I spent the past four days meeting and networking with advisors and and industry vendors at the 2010 T3 conference at the Torrey Pines Hilton in La Jolla, CA.  My initial expectations for the event were based on the lineup of sessions and vendors, but found out quickly the true conference happens outside the structured agenda.  Whether it was meeting an advisor at lunch, continuing a discussion after a session, or with new friends at dinner, I gained more specific knowledge for our firm than in all the sessions combined.

So what did I come away with?

Like most businesses, we all seem to struggle with finding a balance between the cliche of “working in your business vs working on it”.  The common theme here was that better technology, or better adoption of existing tools will lead to dramatic improvements in productivity, and therefore more time to spend on higher ROI activities.  The catch is prioritizing which solutions to adopt first, but more importantly, getting the “buy in” from all employees to use it effectively.  Ultimately, if I had to sum up my key takeaway or buzzword, it’s integration.  The “gold standard” for firms is finding the right solutions ranging from CRM systems, document and workflow management, to planning software, and then getting it all to integrate together.

Although I went into the conference secretly hoping to learn about a new or groundbreaking product (think new Apple announcement hype), I was pleased to see strong competition in each category our firm would consider adopting.  On Thursday I spent most of the day talking with vendors about CRM’s and document management services.  It seems most firms are either in the “cloud” or desktop based, but I and most attendees prefer a virtual setup over desktop software in most instances.  I spent most of the day Thursday & Friday talking to these and other vendors about their solution.  While this was helpful to learn about what is possible, I figured I wasn’t getting the whole story.

For the unbiased story, I listened to several people that I trust.

Industry leaders like Kristen Luke, Matt Peterson, Gary Davis Jr, and Laurie Gripshover.  Each of them work with advisory firms in different capacities, and have a sense of what firms are using, but more importantly, how the technology actually works in practice.  Which products are great in theory, but far too complicated for firms to implement.  By describing our current situation, number of employees, and current struggles with technology, they were all able to give me great advice about areas we should consider.  Kristen works with firms as an outsourced marketing department, Matt designs great websites specifically for advisory firms, and both Gary & Laurie consult with firms from an operational perspective.

Having said all that, there were several sessions I came away with new ideas or new perspectives on things I’m already doing.  Here is a brief recap in the order the sessions were scheduled:

Ethics session – In one of the more interesting sessions, considering the Tiger Woods press conference scheduled the following day, Patrick Kuhse spent two hours detailing his research and personal history of struggles with ethics.  As his website says, he became an expert on ethics the hard way.  During a career as a successful, and legitimate stock broker, Patrick slowly took one bad turn after another before he was in deeper than he could cover.  He illegally raised commissions as an advisor to the State of Oklahoma’s multi-billion dollar investment portfolio, and then paid “kickbacks” to the friend who got him the job.  After fleeing the country and living for four years in Costa Rica, he was arrested before spending years in Federal prison.  Take a look at his site, for his incredible story, and a few videos.  Don’t miss the chance if you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak.

Quantuvis Consulting – Stephanie Bogan, CEO of Quantuvis spoke on business development best practices in the first session of the week.  Stephanie covered a variety of ideas, but the key takeaway for me was advisors should make a list of the five to ten ideas you have for development, narrow it down to two, and then DO THEM.  Although one advisor might be successful meeting new clients through golfing (for example), if that isn’t your thing or you don’t like golf, DON’T DO IT!  Find something that you naturally enjoy doing, and do it with other people.  Sounds simple, right?

What’s New in Document Management Software – This session had panelists from competing firms.  Two of which operate in the “cloud”, Net Documents and Laser Fiche, and two operate as desktop systems, CEO Image and a fourth I can’t recall.  It didn’t get heated, but this was by far the most awkward if not CONTENTIOUS pairing of the weekend.  Although the session was about “what’s new” it turned into a debate over whether a desktop solution or one in the cloud was best.  Fortunately I did get a sense of how advisory firms are using this technology, and that it is truly effective if it integrates with your other systems.  If you can’t link a clients documents to their record in a CRM system, it doesn’t seem as helpful beyond managing your documents.  Clearly that is a critical solution, but without integration, it doesn’t appear complete efficiencies would be gained.

Fidelity – Social Media Trends & Opportunities – Fidelity provided a general overview of the top 3 social sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, how they are currently using them, and what advisors should be thinking about.  They started with a humorous look at the roughly 15 year history of the internet as we know it (think AOL CD’s and phone lines to Al Gore jokes).  They used examples of their use of Twitter – mainly as a customer service portal and to search for rollover opportunities – to the StockTwits site and how traders use it to find up to the moment news, & rumors about a company.  The main takeaway was that your clients are quickly adopting some form of social media, and if you want to communicate with them where they are, you need to consider maintaining a presence.  Again, like the Quantuvis takeaway, if it fits what you naturally do or enjoy, do it.  I.e., don’t get on Twitter because you think you “have to”.  Having said that, time spent on Facebook has surpassed email use, so it might be something you want to consider.

