Weighing Affordable CRM Alternatives for Mobile

Lately, I’ve been in the “market” for an affordable CRM that I can use with my mobile phone. I find my choices to be Zoho CRM and Highrise. If you are not familiar, a Customer Relationship Manager is a software solution that lets you keep all your client information in one place so you can share it with others in your organization. The best solution out there is Salesforce, which has a mobile client. It is great to have a CRM application running on your phone. The downside to Salesforce is the price. Salesforce is good, but probably best for the corporate types. There are many other great applications out there. The biggest drawback to most of them is that you need a computer or to be on the web to take advantage of their usefulness. Granted, if you have an iPhone, you have a full browser that will allow you to use any web-based solution.

Zoho CRM is a great value. What Zoho has going for it is an Outlook plugin that synchronizes with your Zoho account. When it comes to a mobile solution, this is great if you have a Windows Mobile phone because it keeps your Outlook up to date. All you have to do is synchronize with your Zoho account. Furthermore, one of Zoho’s strengths is its capacity for customization. This is a very thorough solution as far as keeping tasks, emails, and contacts up to date. The downside is that there is no direct mobile to website connection. Without Outlook, you’re out of luck. So, if you’re traveling or out of the office frequently, you have no way of interacting with the CRM. Zoho is so full of features that browsing it through your mobile browser is painful. So, for mobile people, Zoho is best for gathering data and dumping it in the system at the end of the day through the Outlook plugin. Otherwise, you have to sit at your computer.

Highrise is another solution that I am testing. What I like about Highrise is that you can send tasks and emails directly to your account with your mobile email. It also sends you email and SMS reminders when things are due. Highrise is great in that it gives you direct inputs to your CRM. Just BCC your emails to Highrise and you’ll have a record of your communications. You can also email tasks to yourself. The website is a more viewable on a mobile phone due to its simpler interface; but not completely. The downside to Highrise, when compared to Zoho or Salesforce, is its lack of customization. Highrise’s focus on simplicity means that you cannot make it evolve without adding 3rd party apps that access its API. Furthermore, there is no sales pipeline that takes you from a lead to a sale. In my case, lack of a sales focus is not a factor as I am using the CRM as a PRM, or Personal Relationship Manager; however, if you are in sales, this may be a necessity for you to keep track of your numbers.

I have just finished two weeks of testing Zoho CRM and have begun testing of Highrise. My mind is still not made up as to which will best suit my mobile lifestyle. I’m sure many of you are mobile and have no problem whipping out the laptop when you are travelling for work. In my case, power tools, hardware, and laptops just don’t mix. I do a lot of physical work outdoors, which means that lugging the laptop around is inconvenient. Therefore, I need a solution that is both affordable and interacts with my smartphone in some way. Thus far, Zoho, with its complete end of day interaction with Outlook, and Highrise, with its direct messaging capabilities, are the best CRM solutions I have found.

Jott is Out of Beta

One of my favorite web services is finally out of Beta. Jott recently announced that they will go into full gear. For some of us moochers, this is a bit of a bummer; who wouldn’t like such an awesome free service. Now, I’m going to evaluate the free version and try out the subscriptions to find what works for me.

Jott didn’t just flip a switch and start charging for their services; they also released a couple of handy applications that should improve your experience with the service. Jott Express is the first handy-dandy app. You can manage your Jotts from your desktop without having to fire up your browser. Best of all, Jott Express works with the free version of the service. Jott Express works on both PC and Mac.

The other application released is Jott for Outlook. If you’re on a Mac, you’re out of luck on this one; it only works on the PC version of Outlook. So, if you are amongst Outlook users, this is a nifty app that lets you add tasks, appointments, reminders, and even lets you draft emails. Unlike Jott Express, Jott for Outlook is only available with the paid subscriptions.

Jott also has an app for Blackberry users, but I don’t use one and couldn’t tell you if this is a great thing or not. Furthermore, you would need to subscribe to Jott Pro to take advantage of this one; whereas Jott for Outlook only requires the Regular Jott subscription. There is a Pay-As-You-Go Jott subscription, which allows you to record longer messages and allows you use of all the apps. I find the price a bit steep, however. On the other hand, if you have an iPhone, the Jott app works with the free service.

Overall, I;m happy for Jott’s successful move to a full-scale service. I’ll be trying different service levels in the meantime until I find one comfortable for me.

Thanks for the birthday wishes

I don’t know what happened this year. Typically I have about 5 people remember that it’s my birthday after it’s almost over. This year I’ve had all kinds of good wishes from friends everywhere. This includes email, twitter, facebook, and probably more places I haven’t checked. If I weren’t such a ham, I’d almost be embarrassed from all the attention. Fortunately, I’m loving it. Having said that, I’m grateful for your kind words and good wishes. I am fortunate to have so many people who care.

Social Media Sites Are Separate Communities

I think that we can probably stretch ourselves too thin when it comes to an online presence. We can’t possibly be everywhere all the time. More and more, I see social media sites as real and separate communities. We have different roles in each one, but do not necessarily maintain a constant presence in them. I don’t think we have to. There are some popular sites amongst those who are into the social media craze. As Scobleizer points out, there are some that are underhyped. So, should we all flock over to Meebo? It depends. Where do you like hanging out?

Think about your offline life for a moment. You wake up in your home, it’s a nice residential neighborhood. You get in your car and drive to work, in a commercial neighborhood somewhere amongst other businesses. You go to church, and that has its own community. Maybe you are a member of a local non-profit. That carries its own community. Your kids have their own little community in school, which you visit on parent-teacher night. You may be a member of a fraternity, a lodge, the military, or some other organization, each with their own communities.

