Social Networking Fad

Where do you stand on using social networking for business?  Are you dabbling in it personally, but haven't explored it as a business tool?  Time to take another look at social networking for business.  This video provides some statistics that suggests that social networking is here to stay and the people who are in business today and in the future are going to be talking about you and your company online in real time.

What does this mean to your reputation? What are people saying about the level of service you provide? Are you online listening? Are you talking back? Are you interacting with your prospects and customers? Join the Revolution!

Shifitng Market Dynamics Puts Pharma Marketing Execs on Front Lines

Optimizing information and collaboration will be the new key to winning or losing in Pharma.

Pharma firms not only compete with each other they do so on a playing field that is constantly changing. Competitive products, shifts in buying influences, and legislated constraints all affect go-to-market strategies. So how do you win?

In a whitepaper authored by David Caruso titled "Market Effectiveness: The Key Competency for Pharmaceutical Growth" he states that pharma firms "must find low cost evolutionary paths to integrating their marketing and sales efforts. No company should embark on building a custom CRM system...but should invest in leveraging in the tools and data available..."

Marketing executives have important decisions to make about which market segments will produce the best ROI. Get out from in front of those headlights - why reinvent the wheel? Companies should be looking at Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Having the right information about your clients will be tantamount to success.

Access the whitepaper or contact us for more information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The social phone is ringing...are you going to answer or ignore?

Social Media is being taken very seriously at Kodak - they  have hired a "Chief Listener" (http://tinyurl.com/27ct4cu). According to their CMO, Jeffrey Hayzlett, "This is essential for embracing the fundamental shifts brought about by the rise of and continual changes in social media and technology. And this is going to get even bigger with the continued rise of smartphones and other mobile devices, like the iPad. Three to four years ago, you didn't need to do this. Today, if a company is not doing this to engage its customers and team, it will fail to keep growing and die." Yikes.

Social media is definitely changing the way we communicate - there's Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, wikis, RSS feeds, online forums, just to name a few. Some of us fear social media because we don't understand it, we can't control it, and find it almost impossible to measure it.

Harris Technology is having a friendapoolza. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Phone is ringing, think I'll answer this one.

Writing Winning Email Subject Lines - What Not to Do

In a recent issue of our newsletter, Montage, we had a typo in our subject line. It was the issue on how to write winning subject lines. It blared: "Subject Line Personaliztion: Think Before You Personalize". Huge typo. Ouch. Some of our readers thought the typo was intentional...if only we were that clever. Spelling, grammatical errors and inaccuracies can be avoided by running your complete email draft by others. Slow down, and take the time to engage in a thorough review process. You'll ensure your message is clear, credible, and effective. Words to live by Yanni. Since misery loves company, we want to know your most embarrassing moment, business related preferably, but we never turn away from a good story. One customer has already shared their moment in the sun with us, "We did a beautiful postcard several years ago that had the word 'public' written as 'pubic'. Gave a whole new meaning to our advice!". To this customer...you are our hero for sharing this story. So fess up, we want to hear your most embarrassing moment!

For all three whitepapers on Writing Winning Subject Lines, please contact Lynn Harris at lynn.harris@harris-tech.com.

Microsoft to spend $9.5 billion on research and development in 2010

As you might expect, Microsoft is a leader in spending on research and development.  It's what keeps them at or near the front of the pack in terms of new products and improvements to existing products.

Kevin Turner, Microsoft's chief operating office, who spoke on Thursday at the Cebit trade show said that much of Microsoft's investment center around "cloud" services, or online computing provided to users from hosted data centers.

Microsoft has more cloud services than any other company, ranging from its consumer email service to hosted enterprise products such as its Dynamics CRM (customer relationship management) system to its Azure cloud operating system.

Here is the link to the full story from Business Week.

Harris Technology is excited to see Microsoft's investment in MS CRM technology and commitment to cloud computing.  This is exactly what we would expect from Microsoft.  It means that the MS CRM product we sell and support will continue to exceed our client's expectations.

