A call I had with John Stokdyk, tech editor of AccountingWEB got me thinking. We were discussing the current state of play in the practice management space following his wanderings in Manchester. He jokingly (I hope) asked if was going to become part of the developer community with a SaaS practice management suite. I need that like I need a second…you guess the rest. the answer is a categoric NO. I have too many other fish to fry.
It got me thinking about Sig, and our discussion around innovation. Or rather Alastair’s comments did (I love this medium). So I set Sig a challenge. Build me a relatively simple time and expense system with hooks to document management (not heavy stuff -we know what we mean – more later.) I want to ensure I’ve a grip on WIP/debtors with some rudimentary document management though that’s not essential provided we can get the hooks from some other stuff I’m thinking about. (Sig – I know where the wiki APIs are) Here’s why I want to do this.
PM solutions tend to be expensive. Goodness knows why. There’s no real reason. The processes around the PM core are pretty simple for practices of up to say 100 people – the vast majority of firms in the UK. They can usefully live in the Internet though I can see why firms might want to keep them behind the firewall. It matters not. John and I had been throwing a few ideas around. And so with all these discussions going on, the pieces fell into place.
On the basis of what I’ve seen, Sig’s set of ‘Lego bricks‘ should be able to do it. Or at least it ‘feels’ that way to me. Sig seems to think I want this by the weekend or Monday next. I didn’t set a time limit and if he does get something working then I for one will be delighted. Let’s see how he does. But before you all weigh in saying what about this or that – remember I’m looking for basics as the possible starting point. I’m looking for functional and lightweight. I’m not looking for all singing and dancing. And given the way Sig’s tools operate, configurations (if needed) should be a non-event. I hope.
The way Sig’s Thingamy works means that as business analysts, you should be able to specify the functionality you want and it should be possible to build the flows that control those apps. It’s about building apps to reflect the world.
UPDATE: If you go back to my post about innovation – Sig says he’s got the bones of this working in 34 minutes!
UPDATE 2: 0945 22/2 – Sig’s just called me – he’s got 90% working…we both need to do other things, we’ll catch up next Monday.
UPDATE 3: 1145 22/2 – John and I are having an email exchange – John wants to see it – so do I – hey Sig – you set the bar for delivery…
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