Stewart Marshall

Experienced SaaS adviser Stewart Marshall has seen the vast potential and massive failures of an industry that's no place for naïve, unsuspecting tourists. In Kick Some SaaS he takes you on a journey from ideation to commercialisation and beyond, examining the many issues you'll face in this challenging arena and how to address them. You'll learn how to: Focus on the needs of your many people, putting them at the core of your business. Create a robust platform and manage the staggering complexity of modern technology. Tell the right stories to build and engage with your community. Build a team that not only supports you, but helps you grow and keep growing. Put some purpose into your organisation, making you both profitable and purpose-led in all you do. Engage with your community and together use your platform to make a massive global impact. Kick Some SaaS is comprehensive and entertaining, and Stewart is true to his "translator of IT gibberish" brand, eschewing technical jargon in favour of plain English. If your dream is to Kick Some SaaS, this is the book for you.

Successful strategies and principles for using information technology to transform regional and community economies exist, and they are presented here with clarity and insight in a way that is useful to both practitioners and researchers. Although the communities discussed here range far and wide, from those in Russia to Australia and to Kenya, any community can benefit from enhanced utilization of information and communication technologies.The ways in which technology can help improve economic, social, cultural, and political conditions are as numerous and various as the communities themselves. In Central Queensland, Australia, community leaders have brought in a high-tech expert advisory system to help them control weed infestation. New Zealand and Australia have pioneered telehealth, the exchange of health care information and the delivery of some services across great distances. In Russia, wiring a community was found to be about more than mere hardware and software; vital to the process was understanding how communities provide access to information technology, how authorities and volunteers can improve computer literacy among citizens, and how connectivity can be extended to greater numbers of people. In some areas of south Asia, nongovernmental organizations have teamed up with local governments to increase access, empowerment, and e-commerce opportunities. These are but a few of the ways this volume contributes to our knowledge base about the impact of technology on economic development.