Last week in Brisbane, Tim, Troy & Elisha were lucky enough to attend Xerocon South 2016.
The annual conference was Xero’s biggest conference yet, with over 2000 attendees! Considering the conference’s humble beginnings with only 140 attendees, this is a huge achievement for Xero and clearly demonstrates the growth of cloud accounting.
The conference spans over two days showcasing over 90 exhibitors – all of which are add-ons to the Xero accounting software, and it is mindblowing to see what is possible with these add-ons, allowing your business systems to become automated so you can focus on running your business, and doing what you love.
In addition to visiting all of the exhibitors, Xerocon had a schedule of keynote speakers to keep the audience engaged.
The first standout keynote for us was Dandapani. Dandapani is an ex-monk, and now travels the world as a speaker sharing his learnings about self-development, and controlling your mindset. Interestingly, he started with an exercise which demonstrated to the audience how easily he could take the awareness of our minds to another place, and therefore feel another emotion. This is applicable to everybody, as it can be so easy to go from being in a ‘happy’ place, to being in an ‘angry’ place, and that this is something we need to learn to consciously control. Biggest takeaway for me was an example Dandapani used – how can we tell a child to concentrate, when they have never actually been taught how to concentrate and keep their mind focussed on one thing – something to ponder!
Immediately after Dandapani, we heard from Rachel Botsman – a global thought leader and author. Rachel spoke about how the new currency of the economy is ‘Trust’ using examples such as Air BnB and Uber to demonstrate this. Would you get in a car with a complete stranger? Normally you would say no, but millions of people worldwide use the services of Uber, based on the reputations of their drivers. Similarily, would you normally let strangers live in your house, and not utilise the services of an agent? Air BnB has shown that people will allow this to occur – again, based purely on reputation and trust. The common theme of this presentation was the way technology and innovation is changing the economy, and that business’s need to innovate to survive.
The third stand-out key note was Rachel Robertson – she was an Antarctic Expedition Leader and is now a known speaker and author, sharing her most vital skills for being a successful leader. She had multiple rules when was leading the Antarctic Expedition, and one of these she called ‘No Triangles’ – this means that you don’t speak about somebody to somebody else, you raise it directly with the person. Following this rule demonstrates integrity, and this is integral to being a good leader. She also shared many examples from her expedition where respect is so important – one that stuck with me was when somebody in her group left dishes out, and it caused a major rift between the group. This wasn’t about the fact that dishes were left out, it came down to respect – why are you so important that you can leave your dishes lying around, and that somebody else will pick them up? It is therefore vital as a good leader to never expect somebody else to do something for you, which makes them think they are less important.
All in all, Xerocon South was a huge success, with many takeaways that could be applied straightaway in the workplace, and in your personal life. Congratulations to Xero for running a fantastic conference, and showing us many exciting things to come in the future.
If you’d like to learn more about the Xero accounting software please don’t hesitate to contact your friendly Cloud Consultant at HTA Advisory.
