Cross-Platform and the Network Effect

Recently, I got the chance to catch up with LiveProfile CEO Phil Karl, whose messaging app recently managed to rack up approximately 1 million new users in just five days. The secret sauce that led to the app’s rapid growth? LiveProfile is available on all major U.S. smartphone platforms, including iOS, Android and BlackBerry, and it can operate between and on all three platforms, allowing platform-agnostic messaging.

Users in distributed teams want collaborative apps that work well on their preferred smartphone platform, but that also allow them to work with friends and colleagues using different devices; multi-protocol IM clients tend to do better in the App Store than do single-service offerings, for example. Many developers will be focusing on Android or iOS, but those that target BlackBerry (which, despite relatively flat growth, still commands a very large user base, particularly in the enterprise space) in addition to the newer entrants stand to gain the most traction now, even if only because BlackBerry users will become their most vocal supporters among other device owners in their circle.

UI and UX Are the Keys to the Kingdom

Once upon a time, you could get away with making an ugly app for enterprise use. As app selection moves from the hands of corporate IT to the general worker population, user interface and user experience design become much more central to an app’s likelihood of adoption. When a user isn’t just assigned a tool and given a certain number of hours training on that program, they’ll lean instead towards the apps that are most intuitive, and that require the least time investment on their own part to complete the task.

User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are no longer things developers can take for granted. If I’m faced with a choice between four spreadsheet apps, all of which use the same universally-accepted document formats, and all of which can get the job done, UI/UX is going to be a (if not the) key differentiator. App developers should recognize this and invest resources accordingly.

A Smart Web App Is a Safe Bet

Web apps may not have the same sex appeal as a native app, but a well-designed one that’s customized for the various smartphone platforms is a good bet. It’ll help you cast widest possible net in terms of device compatibility; it future-proofs your app against the whims and dangers OS platforms are subject to. Apple can’t reject a web app, for instance, and investment isn’t lost if, say, Windows Phone 7 gets axed by Microsoft.

That’s not to say going with a web app is easy, however. Building a good app that provides a solid experience no matter what platform it’s being used on is a challenge that can exceed platform-specific development in terms of degree of difficulty pretty easily. But making something like Facebook’s new mobile site, that intelligently monitors and responds to visitors’ hardware choices, will eventually pay off in terms of long-term development costs and user satisfaction.

Making apps that people want to take to work with them is the new backdoor to widespread enterprise adoption. It’s exciting, because it means even the smallest development studios can potentially compete with major publishers, but it also means competition will be fierce. But if you can strike a chord early with users by beating the competition in ways that are most appealing to the remote workforce of tomorrow, you’ll be ahead of the game.

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For example, online file storage service Dropbox has an open API and works across some of the leading mobile platforms, including iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Among developers, it seems to be an increasingly popular choice for providing cloud storage functionality in their apps; there is now a whole ecosystem of apps that are built on it or rely on it in some way. But Dropbox recently went down. A situation like that is little more than an inconvenience if the outage lasts only an hour or two, but what happens if the problem takes longer to fix? And it’s not just start-ups like Dropbox that suffer from outages — even the mighty Google’s apps have been known to go down.

It’s up to developers to be aware of and minimize these risks.  In my latest post for GigaOM Pro (sub.req.), I detail some of the points that developers should be considering before integrating third-party functionality into their apps.

Note that I’m not suggesting that integration between web apps is bad or undesirable — far from it — but, as an industry, we need to consider and mitigate our risks by making sure that we don’t become over-reliant on certain services.

Are you concerned about web apps becoming increasingly reliant on each other?

Photo courtesy Flickr user ciccioetneo

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While the inspiration generator I envisage remains just a dream for now, there are other apps you can use to help when you’re feeling stuck. One type of tool I use often is a writing prompt. These provide words or images that help you start writing. My favorite writing prompt is OneWord, which posts a random word at the top of your screen and gives you six seconds to write about it. Other writing prompts include The Blog Post Idea Generator, Random Word Generator, and Imagination Prompt. What you write using these tools may not be Pulitzer material, but at least you’ve started typing something; it’s easier to write after you’ve got going.