Demo of Microsoft CRM Online by Jon White

Technical Specialist Jon White from Microsoft shares some of the features of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.  This demo talks about the various capabilities of MS CRM Online and how various customers might use these capabilities to run their business more effectively.  Runtime for the video is just over 8 minutes.

Highlights of the video include:

1. Dashboard in MS CRM Online that allow users to easily define what information they want to see inside of CRM.
2. Creating new entities to store information about employees and assets.  This is a simple example of xRM.
3. Shows Outlook client with MS CRM in the folder list of mail system.  How the system tracks tasks, appointments, contacts and email in MS CRM is discussed.
4. Shows how to import tradeshow leads into MS CRM via a simple wizard interface.
5. The resource center is discussed outlining the various videos and knowledge articles to help you use MS CRM Online more effectively.

I will be posting other articles and videos about MS CRM in the future.  The capabilities of the system available out-of-the-box are extremely robust.  The Microsoft platform for MS CRM provides almost unlimited ability to customize a solution that exactly fits the needs of any company or organization.

 

 

Special Pricing for GoToWebinar, Action Required Before 2/23/2010

Citrix Online just announced new pricing for GoToWebinar, the online conferencing service we use for meetings and webinars.  If you go to their website today you see three pricing tiers based on the number of attendees you can have in a webinar.  (see image below) 

We were pleased to learn that our pricing and number of participants was not changing.  Paying $3,840 more for what we have today was not the news I was looking for this morning.  Fortunately, we still have the ability to host webinars with up to 1,000 participants for the lowest price of $948 per year. 

Citrix is giving us the opportunity to invite friends to sign up for GoToWebinar and get the same deal we have if they sign up in the next two weeks for a 45 day trial and become a customer by the end of the trial period.

The special offer is what prompted me to write this blog.  If you have been thinking of signing up for an online conferencing service, this might be your lucky day.  Here is the URL to sign up for the trial.  http://www.gotowebinar.com/s/TAF  I got the notice of this offer on Tuesday, 2/16/2010.  So you probably need to sign up for the trial before Tuesday, 2/23/2010 to make sure you get the special pricing.

In addition to GoToWebinar, you also get an account for GoToMeeting and the service includes access to VOIP and integrated telephone conferencing for no additional charge.

We have used GoToWebinar and GoToMeeting for about 3 years and have had great experience with it.  We also use GoToAssist in our technical departments to do remote control sessions on client systems.  We are very pleased with these systems.

Please pass this information on to others who might want to take advantage of this offer.  Thank you.

Applications That Help You Run Your Business More Effectively

I would like to introduce you to a term that is making the rounds right now.  You may have heard it before.  Defining it properly contributes to an understanding of what Harris Technology does for our clients.  The term is xRM.  For the first time, we are going to talk about the sharp end of the stick.  We are going to focus on what the systems we create do and provide you with some ideas for how you might use CRM for your organization.

Think for a moment about the work your company does and consider what a CRM system should do to support that work.  Read through the following list of applications and get a sense for the types of software we can create to help our clients operate their businesses more effectively.  As you read the name of each management system try to imagine the type of company that could use this system and what it might do to help them.

Reseller Management	Compliance Managment	Lease Management
Customer Management	Event Management	License Management
HR Management	Vendor Management	Constiutent Management
Supplier Management	Student Management	Employee Management
Product Management	Defect Management	Partner Management
Lead Management	Grant Management	Insurance Management
Fleet Management	Hotel Management	Property Management
Certification Management	Asset Management	Franchise Management
Legislation Management	Patient Management	Compliance Management
Training Management	Lab Management	Reseller Management
Leasing Management	Recruit Management	Project Management
Studio Management	Donor Management	Alumni Management
Contractor Management	Team Management	Association Management
Club Management	Designer Management	Product Management
Congregation Management	Donation Management	Rodeo Management
Tradeshow Management	Opportunity Management	Delivery Management
Restaurant Management	Automobile Management	Equipment Management
Campaign Management	Route Management	Renewal Management
Service Management	Adoption Management	Marketing Management

 

Microsoft CRM is a development platform.  That means that we use the tools inside of MS CRM to develop software that runs inside of Microsoft CRM.  Microsoft CRM has a number of out-of-the-box capabilities such as lead management, campaign management, and opportunity management.  But think about all the other management systems you might be able to use to improve the way you run your business that are specifically related to your unique business.

