges.

EC on stage to the conference "Right, hands up those of you who have heard of Web 2.0?"

Conference - NO HANDS!

EC - "OK, lets start from the beginning..."

Later over supper, a 60 year old partner of a large accountancy firm, lent across and said "I know what Web 2.0 is, I just didn't want to be the only one to put my hand up!"

EC - "Fair enough, so what do think about it as a business enabler?"

Partner - "Yes, I can see it, but it just not for me is really.  It for the kids, and all that Second Life stuff, what that all about."

These views, Brian and Brain's relief and the Partner's reaction sum up the challenge that Trovus has to keep working on:

1) There is value at the heart of everything we do and the challenge is on us to show it. Value must be as measurable as possible and be clear to prospects from the outset.

2) If you sign the cheques today, that gives you the right to make the decision absolutely as whether social computing is something that should be explored or ignored. But ignoring it doesn't mean that it isn't there.

Let me share one more thing with you.  A firm of Lawyers, interestingly the same size as the Accounting firm my supper friend came from, has asked us in to present to their "strategic team" as they are clearly aware that ignoring web 2.0 is not sensible.  It's not the senior partner who is driving it; it's the 30 something partners who will sign the cheques in the future who are driving it.  But the senior partner is not standing in the way.  This way, all parties know its small steps and extra focus on value......

Just the way we like it!!

Comments

There are currently 4 comments about this blog.

Ed Furness, 8 months ago

Are we at risk of making a meal of this thread?

Chris Anderton, 8 months ago

I believe there is a whole page on Wikipedia dedicated to what supper is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supper

Edward Charvet, 8 months ago

I will start an entry - suffice to say Supper obviously, is what Tea is not and what may become Dinner, if one was to consider it more formerly.

Jon Mell, 8 months ago

Ed - what is 'supper'? Have been meaning to ask you... Should we add it to the wiki?

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