My point in all of these different aspects of your life require different things from you. At school, you are a parent. At church, you are a parishioner. At City Hall, you are a citizen. In your neighborhood, you are… well, a neighbor. All of these things are a part of you; but, they don’t completely define you. You don’t go about checking each of these communities every day. You simply dip into them once in a while to see what’s going on. Some days you spend a little more time in some than others. Some you spend the least amount of time possible.

Similarly, you cannot hope to throw yourself at every social media site out there. Your friends know where you live and where you work. If necessary, they know how to find you in the physical world. In social media, if you spend most of your time on Twitter or Facebook or somewhere else, your friends would know where to go looking for you. In fact, they probably know what other communities their other friends frequent. You probably go find your friends on the sites they frequent as well. You spend a little time here and there when visiting friends and spend most of your time on one or two places. Maintaining a web presence is not about being everywhere. It’s about being somewhere people can find you.

25,000 Downloads Later on Blog Talk Radio

Overnight, I broke the 25,000 download mark on Blog Talk Radio. I see it as a bit of a milestone for me, but it is probably not a stellar achievement. I can think of a couple shows that probably get 25,000 downloads a day. Despite that, it doesn’t take away the excitement. I started using the service over a year ago and have used it frequently. There are a few patches here and there where I could not do a show for extended periods. For the most part, however, I tend to do The Morning Show with Shaine Mata.

I’ll occasionally do a special show with an interview, which I ought to do more of. Mostly, I enjoy the process of doing show prep and then putting on the show. My blogging is not as frequent as my show schedule anymore due to time constraints. I think what is important is that I understand what goes into making a show and can advise others thinking about going down the path what they need to get going. I would say that I’m not doing too bad for a shy guy.

New Smartsheet BETA Improves on Something Good

Smartsheet has gone and improved on something that was already good; they have opened up a new Beta version. Though it is still in development, it promises to be better than the original. Earlier this year, I started using SmartSheet as a way to keep track of projects on which I was working. I found myself impressed with all the collaboration features built into the service, as well as the ease of learning. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can use SmartSheet. Right now is a good time to try it out as they have it free for BETA users.

The main improvement that Smartsheet has made to their service is visual. The new interface has a much simpler, but equally powerful layout. Just like the first time you opened up a spreadsheet, the classic version of Smartsheet has a variety of menus and buttons on the screen that may seem overwhelming. The new Smartsheet BETA version keeps most of this to a minimum. The new layout simplifies the menus and buttons by making them right-click and drop-down accessible for use only when you need them. In fact, when you first look at Smartsheet BETA, you might get the impression that this is a stripped-down version of the previous version.

The reality is that almost every feature that was available in the classic version of Smartsheet is available in the new Smartsheet BETA; to be fair, it’s in BETA, so there are some things that are still in the pipeline. One feature really stuck out for me in this new version, the creation of new columns. When you create a new column, you won’t get a listing of several pre-made columns. In fact, you have a reduced set of column types you can create. I don’t know if this simplification is deliberate or a result of the additional types of columns still being under development. Whatever the case, I like it. Smartsheet’s strengths will certainly be ease of use and ease of collaboration. I most definitely recommend that you give the new Smartsheet BETA a try.

Microsoft OneCare Interferes With VPN

Yesterday, I was messing around trying to get my VPN connection to work going. I’ve had trouble doing it and figured maybe I had the settings wrong. It turns out that Microsoft OneCare has a built-in firewall that blocks outgoing traffic as well. I had turned off the Windows Firewall, so had no reason to suspect that OneCare has a separate firewall. There is a way you can open up your OneCare firewall to allow for VPN connections without shutting down the whole service. Keep this in mind if you are having trouble connecting to your VPN.

Twitter on the T-Mobile Sidekick

There are any number of clients available for download that allow you to keep up with Twitter through iPhones, Windows Mobile phones, or even Blackberries. When it comes to the T-Mobile Sidekick, however, you only have the web and text message options. The web option is a bit time consuming while the phone refreshes the web page. Text messaging does not give you all the messages meant for you. Luckily, there is another option for T-Mobile Sidekick users, TTYtter.

There are a couple of assumptions with this solution.

1. You have a shell account somewhere.
2. You are not so supremely geeky that you would not want to be seen with a Sidekick.

First, you’ll need to download the terminal client available on your Sidekick for $10. Simply go to the application catalog and download the client that is in the productivity folder. This will give you SSH and Telnet ability. The software effectively lets you log in to your server shell account somewhere on the Internet, which should have TTytter installed.

If you don’t have a shell account, you can get one at Freeshells.org. There are free accounts, but it is better if you pay the extra money to become a full member. Follow the instructions on how to connect to your shell account. You will need to be a paid member before you can download the source code to your account easily. Pay the money and wait to be verified.

Once you are verified, you can use Lynx (just type lynx to bring up the text-based browser) to download a copy of TTYtter. Once you get the source code, you can press P to save the page to file. Just name it ttytter to make your life easier. Enter chmod +x ttytter to make it executable. Then simply type ttytter -user=yourtwittername:yourpassword. Your most recent Twitter messages should come up and refresh automatically. You’re all set.

I realize that this solution borders on the user being geeky enough to have and use a linux shell account, yet not so geeky that the Sidekick is seen as a toy. If productivity is your goal, then this is probably not the solution for you. You’re better off with the smartphones. If communication and fun is your aim, then the T-Mobile Sidekick with a terminal emulator on Twitter is up your alley. The built in chat clients, email, unlimited text messaging, and now TTYter will keep you connected with all your peeps.