For example, what if your company offered sales training, would you want a training management system that enabled you to publish your training class schedule online and allow students to register and pay for their training?  Would you like to be able to track which classes each student had taken?  If you offered CPE credits, would it be useful to know who needed the credits and manage the process of sending out certificates?  What about tracking information about the instructors and what classes they are certified to teach and when their certifications need to be renewed, would that be useful information?.  What else would a training company want in their system?

We hope the examples we have provided inspire you to think about your business and how an xRM solution could extend significant operational benefits to your business.  We would love to talk with you about your business and what applications could help take your business to a new level.

The video is about the limitless possibilities for management systems to help run businesses more effectively.  Invest a couple minutes to watch and have some fun. Please comment and let us know what applications we didn't list.  Enjoy!

 

PULSE Smartpen is an Ideal Capture Tool for Your Notes

Does this happen to you?

Is it difficult for you to keep up with the person speaking and take notes at the same time?  You are trying to listen carefully so you appear to be paying attention.  You are trying to process what is being said so you can respond intelligently, or you are thinking about the next logical question to ask based on what is being said.  And, at the same time, you are trying to write a note to remind yourself about a next action to find out information or check on something. 

It happens to me all the time.  I end up with notes that stop mid sentance.  For example "be sure to notify" or "important to show how" and that's it.  The key point in my note is missing because something else was said in the meeting or I was asked a question that caused me to stop writing my note and respond directly to what is being said.  

I hate it when this happens.

I am quite sure that I have discovered the solution.  I purchased a Pulse Smartpen and it has changed the way that I take notes for the better.

The Smartpen captures what you write as you write it.  It also captures the audio from the meeting as you take notes.  Let's say you ask the question "what problems are you having in the sales area?" and the person you are interviewing list 6 issues with some pretty good detail and examples of what's going on.  You are able write down 4 key words, but you miss the last 2 issues.  You don't get any of the details or examples.  Don't worry, the Smartpen audio is working to capture all that information.  After the interview, simply go back and review the audio and fill in your notes so you have a 100% complete understanding of the sales issues.

You use special paper to make your notes so that when you finish your meeting, while you are still in the field, you are able to open the notebook and click the pen tip on any part of the page and listen to the audio that was being recorded at that point during the meeting.  Let's say that all you wrote down during the interview was the number 4, for item four of the issues.  Click the pen point on the written number 4 and you will hear what was being said at that point.

There are controls on the page that let you jump forward or backward, increase or decrese the volume, speed up or slow down the playback.  You just touch the pen point to one of the controls and the pen changes the playback accordingly.  There is even a calculator printed on the inside cover of the notebook.  Click the pen point on the calculator and see the result in the LED on the pen.

I have the 4 GB pen which gives up to 400 hours of audio.  There is a 2 GB pen, also, if you don't want to keep as much audio on the pen.  When you dock the pen the Smartpen desktop application opens up automatically and transfers what you wrote and the audio you captured with your notes.  What this means is that everything you wrote on the notebook during your meeting is now digitially captured on your desktop application.

With your notes on your desktop, you can click your mouse pointer anywhere on the digital page and listen to what was being said at that moment during the interview.  When your pen is full, you can archive the data off the pen and still have all the information on your computer.

One of the neat features of the desktop app is that you can search for content in your notes.  I don't have the best handwriting, but I can enter a search phrase and it finds it in my notes.  Wow.  This is an awesome tool.

Let's say I call the person I interviewed to ask a follow up question to something they said in the interview.  If I use the Smartpen to write on the page where my original notes were added, then my new comments are automatically added to the paper and digital notes. 