If you’re a more visual person, you might want to try more design-oriented tools. Composition with JavaScript is an example, which allows you to play around with an alterable version of a Piet Mondrian painting. The experience is similar to playing around with layout grids, so this might be a fun toy if you’re working on a layout project. Procedural drawing tools such as Harmony and ScribblerToo can also help you loosen up if you’re stuck on a design problem. For those who want to play around with color, ColourLovers and kuler are good places to start.

When you look at all these tools, you’ll see that they have one thing in common — play. Not to have fun per se, but to solve challenges without taking them too seriously. To me, this approach has often been the best way to break any mental blocks caused by pressure and monotony. In the end, it doesn’t matter so much if you use the above tools, modeling clay, a Rubik’s cube or Obscure Strategies. The important thing is to find new patterns of feeling and thinking.

Just remember that while using these tools can allow you to think outside the box, they can also become addictive — thus negating any positive effect they may have on your work. After a while you eventually need to stop playing and move on to doing your work. After all, isn’t that why you needed the extra inspiration in the first place?

What apps or tools do you use to generate ideas and boost inspiration?

Photo by stock.xchng user shadowkill

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What’s nice is that each member of the team doesn’t need to register for a Donut account to use it. Just one team member registers and becomes the administrator of the account. Everyone else can sign into Donut with existing OpenID, Twitter or Facebook credentials. If you want to open your chat room to the public, you can allow guests to sign in without a password.

Donut Chat Options

Like most apps. chatters can send private messages to each other. Users can share files; videos from YouTube, Vimeo and MetaFilter and photos from Flickr.

Administrator options for managing a user

For the most part, it takes little work to dive into Donut. Enter the chat room and it’s all straightforward. Nonetheless, the administrator faces a couple of user interface challenges and confusing features. For example, I banned one of my IDs and then couldn’t figure out how to remove the ban. Each room comes with its own settings, which I overlooked because the interface is different for administrators and users. Managing bans is accomplished under the room settings, which also allow the administrator to password protect the room, rename the room and change the topic. Other administrator options include “kick” (temporary removal from the room), “ban” (permanent removal) and “make moderator.”

Donut Chat Room Settings

The other confusing feature is “Login Access.” Donut has three login access options available. “New registrations” allows a user to sign up as a member of the chat; no one else can use that person’s member name. “Guest logins” lets anyone sign in without a password. “Allow member logins” lets members with a reserved name sign in.

To set up Donut in Facebook, first sign up at Donut and then go to Donut’s Facebook page to grab the app. I set up a Facebook page and added a tab for the chat, so you’re welcome to try Donut Chat’s Facebook feature (note: the chat can only hold up to 10 people, in case you can’t get in). Here’s a quick screencast that shows you how to add Donut Chat to your Facebook page and assign moderator rights:

Donut has a free Starter plan that allows for two chat rooms, room for 10 chatters and sharing of files up to 10 MB. The free plan is enough for a small team or a one-person business that wants to keep the door open for clients and colleagues. Other plans range from $12 per month up to $99 per month. The paid plans offer the ability to use the iPhone / iPod touch with Donut Chat, add password protection and integrate the chat with third-party apps.

What do you think of Donut Chat and its Facebook feature?

Posterous takes care of this problem for you by making it extremely easy to post content to the social media apps you use.

Doriano previously described how you can use email to share photos through Posterous, but I’m going to talk about how easy it is to use the Posterous bookmarklet to share any content across multiple platforms.

To create a Posterous account, you don’t fill out a registration form, you send an email. Then you get a confirmation email that will take you back to Posterous to add your social apps accounts to the service.

Once you’ve added the accounts to which you want to be able to post, the next thing I recommend you do is install the bookmarklet. On the “Manage” page, under the “Posts” tab (the default) scroll down and find the “Posting” box. Click the bookmarklet link and follow the very simple instructions to add the Posterous bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark toolbar.

Now go to some content that you want to share and click the bookmarklet in your bookmark bar. In the window that pops up, you can customize the info you’re about to post:

Posterous grabs images, videos and sometimes text from the site and lets you pick which you want to use. You can add your comments and click “Post” if you want this item to go to all your social media accounts, or you can click “Advanced Options” and pick and choose which accounts to post to. For example, I only want this link to go to my Twitter account and a personal blog:

Tips: If you want to use a specific text excerpt from an article, select the text before clicking the bookmarklet, and it’ll be added to the image/excerpt options. Choose it, and it’s neatly inserted as a blockquote. If you want to send the item to a blog where you have categories, in the title field, type ((tag: Category1, Category2)), for example, and it will automatically be categorized on your blog.