Webinars and Blogging – 2009 seemed like the year of the webinar for me.  Most weeks I watched 1 or 2 lunchtime webinars on social media, or blogging among other topics.  By no means do I know all there is to know, but I felt like it was time to “do” instead of looking for more ideas.  Then again, we all heard more about “Google Juice” than I care to recall!

This session was different though, because Rick Kahler gave several insights into his process and the results he has seen.  Rick is well known online among the advisory world as he has consistently been active with his blog for several years.  The amazing thing to me was that he attributes 50% of his new business from his online efforts!  HALF!  Rick generally posts twice a week, and uses this content to educate his clients, feed his blog, produce his email newsletter, as well as for multiple newspapers.  Although writing is not easy, he is clearly leveraging what he produces in a number of mediums.  Furthermore, he records all of his webinar’s, and provides video & audio recordings of certain articles..

David Druckers Technology ROI white paper – David had put together a compilation of other studies, surveys, and white papers from 7 of the sponsors for the conference.  The statistics were impressive, but only truly so if implemented by all employees at a firm.  Because this paper is available for a fee, I’m hesitant to list details of the report here.  If you are interested in learning more, you can find the paper here.

I’m sure there are many areas I’m overlooking, but these were my takeaways from the sessions I was able to attend.  There were generally 4-5 sessions per time slot, so I clearly missed other areas.  If you attended and can add something from other sessions, please do so in the comments below.

For more on the event, pleased read the official T3 blog, see this post from Kristen Luke, or follow the conversation on Twitter, with the #T3show hashtag.

What solutions are you using for your firm?

Are you pleased with your current CRM, or other solutions?

I’d love to hear your ideas or details of what you’ve found to work well here or on the contact form.

By now I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Comcast employee Frank Eliason and his Comcast Cares Twitter account.  If you’re not, essentially Frank was one of the first to use Twitter to proactively “listen” for Comcast customers in need of customer service.  You can read more about his story here.

Today I was looking for a better way to handle the comment section on my site.  I wanted to allow people to subscribe to the comment section to know if someone replied to something they said.

Until recently, I would have searched through the plugin section, or done a quick Google search to see what was popular.  Instead of either of these, I went to Twitter, so see what the “crowd” thought was the best plugin for WordPress:

Within 15 minutes I had 3 responses, all from people I trust for this type of answer:

Adam, Brian, and Deanna each suggested I take a look at Disqus as a quick, easy plugin to my existing site.  Each responded within minutes of my question with a great suggestion.

Minutes after the last Disqus suggestion rolled in, I received an offer to help from a rep of Disqus!

I was literally in the process of installing their service when I heard from them.  As it happens, though, I did have a question for them.  During the install, my existing comments went away.  I assumed there was a way to easily import old comments, but I figured I’d ask the experts for help again.  A few minutes I had my answer:

In the last week I’ve turned to Twitter and Facebook to help plan a trip to San Diego, and upgrade my website.  In each time I found great answers within minutes of asking.  This time I received input from the company as well.  The only downfall is I’ll have even less patience with call center “Steve” who’s clearly in India!

Have you had similar experiences online?  Have you asked “the crowd”?  Give it a try, things are much easier this way!

photo by Michale

This February, I’ll be attending a conference in San Diego.  It starts on a Wednesday, and runs through Saturday.  I plan on flying out on Sunday with my wife and turning it into a mini vacation.  I’ve been to LA, but never San Diego, so I thought I would research what to do.  Typically, I would Google it, or buy a travel book, or iPhone app to guide what I’ll do.  Instead, I decided to crowdsource it, and ask my friends online.  Here is a representation of their responses:

Click the image for a larger, clearer version.

I asked the question on both Twitter and Facebook.  I was a little surprised that I received much more feedback from Facebook than Twitter (10 to 1 so far).  Thanks to the simple question, I know feel comfortable knowing exactly what to do, and what to avoid!

Do you have anything different to add?  I’m not going for 3 months, so any tips would be greatly appreciated!  Please add anything you think I should do or avoid here.

I don’t know when it started, but there is NO question, I am a technology snob.  ZERO question.  There was a little run skit on Saturday Night Live where Jimmy Fallon played a tech support geek at a company.  Here’s a great clip that sums me up:

I am Nick Burns.  It’s pathetic, but true.

