I’ve been meaning to write for a while now on some my recent conversations about QuickBase with CIO’s and IT managers – but I didn’t know if folks would believe me.   When I started at QuickBase 4+ years ago, SaaS barely existed and concepts like having someone else host your data and having end users build their own business applications was heresy to all but the most “enlightened CIO” (read: daring, bold, visionary, crazy). 

But in the past 6 months, I’ve had fantastic conversations with IT folks who are pushing SaaS throughout their organization and pushing us to deliver even more for them.  The response to our QuickBase Enterprise Edition has been exciting and I can feel the momentum building.  It seems we’ve found the right balance between delivering for the needs of IT (visibility, security, reliability, etc.) and the Business user (customization, fast deployment, adoption, ROI).  The industry and the mindsets have evolved and we’re in the right place at the right time!

But don’t take my word for it.  Check out some excepts by Jeff Kaplan’s (from Think IT Services) review of SaasCon this week:

“…when SaaScon opened its doors on Tuesday morning there were over 900 registrants, approximately three times last year’s attendance…

Getting this many IT decision-makers to attend SaaScon clearly shows they no longer view SaaS as something they can ignore or try to avoid. In fact, each of the speakers, as well as those IT managers who I talked to, said they now view SaaS as a potential solution to many of their IT management needs rather than a threat to their jobs….

“The CIOs who spoke at SaaScon represented a major endorsement of the SaaS concept and the conference attendees proved that IT is getting onboard the SaaS bandwagon…”

I got an interesting email from one of our Enterprise Customers, Gerawan Farming, that I thought I’d share.  Here’s an agriculture company leveraging technology to be more accurate and efficient – and it was “easy with QuickBase.”  Feel free to send me stories of ways you’re using QuickBase to create customized SaaS applications for your business.
 -Alex

From: Diego Mendoza & Dan Gerawan
Subject: Scanning Barcodes With QuickBase made easy.

For years we have been stuck with the task of manually writing down information. One of the Major problems is incorrect serial no, part number, misspells or even employee names. With QuickBase we simplified this process. Simply create a Barcode. I use Code 128 because it is a very high-density barcode symbology and used extensively in the product tracking industry. For Barcode creations I use Bartender by Seagull Scientific. Much Like QuickBase, it’s easy to use and you will have professional barcode designs ready in minutes.

We’ve tried numerous barcode scanners in the past and for our tasks we settled with the Wasp USB Model WLR8900. The setup is so easy you will not believe it. Simply Plug it in to an available USB port and let Windows do the rest. It’s that EASY! The Wasp WLR8900 barcode scanner will send Scanned Data to your active on screen Quickbase Application.

Some examples of our use:

Say you want to look up an employee quickly. Simply Scan their employee badge into the lookup field. Or the employee needs to perform a daily audit of a piece of equipment. Simply scan the assigned barcode to the lookup field and it will bring it right up. It’s really that easy.

Have you ever wished you could take a class on QuickBase? Well, now you can.

Intuit QuickBase teams up with Real World Training to deliver instructor-led classes in various cities around the U.S. Real World has been the endorsed trainer for Intuit since 1998. They have a stellar reputation and now expand their offerings to include QuickBase. We couldn’t be happier about it.

The QuickBase class serves anyone who designs and manages applications. Sign up – and bring a few colleagues, too. You’ll learn how to:

• Translate your process into a working QuickBase application
• Tailor an existing or new application to fit your needs exactly
• Customize data-entry forms and dashboards
• Craft reports to share information and get things done
• Have QuickBase email automated notifications, reminders and reports
• Control what viewers can see and do within your application
• Share your applications with colleagues

Each 2-day course includes class dinner with the instructor, a course manual for you take home and a free copy of O’Reilly’s QuickBase: The Missing Manual. Discover how QuickBase can make you, your department, and your company more successful.

Learn QuickBase. Reserve your place today! View schedule and register.