Note: Unless you want the cute puppy video you sent to your family blog, the excerpt of the article on agile programming you sent to your pro blog, and the photo of Freddie Mercury in an eyeball suit you just tweeted all to appear together in sweet cacophony on your Posterous site, you need to create multiple Posterous sites. This is easy to do, and you only have to add your social media accounts once. Then when you choose Advanced Options in the bookmarklet, a drop-down lets you pick the Posterous site you want the item to appear on:

I have only tested sharing with Posterous to a blog, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you post something to Twitter or LinkedIn, Posterous inserts a link that takes people to your Posterous site, not to the original site online. I assume the same is true of other social media apps, too. On a blog, the links go to the original item wherever it appeared online. I recommend testing Posterous a little bit at a time to see how it works for you.

I’ve only talked about the bookmarklet here, but do check out the email options. The first thing I did with Posterous was take a photo with my iPhone and email it to Posterous, which automatically autoposted it to every service I’d added. Doriano explained how to email content to specific sites in his article, so check that out as it’s actually kind of hard to find the info on the Posterous site.

Have you tried Posterous yet? What tools do you use for social sharing?

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My first stop was to sign up for a Cliqset account. I then set up my account to talk to my Friendfeed, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Twitter accounts.  Finally, I authorized Cliqset in Evernote (following nearly the same process as I used when I integrated Twitter and Evernote.)

Sending social media content from Cliqset to Evernote is as easy as selecting the Evernote icon and then clicking the “Share” button to send the item to your Evernote account.  What I really like here is how cleanly the integration packages the information you are sending to Evernote. Once the content is in your Evernote account, you can collaborate with other Evernote users or save it for your own reference. A small but nice touch is that the integration adds a Cliqset tag to any content you send into Evernote, offering you an easy stepping stone to better organizing your content.

As of this writing, the Cliqset social media stream is still in its infancy as far as content providers and members go; if you don’t find what you want in the social stream you can use the Cliqset Firefox Extension that enables you to capture content from web sites outside the Cliqset social stream. Clicking on the extension’s toolbar button launches a dialog box with the same sharing options and Evernote integration you enjoy from within Cliqset.

While I have some doubts as to whether I need yet another research tool, the neat packaging of content I sent in from Cliqset and the Cliqset Firefox extension resulted in a lot cleaner reference material than the web clippings I usually capture during my online research, so I may yet find a way to squeeze it into my workflow.

Have you tried out the Cliqset/Evernote integration? Share your experience below.

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I got a demo earlier this week of SugarSync‘s new features, then Kevin over at jkOntheRun beat me to the punch with his features announcement post (SugarSync Adds Email Attachment Uploads, 500 GB Plan). Like Kevin, I agree that these new features are a good thing. But unlike Kevin, I have yet to actually start using SugarSync.

Each time I hear, think or blog about SugarSync, I feel the pain of my virtual team. I hang my head in shame because, yes, we still use back-and-forth emails with attached documents with painstakingly modified file names so we know who made the changes and when. We also have started sending deliberate, emphatic emails to each project team saying “I am now giving up this document. So and so is the Keeper of This Document.”

To say that our process is antiquated is being kind. To say that it is inefficient, confusing, and painful is more like it. So once again, I experience a demo of SugarSync and get into a great discussion with the company’s CEO Laura Yecies about work process, document sharing, backups and working in the cloud. I want what she’s selling, but I’m also feeling a different kind of pain: The Pain of Adopting New Applications and Processes.

Anyone who has started and grown a company will tell you how some of the greatest challenges come as you add more people and your processes must change, but you’re so entrenched in “the way we do things” that you can’t seem to budge. The beauty of small companies like ours is that we can be nimble and flexible for our customers. But when your company is small and growing rapidly, internal flexibility can stall.

How Does SugarSync Compare to DropBox?

