Category Archives: Governance

September 14, 2010 Posted in Business, Governance, IT, The Cloud Leave a comment

AdaptiveComputing Scores A Round – VC’s Back in Force

By Ben Kepes

I vaguely remember some time a year or so ago when VC funding of companies slowed down a little. It seems that little dip has well and truly passed – every week I’m receiving many email detailing another funding round. This morning it was the turn of StorSimple, now AdaptiveComputing

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June 15, 2009 Posted in Economic Development, Efficiency, Governance, IT, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 2 Comments

Government 2.0 – A Way to Go

By Ben Kepes

Jim posted the incredible story of the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) proposing a $117 million upgrade of IT infrastructure, a sum that equates, from Jim’s reckoning, to $234k per NZIS process worker. It’s a sorry tale and one that, as Jim points out, smacks of desperation, silo building and

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December 18, 2008 Posted in Efficiency, Governance, New Zealand, Society Leave a comment

Running a School – Who Does It Best…

By Ben Kepes

I’ve got two school-age sons and I’ve spent a fair amount of time observing the way New Zealand schools are run. By way of background, the Labour government of 1984 put in place the “Tomorrow’s Schools” ethos. Part of this new way of thinking was a move to Boards of

December 8, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, Governance, New Zealand, Strategy Leave a comment

Governance? What Governance?

By Ben Kepes

I am astounded. I’ve just read the wrap up of the Otago District Health Board fraud case. For those of you who haven’t caught up with it – former CIO of the ODHB defrauded the board of close to $17million for supposed IT risk mitigation charges (this from a entity

December 5, 2008 Posted in Business, Governance, IT, New Zealand, SaaS, Strategy 1 Comment

Diligent Nears the Deadpool

By Ben Kepes

It had to happen – news that Diligent is close to out of cash, has fired a huge chunk of it’s staff and has no real idea if its search for cash will succeed. Apparently they; will run out of cash at the end of April unless…able to access new

October 4, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, Governance, Strategy 5 Comments

Of Big Chief and Big Cheese, An Allegory on Agility

By Ben Kepes

Below is the story I told as an introduction to  the session I helped facilitate at TelecomONE… see if you can dot-the-dots and pick out the question in the story… Once upon a time, in a land far away, lived a little girl. Now the little girl had a name,

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September 27, 2008 Posted in Business, Collaboration, Design, Governance, IT, New Zealand, Strategy 1 Comment

When the Boss Buys In, You’re Bound to Win

By Ben Kepes

  Next weekend I’ll be up in Auckland attending the inaugural TelecomONE unconference. The organisers, in an attempt to explain what TelecomONE is all about, have come up with the following; The Right People + Opinions + Discussions = TelecomONE Innovation Basically the unconference seeks to create a forum where

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August 9, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, Governance, IT, SaaS, Strategy Leave a comment

Something is rotten in the state of MY-OB

By Ben Kepes

Or maybe anyway. News today that MYOB have taken the surprise decision to dis-establish their MD positions in New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Regular users will recall that MYOB introduced a first edition of an on-demand accounting system, a release that I was fairly dismissive of. The defective on-demand head

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August 7, 2008 Posted in Governance, New Zealand, Society Leave a comment

The truth behind family trusts

By Ben Kepes

This post has nothing to do with my usual topics and is very New Zealand specific but it’s useful nonetheless. For a number of years now people have transferred assets into family trusts in order to reduce tax, avoid potential future creditors and avoid asset-testing later in life. I’m a

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July 26, 2008 Posted in Business, Design, Efficiency, Governance, IT, SaaS, Strategy, Web x.0 4 Comments

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, what were you thinking?

By Ben Kepes

I like Sarah Lacy, I kind of felt for her when she was torn apart for her interview of Facebook founder mark Zuckerberg last year. True she came across that time as something of a sycophant – but she didn’t deserve the evisceration that she got. But then in my

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The Author

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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