We created a LinkedIn Group dedicated to connecting the Intuit QuickBase Network.  Feel free to join the group and spread the QuickBase love.

So now that I’m all a Twitter (@acce) and Duncan Riley has suggested being in the right network as one of the ways to be on top of the latest news…can anyone recommend some good networks I should be plugging into? Obviously, I’m most interested in Web 2.0 trends, B2B SaaS, Enterprise Collaboration, PaaS, and the Red Sox. 

I was listening to NPR in the car last week and one of the callers was detailing the power of grassroots political campaigns he’d worked on.  In making his point about empowering people to stand up and lead change in the campaign, he quoted the motto of a hardware store that he’d run across while traveling through Texas.  The slogan of the store was “Together we can Do It Yourself”.   I love it and I love it for QuickBase. 

No matter who you are or what problem you’re trying to solve, the power of QuickBase is that you are in control.  You get to solve your team’s needs with a right for me application and in a right for me manner.  Whether you want to pick up a hammer and roll up your sleeves or help draw up the plans and direct others, we have a path to success for you…You are not alone… We can do it Together!

If you’re thinking about adopting QuickBase or are already a current customer here are a few buckets of where you might fall and solutions we have for you:

1) Give me those tools and get out of my way!

QuickBase has all the power and flexibility to let you go nuts.  Check out our support resources and/or grab a copy of QuickBase the Missing Manual.  Once you learn QuickBase, and you can create strong business applications for team collaboration in minutes, you’ll be ruined for life (in a good way.)

2) Get me in the house and I’ll paint the rooms!

  If you’re the type of person who doesn’t have the time or interest to create an application – No Problem!  Pick from one of our Pre-built apps and customize the basics.  Create the reports that make sense to your group’s needs and the e-mail workflow to match your business process.  Don’t see an app that works for you or need help with the paint?  Contact one of our Application Specialists and let them get you started or point you in the right direction.

3) Here’s a picture of my dream house, can you help make it real?

  Our Business Consultants are experts in QuickBase and in solving business problems.  They’ve done it for many of our customers and they can do it for you.  If you have an idea for a solution that can help your business, get in touch with one of our consultants and let them get you started.  The best part is they can also help train you on your solution so you’ll be Doing It Yourself before you know it – Together of course!

Ok, I admit it – I’m at least a click or two behind the social networking cutting edge…Not way behind, but by no means a hardcore facebook junkie. So when our Web Designer Joshua McGinnis came back from SXSW and said that Twitter was all the rage (again!), I decided to give it a look. (It’s ok that I’m two years late!)

My first reaction was, “Cool service but way too much information about people I don’t know and who has time for this? ”   That was closely followed by, “hmm…wait a second…this would be really cool if I could integrate it with my QuickBase apps!!!” 

So after ten minutes of searching through twitter widgets and signing up for an account, I had embedded a little widget on a QuickBase dashboard that updated with any posts from my “friends” on Twitter.  So how would I use this at work?  Well…If I embed this in the QuickBase app I use for my Business Development team to track our leads/pipeline, then we can use it to do real time updates from anywhere (via  mobile phone).  I love the idea of having the entire team updated the second we get a new enterprise customer. Or more importantly, if I’m in a meeting and need a piece of information that may not be easily accessible, I can text a question to my team, have it pop up in the place they are working and where the answer is, and have them respond in real-time. 

With QuickBase & Twitter together, I get the speed and ease of IM, the persistence of a Blog, the proximity to the information that’s relevant to my team, and the communication with the people that matter to my work.  Social networking apps are cool but for me, if my teams can work smarter, they become very very cool! 

Anybody else see the value of this or other integrations of social networking apps with QuickBase for business use?

Anybody else with some free time want to work their magic and manipulate the Twitter & QuickBase API’s so that I could just text a Customer name to Twitter and receive contact information on my phone from my QuickBase CRM?  Social networking rocks  !!