One of the applications my company uses now and then for file sharing and, more recently, in document versioning is Dropbox. While we like the “instant” file sharing for large files, I’m not convinced it is the way to go for sharing files that will experience further revisions over time, mostly because there isn’t a revision history. If you move something into your DropBox, the new version is now available to anyone you’ve shared the DropBox folder with and you cannot go back to an older version unless you change the file name before sharing.

SugarSync keeps a version history and renames new versions in the cloud for you to return to older documents.

DropBox is great for desktop and web working, but SugarSync beats it in terms of mobile access. SugarSync has set out to cover a set of processes that I think confounds many companies: Sync, Share, Access (including mobile). And it doed these things instantly and securely, whereas DropBox requires specific actions.

The Business level of SugarSync gives administrative controls such as adding and removing users at any time and setting specific access and storage limitations for each team member. With DropBox, I have to always remember that if I move something into my DropBox, it is now “gone” from my own computer files and now resides in the DropBox. With SugarSync, your files stay on your computer but sync into the cloud as well.

How Can SugarSync Ease the Pain?

I posed this question to Yecies on our call: “What do you say to people who are hesitant to adopt a new technology because they’re overloaded?”

Her reply resonated with me. “It’s easy to get started.”

Easy? I’m there. I signed up for the 2GB Free plan that allows only two users to sync and share to test the waters.

Here’s a summary of the benefits of SugarSync that I find immediately attractive for my own global virtual team:

• Our data is accessible across multiple devices and platforms.
• We can upload to SugarSync with email, which is already a tool we most commonly use anyway.
• Administrative controls helps us manage data per team member i.e. “selective sync” capabilities.
• It cuts out the need to same something locally and then to a pre-determined folder to share.
• It works behind-the-scenes so we don’t have to remember to do something to trigger syncing or sharing.

I’m sure as I start actually using SugarSync, I’ll uncover additional benefits, but when an app and service comes out that already has a lot of useful features going for it, resistance is futile.

How are you sharing and syncing your files with your team?

Photo by stock.xchng user amandaism

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Zoho CRM, Zoho Mail and Zoho Docs all get new abilities to interact with and use documents from Google Docs, which should be welcome news for anyone wanting to try out the Zoho alternative without either starting from scratch or going through an arduous migration process with their existing library of docs.

Zoho CRM

Attach files directly from your associated Google Docs account to Leads, Accounts, and Cases within Zoho CRM. All you have to do is authenticate using your Google credentials when prompted, and voila, your Docs should appear for you to choose from, in addition to your Zoho Docs and files on your desktop.

Zoho Mail

Adding an attachment when you’re composing an email is as easy as clicking on the little arrow next to the “Attach” link, and selecting Google Docs from the list of sources. If you haven’t done so already, Zoho will send you to Google to authenticate, and then your files will appear in a list with checkboxes next to them so you can select multiple attachments at a time. Zoho also allows you to filter your Docs, so that you can view only text, spreadsheet, or presentation files.

Zoho Docs and Projects

The same interface is used to get documents directly from your Google Docs account to both Zoho Docs and Projects, although you might want to note that with Zoho Docs, uploading directly from Google is supported only in the dashboard view. Trying to do so from the dedicated Docs window only allows you to import from Google Docs files you’ve downloaded to your desktop.

I’ve always been a Google user myself, but upon revisiting Zoho’s offerings for the purposes of this piece, I find myself wondering why. I’m not a Gmail or Google Calendar guy, and short of forthcoming integration with Google Wave, which I’m not crazy about anyway, there’s really no reason I should stick with Google when the competition is clearly much more obliging. For now, I’m going to test the Zoho waters and see how things turn out.

Does Google Docs integration give you a reason to give Zoho a try?

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The tool allows everyone to provide feedback and stay in the loop with a design’s progress, as well as archiving the design’s history. You can control who can see and leave feedback on each captured design. For example, a project manager could share one page with the copywriter, another with the whole team and yet another with the developers. The feedback occurs multiple ways, instead of one-way.

For example, let’s say I open a Notable account for the meryl.net web site. I work with a designer and a blog app expert; we’re all web workers living in different states. I capture different pages on my web site to highlight the current problems and identify ways to improve them, as the screenshot below shows.