The first time I remember exhibiting this behavior was at a friends house soon after we both started using Tivo in the mid 2000′s.  This was soon after you could add your Yahoo! pictures and hook it up to your PC to transfer video’s etc.  If you’ve used Tivo, you’ll remember (I say remember as I’ve unfortunately moved on to the Directv DVR) that you could “hack” the box to add a 30 second skip feature that wasn’t standard to skip commercials. While spending the weekend at their house, I did the Nintendo Contra style remote control code to add  the skip feature to their Tivo.  I, of course, did this without asking if he would want the feature.

Seriously, how could he not?

They, of course, did NOT want this great feature so I had to remove it.

Fast forward to every dinner at my parents house.  Recently they purchased an HDTV and after some convincing, upgraded their cable box to add HD programming and the DVR.  Although most HD programing is in wide screen, some shows they watch are not.  They do not like to watch 4:3 shows with black bars on the side, so they’ve set the TV display to stretch everything to fill the screen.  This distorts both 4:3 shows, as well as 16:9 HD content and for me, renders a show unwatchable.  Since I can’t help myself, I grab the remote, set the defaults back to native, and watch the way it was meant to be watched.  I am, as I said, a technology snob…

This does not please my parents, and least of all my wife.  Nobody else in the room understands why I made the change, nor how it is better!  Insanity, right!  Soon after I leave, the settings are changed back to wide zoom…

Fast forward to tonight, when I was showing my brother Google Wave. I explained both how it works today in Beta, as well as how it could work in the future.  I then asked if he’d heard of Google Voice. He said no, and without thinking, I let out an evil chuckle, as if I held the keys to some great toy.  Pathetic, but like I said…snob.

Sadly, the Hulu vido of Nick Burns isn’t that far off.  I’m often asked “how-to” questions at work.  If I can’t handle by phone, I usually go over to the computer in question.  Soon after huffing in disgust that they are ignoring the “invention” of tabbed browsing, I fix the problem, mumble a few things to my self, chuckle as if I’m hilarious, and go about my day.  It’s a sickness, I know.

I am curious though, do you think it’s a sickness, or are you just like me?  Are you “that guy” or are you calling your version of “me” for help?

Earlier this week, the marketing department at my office sent out the standard year end email this week announcing they would be ordering stationary for 2010, and asking if anyone needed additional business cards ordered.

Then last night, at an event for Pittsburgh Young Professionals I met a few people and we exchanged business cards.

Maybe its the fact that it’s almost 2010, or my eternal fear of technology passing me by, but it seems to me that it’s time to retire the paper business card.  Think about it.  The cards I exchanged last night lasted only to this morning.  Once I went to work, I added the contacts to our database, synced it with my cell phone, and searched for them on Linkedin.  Then, they were thrown away.

For about a month I’ve been trying out a few other options, and think we may be close to replacing the business card.  The first is  called Bump, and is available as an iPhone app.

The program works by allowing you to trade your contact information with anyone else who also has the app on their iPhone.  You can choose to transfer multiple phone numbers, your email address, website company information and even a photo.  Or, if you prefer, just your name and number.  The obvious downfall is that the person you meet needs to have an iPhone with the app already installed.  Can’t imagine it would make much sense to download the app, and set it up 2 minutes after meeting someone!  Take a look at their YouTube video to see it in action:

The second replacement tool I’ve been testing is call Contxts and only requires the person you met to have a cell phone and the ability to text.  You can set it up easily online, or using your phone.  All the person has to do to receive your contact information is to text the name you set it up under to 50500.  To receive my card, just text dunkin to 50500.  It doesn’t offer as much information as Bump.  You can include your name, title, and company, and whatever information you can fit in under 140 characters.  It’s just simple enough to work.

Clearly neither of these tools are used widely enough to truly replace the business card.  But that day just might be coming.

Are you using either of these tools?

Something different?

Can you ever imagine not exchanging cards but zapping information to someones cell phone, or whatever comes next?

photo by bargainmoose and joe shlabotnik

I recently signed up for a service to backup all of my various online accounts. Because I work for an SEC Registered Investment Advisor firm, any information that is considered marketing or advertising must be archived in a compliance file.  While the majority of my posts here, on Twitter, and on Facebook, are personal in nature, there are times when I post a link or make a comment that could be considered advertising.

While WordPress has a variety of options for backing up your blog, ranging from simply exporting it, to a more elaborate plugin, Twitter, Facebook, and other “social networking” sites do not offer much help.  Posts on Facebook seem to disappear after a month, and Twitter “streams” by quickly.  I could use an RSS feed for tweets, and a different solution here, but instead I wanted to find one option to backup all of my sites.

I first read about Backupify when it was called Lifestream backup on Bill Winterberg’s blog FP PAD.  After testing the free version for a couple weeks, I signed up for their Premium (10 gb) plan about a month ago.  I know have a daily backup of Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Google Docs, and this site.  All this for $39 a year (there is a $29 plan for $29, and a $109 50 gb plan).