If you don't want to take notes at all, just let the pen record the meeting and then, when you're back at the office, open your notebook and play the notes.  Start taking notes in the notebook and these are linked to the page as if you had taken the notes during the meeting.  Boy, I wish I had had this tool when I was in school. 

The Smartpen is made by LiveScribe.  You have to use notebooks and journals made by LiveScribe in order to have these capabilities.  Two hardbound journals 5.5 x 8.25 100 sheets each are about $25.  They also have spiral bound notebooks (like we had in school) that are 8.5 x 11.  This is the only downside, but it's not significant.  The paper is a special "dot" paper that the pen uses to know exactly where on the page you are writing.

I hope you find this information useful.  I haven't found there to be any downside to using this system.  I have a consultant in four days of meetings, designing a new system for a client.  He is using a Smartpen to record each design session.

Questions?  Visit Livescribe's Website for more information.  I would love to hear from you about your experience with the Smartpen.

Ron

Use Evernote to capture almost anything

About a year ago I started using a free service called Evernote. It is an online service for capturing notes about anything, placing those notes into notebooks, and searching them later on to recall the information. I was using OneNote from Microsoft at the time and couldn't see much difference between the two applications. Today, if you take a look at Evernote you may find as I did that this application has some new features and capabilities that move it to the top of your list.

Think of Evernote as a way for you to access information you store in the application from almost anywhere. I am a PC user and have the desktop client loaded on my work computer as well as the computer I use when I travel. There is also a MAC version. I am able to use a browser from any computer to directly access the data in my account by logging into the Evernote website. There is an iPhone application, too, from which I can access my data. The fact that you can add information to Evernote from all these applications and have the data sync to the rest makes this a can't live without application for me.

I was in Atlanta over the weekend. I needed to work on a Word document so I created the document and uploaded it into Evernote via the desktop client on my laptop. Anywhere you work from the desktop client the documents are stored locally for you. If the Evernote application ever goes away, I have a copy of my document on my two computers. I can edit the document from the web browser or iPhone and the changes will find there way back to my desktop clients through the magic of synchronization.

There is a link in my Outlook email client that allows me to select an email and have it pushed into Evernote. The "Add to Evernote" button promotes me to select the notebook I want to put the email in and gives me the opportunity to add tags which help me find things later. There is a similar button to send things to Evernote from inside a browser. I don't know about you, but I find things on websites and want to save them for later reference. Now, instead of printing the browser page, I add it to Evernote (whole page or just the selected portion) and I am down. It's now in my always-with-me memory.

I find another feature to be a great time saver. Go to a meeting where people are jotting things on a white board or flip chart. Assuming a pretty legible scribe has taken the notes, I can take a photo of the materials on the board or chart and upload them to Evernote. Once the image is processed by Evernote servers I can perform a search and find the images that mention the search term. It's even highlighted. Think of the possibilities for this feature alone. Want to remember a particular wine, take a picture of the lable and upload to Evernote. At the store and see a book you want to read, take a photo of it.

The Evernote application is free. You can add text notes, PDFs, and images (JPEG and GIF). No limit to how much you can upload, but you are limited to a 50 MB per month. I purchased the premium account so I could add any type of file (Word, Excel, Visio, PowerPoint) etc. to the system. The cost of the premium account should not stop you from getting it. It's $5 per month or $45 per year.

I suggested to my daughter who is attending nursing school that she use Evernote premium to make the most of her time and be able to view her data from any computer that has access to the Internet. She can start a Word document at home, then when she has some time in the library at school, open the same document and continue working on it from the web, once she returns home, she can pick up where she left off.

What prompted me to write about Evernote today was a couple articles I found on the American Express Open Business webiste that talk about ways to use Evernote for small and mid-sized businesses. Follow these links and see what others are saying about this application. You will be glad that you did.

Learn more about evernote, or sign up for 14 days free.

How do you use Evernote to improve your productivity?