While I could use my screenshot application to get a snaphot of the page to make comments on, Notable works faster. With a screenshot app, I’d capture the web page. Then, I would use the application’s drawing tools to add call outs. Notable takes care of everything for you. All I have to do is click and enter notes.  This video shows the process of capturing and annotating a site.

Notable offers a Firefox plugin for capturing any web page, which is especially helpful for those pages stuck behind logins. I grabbed Facebook pages and other password-protected pages with the plugin. You can also capture pages from a URL from within Notable, use a special URL formula to capture a web page (for example, www.notableapp.com/www.webworkerdaily.com would capture the home page of this site), download the iPhone app, or upload an image.

I can send my notes for one page to the designer and notes from another page to the blog expert. Or I can send it to both. Notable gives you control on what feedback and notes you share with others, and you can remove someone from the discussion after the fact. The designer and blog expert can capture their own pages to add notes or leave comments on my notes.

In this case, I have a workspace called “meryl.net” for the meryl.net redesign project. I can organize the pages into three sets: one for the business section of the site, one for games and one for the pages about deafness, as the next image shows.

Notable sends email notifications whenever someone adds notes and shares them. You can control who receives the notification to be able view the specific page and leave feedback. Permissions are also available on a per-set basis.

You can also see different views of each page. You not only view the design, but also you can see and post annotations on the code (the underlying HTML code of the page), the copy (just the page’s copy, without any distracting visual elements) and search engine optimization (which lets you see the page’s structure for SEO purposes).

Currently, Notable works with Firefox and Safari. However, I could leave comments and view notes in Google Chrome — just not capture pages. One of the biggest benefits is that it cuts down on emails and confusion. The only emails you receive are notifications of new notes or updates, rather than a bunch of emails from different people on a project and trying to keep track of it all. Best of all, Notable is fun to use. While it works great for teams not working under one roof, but it’s suitable for those that do because the work is centralized and visible in one place.

Check out the use of Notable on the CNN and MSN home pages. A free plan is available that handles up to three users, 3 GB storage, one private workspace and the iPhone app. However, the free plan doesn’t come with enhanced security or private URLs. Other plans range from $24 per month up to $119 per month, based on number of users, storage size and other features. You can try any paid plan for 30 days with no obligation.

Have you tried Notable? What do you think of it?

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FormSpring now has one more feature to recommend it, and it’s a big one for web workers: extensive third-party integrations. Using said integrations, you can now use any form you create in FormSpring with a laundry list of web apps that many readers of this blog will immediately recognize.

I want to take a look first at what FormSpring offers as a forms creation suite, and then go into a little more detail about the new third-party integration feature.

Creating a Form

Making your first form with FormSpring is not very complicated at all. You can start from scratch, use a template, copy an existing form from another web page (ethically questionable?), or upload a pre-existing HTML form. FormSpring’s template list is fairly comprehensive, without being overwhelming, and it’s broken down into categories to make it that much easier to find what you’re looking for.

Once you’ve chosen a type of form, you’re presented with the form editor. The editor’s clean layout gives you a WYSIWYG view of the form you’re building, including preset fields if you chose to start building from a template. Any field can be edited using a convenient pop-up window, where you can customize the field type, size, label and a number of other options. Fields can be dragged and rearranged, and you can add new fields, sections, and extras using a convenient sticky toolbar at the bottom of the editor.

Form Extras include options like global layout settings, form progress indicators and saving options for end users, submit button customization and CAPTCHA options. The nice thing about these options is that they exist for people who need them, but if beginner users don’t notice or take advantage of them, it really won’t detract from the quality of their final form.

Using a Form

Having a great form creation engine is great, but it’s all for nothing if you can’t get that form out to the people you want to use it in an easy and effective manner. FormSpring provides you with a number of easy-to-use options for distributing your creations, so that you can target different users in the way you deem best.

You can choose from having FormSpring generate a unique URL at which your form can be reached, embedding the form using JavaScript code or HTML, installing a widget in your TypePad-enabled blog, or using an intermediate form that gathers data from your user before forwarding them to the form you’ve created.

Providing so many options ensures that you can tailor your form distribution strategy to specific target respondents, and also allows users with varying levels of technical expertise to take advantage of what FormSpring has to offer.