While I have been very pleased with the service thus far, as it does exactly what I need, I have been most impressed by the company’s customer service.  This past week I decided I wanted the service to backup everything on my Facebook account except pictures. Because I had already elected to backup everything, I was unable to stop backing up pictures, and delete them from my account.

This clearly isn’t a deal breaker, but something I was hoping to do.  About an hour after leaving a voicemail on their toll-free number, I received a call back from the founder of the company, Rob May.

I figured it was a small company, but  I was still surprised and pleased to hear from the founder!

He reviewed my request, and explained that was an option they had planned on adding, but hadn’t had a request to do so.  Based on my call, they would take care of it the following week!  While I’m sure it won’t take a lot of programing to add this feature, I was very pleased to see a company so responsive to its clients!

Recession or not, it’s service like this that builds great companies, and very loyal customers!  Have you had a similar positive experience with a company?  I’d love to hear about it here.

photo by Docklandsboy

Earlier this week, I had the pleasures of attending the third annual Create West Virginia conference, in Huntington WV. The purpose of the conference is to “spark new economy growth” in West Virginia.  New economy, is defined as those industries who generate income from the development of intellectual property and innovative entrepreneurship.

The conference officially started on Monday morning with a keynote speech by  Kevin Stolarick, from the University of Toronto.  There were several additional sessions added on Sunday, along with a special Mountain Stage performance by Kathy Matea, but I was unable to make it to Huntington in time.

After breakfast, I attended two breakout sessions on Monday morning.  The first session was called Virtually Connected and featured panelists reviewing how both small businesses and the WV government are using social media to stay connected to their customers and constituents.  Laura Jordan, of the Charleston, WV YWCA reviewed how they have effectively used blogs, twitter, and facebook to accomplish their goals.  Laura mentioned their goals were to keep up with technology, encourage two way communication, and be good stewards of their resources (web 2.0 is mostly free).  Natalie Tennant, WV Secretary of State, spent time reviewing her use of social media to create a more open, two way government.

The second session of the morning, Beyond Borders,  was very interesting.  Three more panelists discussed how their WV headquartered  “small businesses” are conducting business both nationally and globaly.  Luke Glass, of Threewide corporation, and Julie Hewett of Julnet Solutions led the discussion.  Luke’s story was very interesting as his firm has grown from 3 employees in 1999, to over 20 today.  The company provides over 60% of the real estate data for online firms such as Yahoo! and Zillow.  All this, from Morgantown WV!

Monday afternoon, and Tuesday morning contained more sessions on training and venture capital options for startup entrepreneurs, patent and intellectual property issues, as well as innovation gone green (firms in the state focusing on sustainability).  This was in addition to two more keynote speakers, Dr. David Wiley, an Associate Professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University, Chief Openness Officer of Flat World Knowledge, and Founder of the Open High School of Utah, as well as Anya Kamenetz of Fast Company Magazine.  Dr. Wiley spoke about how many of these technology will change the course of higher education in the future, and Anya spoke about the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to a clean energy economy.

Even with all of the great information I learned during the conference, the most valuable part of the time spent were the people I met.  Even driving 4 hours from Wheeling, I met three new friends from Wheeling, and got to know an acquaintance better.  In each session I met one or two new people from around the state that I look forward to following up with in the coming months.  Thanks to Google Wave, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, I will be able to stay in touch with each of them, and grow the relationship over time.

From what I understand, plans are already underway for the fourth annual conference this time next year.  Whatever the location, I strongly encourage you to attend in 2010.  You’ll learn a lot, meet many new people, and be motivated to help transition West Virginia into the new economy.

#createwv

When I first heard about Google Wave this summer, I knew I had to have it.  I watched most of the long announcement video, but I still didn’t fully understand what it did.

But it was new…It was invitation only…and most people i know had never heard of it

So I HAD to have it.

In a nutshell, Google Wave is a real time communications tool. When it was first announced, it was described as what email would have been, if it hadn’t been invented 40 years ago.  From what I can tell, they are right.  It combines functions of email, instant messaging, wiki’s, web chat, social networking, and project management

As far as I can tell, there’s only one problem. Since it’s in early beta testing, there aren’t many people I know who have access to it.  Think about it – it’s awfully hard to test, if I don’t have anyone to test it with.  From what I’ve heard, live beta release isn’t scheduled until the first half of 2010.  Let’s hope I find a few people to communicate with in the mean time…

Having said that, what I have seen so far makes me think that Wave will be a success.  Although it may be a little complicated, I can see it being very useful if a small business were to adopt it for their internal communications, or a group of friends use it to plan a night out.

But for me, for now, it’s all about avoiding becoming a member of the blinking 12:00 generation.  And for 3-9 months, I’ll be a few steps ahead of most, so I’m happy.

How about you?  Have you received an invitation and want to test it out with someone?  Feel free to contact me here and we can chat!