Third-party Integrations

As I mentioned earlier, FormSpring recently introduced new third-party integrations that makes it easier to use forms created via the web app, and to use the data gathered with said forms in other popular online applications.

The list of new integrations includes Campaign Monitor, FreshBooks, Google Apps and Salesforce.com, among others. For Campaign Monitor, integration allows you to add subscribers from your forms directly into your email marketing software. FreshBooks integration allows you to create clients, invoices and estimates automatically using data collected with FormSpring forms. Salesforce.com integration means you can make web forms for any Salesforce object, and update existing records using web form data.

Integrations finally allow some of the promise of a web-based information management system to be fully realized. “Synergy” is an old buzzword that’s been stripped of much of its significance over time, but it truly applies here, in a good way.

Let us know your thoughts on FormSpring on the comments.

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In a post over on GigaOM Pro called “Enterprise 2.0: Web Apps and the Patchwork Quilt Problem,” (subscription required), I take a detailed look at the causes of the patchwork quilt problem, and how web apps need to change to address it. To succeed, web apps need to provide more holistic solutions to business needs to stand out in this increasingly crowded market.

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When it comes to promotion, the two biggest problems for most small business owners are effective planning and maintaining a consistent marketing effort. After what seems like a lot of effort attempting to drum up new business, it’s easy to get discouraged when you aren’t seeing results. But with the right lead generation plan and some helpful tools, you’ll find your efforts will pay dividends.

Set Up Your Plan

First, you have to take the time to carefully consider your options for marketing and promoting your business, rather than just taking a scattergun approach.

There are many possible tactics for finding new clients and customers, but if you try to do everything, you’ll end up spreading yourself too thin. That said, during the evaluation phase, you should throw out every possibility, carefully weighing the pros and cons of each. Then, after you’ve evaluated them, select the tactics most likely to lead to success for your particular business, taking into account your personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as your available resources.

You need a tool to help you with the process. I like using a mind-mapping tool like Bubbl.us for this, as it allows you to examine every available option.

Laying out all the possibilities using a tool like Bubbl.us also keeps the process from getting overwhelming. You can easily add every marketing and promotional tactic, while still keeping a big-picture view of how it all works together.

Once you have all of the possibilities listed, take the time to consider each one. When you decide you want to eliminate a tactic, it’s very easy to delete the option, leaving you with a clean plan of attack.

Maintain Consistent Marketing Effort

The other half of the marketing equation is consistency. You have to do the same things over and over in order to see results. The main obstacle to consistency is the lack of systems and tools to keep you organized.

It’s easy to lose track of time and think, “I just posted to my blog the other day,” when really it was two weeks ago. With a reliable system, you can see exactly what you’ve done and when, as well as what’s left to be done.

My favorite tool for this is 37Signals’ Backpack. I break down the marketing tactics selected within Bubbl.us into action steps that I record in Backpack. For instance, if I plan to post articles to my blog three times weekly, then I have three separate action tasks.

I have a page set up for each day of the workweek, and I evenly distribute the action tasks for all of my marketing tactics throughout the week.

On a given day, I simply click on that day’s page and get to work on the tasks, which are within a handy checklist (see image above along the left).

As I complete the items, I check them off. My goal is to get through the entire list on any given day.  If I don’t get through the list for some reason, my rule is to get through all of the week’s tasks before the following Monday. This provides me with a little flexibility without letting me completely off the hook or allowing me to get too lax with my efforts (thus, adding consistency).

Each Monday, I un-check all the lists on every page, which helps me to stay accountable to my plans and goals for my business. I can clearly see what got done and what did not get done over the previous week. After un-checking the items, I’m ready to begin another week.

It’s organized, it’s simple, and it requires no thought on my part. Just open the right page and get to work. Maintaining an effective and consistent marketing plan is a lot of work, but the task is a lot easier with the right mix of tools and techniques.

How do you stay consistent with your marketing? What tools and techniques keep you on track?

Image by stock.xchng user dannystock

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Tungle makes scheduling a convenient time and place so much easier by sharing your available times to anyone via the web. Microsoft Outlook users within the same organization don’t need it, but it comes in handy for those outside of the corporate firewall. Tungle’s interface is great, and there’s also a Tungle.me widget that you can embed on your web site to give people quick access to your calendar and events.

A Picture (Map) is Worth a Thousand Words (Directions)

Giving directions to attendees is another pain for meetings. Everyone knows and loves online mapping services like Google Maps, so it makes sense to provide a map of the meeting location along with customizable directions that each attendee can adjust depending on their starting location. Your best best is to embed the map on your web site, and share the link in your meeting invitation.

The Next Best Thing

If your meeting involves people who can’t make it to your office, then there are boatloads of presentation services available today that will allow you to conduct your meeting online. Present.io delivers a quick and easy way to share your presentations via the web. You can also share large files for distributing handouts and even use a conference call feature to talk over the web. For more about Present.io, check out our previous coverage.

Feeding Their Faces

CrazyMenu makes the process of ordering food for your group much easier. It allows you to create a group instantly and find establishments that deliver in your area. It then lets you share menu items with each attendee so they can make their own selections. Using this type of solution reduces many headaches for whoever is responsible for handling event catering.

Final Thoughts

These were just a few examples of the tools out there that can assist you when it comes to organizing a meeting or presentation, whether it’s in‐house, on‐location, involves employees only or includes people from outside your organization. There are many other web apps that can add value to the experience and make your life easier. Take the time to look around and which ones suit your needs best. You’ll end up saving yourself a lot of unnecessary stress.

Which web apps do you find invaluable when it comes to preparing for a meeting?

Image by flickr user ramson

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My friends forwarded the invitations to me. They were dated yesterday, and the headers indicated that the messages were from Facebook servers. There have been recent reports of phishing scams aimed at Facebook users, though, so I changed my Facebook password, even though I don’t have any evidence that my account has been compromised.

But then I started thinking about all of the places that could potentially have access to my address book. My “master” address list is in the Mac Address Book app, but it’s synced to my web-based Google Apps contact list, and to the Thunderbird address book on my PC laptop. It’s also synced to my Palm Treo smartphone.

I’m pretty careful about passwords, and I respect the privacy of the folks in my address book. But I’m always trying new services, and it seems like everyone wants their site to have a social component. So the list of places that might have access to my address book is appallingly long.

• Adium
• AirSet
• AOL/AIM/Netscape
• Biznik
• Blogger
• Chi.mp
• Delver
• Digsby
• Dropbox
• Dropcard
• eBuddy
• eWallet
• Facebook
• Flickr
• FriendFeed
• Ginx
• Gist
• GizaPage
• Gizmo5
• Glide
• Gmail
• Goodreads
• Googaby
• Google Apps
• identi.ca
• LastPass
• LibraryThing
• LinkedIn
• Live.com/MSN
• LiveJournal
• Mikogo
• Mozy
• Mundu
• MySpace
• net4mac
• Ning
• OperaMail
• Skype
• SocialMinder
• Soocial
• Sprint
• ThinkFree
• Time & Chaos
• Trillian
• Twitter
• TypePad
• Ulteo
• ViaTalk
• VoxOx
• Xmarks
• Yahoo
• Yuuguu
• Zoho

Now, most of these places have clear privacy policies, and I’m sure none of them would knowingly leak their users’ data. But let’s face it, security breaches are common these days, from national governments to banks to credit card companies. So with a list that long, how can I figure out where the breach might be?

Social networks need to provide tools that let individual users track how our data is being used. Gmail, for example, has an “Activity on this account” page (accessible from the bottom of the main screen) that shows when and how the account was accessed, and from which IP address. Facebook and other social networks need to make similar information available.

In the meantime, some elementary steps will keep your data, and your contacts’ data, more secure.

• Use anti-virus, anti-malware and firewall software.
• Make hard-copy and off-site backups.
• Change your system, network, email and web site passwords frequently, and make them difficult. (Use the “generate password” function included in most password storage programs.)
• Keep track of social web sites to which you have given access to your address book data. Be extra vigilant about changing passwords for these sites, and if you aren’t using them anymore, delete your accounts.
• Check which applications have access to your social networking accounts, like Facebook and LinkedIn. Delete any applications that you aren’t using.

Has are you keeping your address book secure?

Image by stock.xchng user xaila.

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The few times I’ve looked into GTD methods, I’ve found them to be incompatible with the way I function. Already the time it takes to decide if something can be done in under two minutes is time I feel I’ve wasted. GTD seems to be a system I would have to impose from the top down, which is not how I operate. I tend to adopt tools and methods only if they organically find their way into my workflow. Strict GTD is too linear and stifling for me. And, I have to admit, it just seems complicated.

But I did pick up one extremely valuable tip from the “Kung Fu” GTD bunch. One woman in the group said that simplicity is paramount, and it all boils down to Stephen Covey‘s four quadrants of activity management. This is a great method for classifying tasks that I immediately incorporated into my workflow.

Essentially, you assign tasks one of four priorities:

Compare this method to a complicated GTD diagram.

Once you do this, everything falls into place. In my task management app, I have groups in which I keep associated tasks, but I also have a group for each of Covey’s quadrants. I drag things from task group to priority group, or I put new tasks directly into a priority group. It’s made my life a lot easier.

This UI/NUI/UNI/NUNI system (which is also lots of fun to say) is incredibly useful, and I can’t believe I never heard of it. But then, not being much of a self-help book consumer, I didn’t read “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Covey, which is where it came from. And I was way too footloose and fancy-free to be thinking about that kind of thing back in 1989, when the book was published.

One other bit of wisdom that I stumbled across while investigating Covey’s quadrants: It appears that people tend to expend most of their energy on the Urgent/Important and Urgent/Not Important tasks, get burned out, and go straight to the NUNIs to relax. Prevailing wisdom says that you shouldn’t neglect the NUIs. They’re good for your soul.

Be sure to read Celine Roque’s post “The Perfect Productivity System” in which she gives good advice on ways to find a system that works for you!

Share your productivity tips in the comments.

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Yes, there is a trade-off in terms of customizability when you compare Proposalware’s simple template to your own original documents, but what you gain in exchange might make it worth your while, depending on your field or industry. In fact, you may find that you’ve been overdoing your proposals, and that the simple template provided by Proposalware is much more in line with client expectations. I’ve seen many a tarted-up proposal go ignored while a much more basic document struck home.

Proposalware’s bid document is exactly what one should be: a prospective invoice. In fact, the app offers the ability to create both, since for most types of projects they should resemble one another as closely as possible. The idea is that you list items and services with an attached cost, enter the amount the client can expect to pay, and then just send off the automatically generated proposal for your customer to (hopefully) OK. By default, that’s all Proposalware offers — a list of 10 items, with fields for quantity, description and price. The total cost is tallied once you’ve entered your items, with an option to apply tax, if necessary.

If you need more detail, you can edit the line items and proposal header. Each item can have a photo attached to it, and a short, long and full description. Those who offer the same items over and over again or a combination of a pre-set number of items will probably find this feature very handy. I think it’s less useful for services, for which an image doesn’t often apply, and often requires specific tailoring for each individual engagement. You can also customize the proposal terms and conditions, which really helps if you want a client to take your document seriously.

The main advantage of Proposalware is that it’s web-based, and it can be used without any special programs (like Word) required. If you get a call for submissions while you’re visiting a strange city, all you have to do is find an Internet café or even just a computer with access that you can use, and you can bid in no time, especially if the project only calls for a cookie-cutter type of response. Even if you can’t get to a computer, by navigating to mobileproposals.com using a smartphone you can access all of the regular features of Proposalware in an easy-to-use mobile format.

Your client receives a straightforward, professional looking document via email. They can’t digitally sign it through Proposalware, but it’s better than getting a Word document which they then have to open in a separate program in order to respond to. The only flaw I can see is that clients who can’t receive HTML formatting in their company email won’t be able to access your proposal.

It’s worth noting that Proposalware isn’t free. They offer a 60-day free trial for all new users, but afterwards, you’ll have to sign up for one of two paid options if you want to keep using it. The first costs $9.95 per month, while a second will set you back $99.95 for a full year. If your current proposal process is costing you contracts, Proposalware is worth considering. Your best bet is to see if your win rate changes within the 60-day trial period.

Has using Proposalware improved your contract win rate? Let us know in the comments.

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