I want to talk a bit about web applications that can help your business without putting a hole in your pocket. Today there are hundreds of web applications out there just waiting for you to sign up. Some of them are great while others are not. Before reading the rest of this, have you seen our previous post explaining the history of cloud apps?

In a nutshell, the “cloud” is a term referring to robust, data-driven applications that are accessible from on the network (usually the public Internet). At the same time, since most of these applications are subscription-based and many customers can utilize it at once, the costs are significantly lower than purchasing and installing an in-house solution. For example, Microsoft Outlook E-Mail and Microsoft Office will cost about $150 per user every 3-4 years, not including setup, maintenance and technical support (add these in and it’s looking more like $125 per year per user, at least). Contrast that with Google Apps, which provides the same service in the cloud for a flat fee of $50 per year per user. QuickBooks is a hefty accounting application that requires some knowledge and security practices to keep data safe – QuickBooks online allows for mobility and handles all of these things at only about $30 per month.

Of course, that doesn’t always mean that running your business on the web is the best way to go. If your business has more than 10-20 users, it might be better (and cheaper) to use an in-house solution. If your business data is abnormally sensitive or you just want a high level of control over it (see U.S. Government), you might also want to think carefully before setting up on a public network.

Etnacom as a small business tends to use a high number of cloud apps. Not only do we enjoy the mobility that it provides, but we get to “play” with a lot of fun systems that we can potentially recommend to our clients. If you’re interested in a solution in the cloud, come talk to us. We’d be happy to help perform a cost/benefit/risk analysis to see if it’s right for you.

Personally, I tend to follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) approach fostered by David Allen. There are many other strategies that can be just as successful. However, if you’re a techie like myself, you may find yourself struggling to find software that best fits your personal organization scheme. I’ve been struggling with that question for a long time, and I finally found a solution. Yes, I do think that simplifying my life a bit is certainly part of the answer, but life gets busy, no matter what. For a long time, I sought a solution that could help me keep information from all parts of my life in one spot. A couple of months ago, I found my solution and it has been working wonderfully. I call it “life by CRM”.

CRM, as you may know, stands for “Customer Relationship Management”. It is one of the bigger business buzzwords these days, partially because we’ve entered the age where software to manage CRM is available and relatively inexpensive. It’s popular among sales teams and project managers for its strength in measuring customer requirements, tasks and interactions. SalesForce.com is one example of CRM software – other examples include Microsoft Dynamics and my personal and professional favorite, Highrise. Highrise is a web-based CRM manager created by 37signals.

Let’s back up to how businesses use CRM. It’s strengths are in tracking contacts, interactions and tasks, to keep it simple. Isn’t that how personal life is structured as well? When running personal errands, there’s usually something to do, something that happens and someone to do it for. Many people like to keep track of their personal errands in some sort of journal or diary. CRM is a journal that’s in electronic form and tailored to help you get things done.

Being that Highrise is my CRM tool of choice (and what I use for both business and personal), I can share my strategy for keeping my life organized. Here’s a screenshot of what my Highrise looks like (with some proprietary data conspicuously hidden):

When I log in I can see a “Journal” of recent entries, including my notes, e-mails, tasks and so on. I can also see upcoming tasks, which I can complete and assign categories to. On the top of the page, I can view my contacts, tasks, cases, deals and tags. Cases and Deals are great. They are special groupings of notes, e-mails and tasks that pertain to one particular initiative. Cases and Deals are very similar, but Deals pertain to initiatives when there is an incoming sale. You can keep track of bid information and whether or not the deal was won. Tags allow you to assign categories to various people, companies, cases, and so on. This is all set on top of a pretty powerful set of permissions, if you’re going to allow multiple users to access the system. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the product – you can access a tour on the Highrise website.

What’s important to me is that I can use this Web-based contact / case / task / sales / Rolodex manager to help me stay on top of everything that I need to do. As a part-time consultant, I am constantly trying to keep up with shifting needs, changing priorities, and multiple updates from clients and vendors on a variety of issues. Highrise is uncanny in it’s ability to help any kind of professional like myself stay on top of this and update case files easily. When I need to fulfill a request, I add a task and categorize it. When I receive new information or have an interaction with someone, I can add notes or forward e-mails. At the end of the day, Highrise is the best tool for me and helps me to stay agile.

This doesn’t just translate to my professional work, either. Highrise CRM’s organization capabilities help in my personal life, too. My fiancé and I are planning our wedding and this tool helps us keep on top of our vendors, financials, and everything that we need to do before the big day. Being able to search for a receipt or for conversations from a specific person or company works great! It is especially useful when something doesn’t go as planned and need to go back to a previous conversation to verify what was said. I’m sure many have been in a situation like that.

Although I strongly advocate Highrise, please understand that I have some specific needs and operate in a specific way. Highrise is a perfect fit for a small company with many different things going on – most of them short-term. If you are a larger organization or operate in a different manner, different software might work better for you. I’ve worked for medium-sized businesses that have used Microsoft Dynamics with great success. I’ve worked with startups who use SalesForce.com and it is a disaster, while other startups wouldn’t want to use anything else. It is all about finding a solution that meets your needs. I can certainly assist anyone looking to determine how to leverage the benefits of CRM software or just boost productivity in general.

I invite you to keep this discussion going. What sort of CRM or web-based productivity software do you use (or have used in the past)? How has it worked for you? Feel free to share success and horror stories. Perhaps I’ll even share some of my own!

During some routine maintenance on this client’s domain names (i.e. name server and contact changes), we realized that the domain was not registered to the corporation, but rather an individual who had not been employed there for a number of years. The client requested that I change the contacts to reflect the corporation’s ownership and list the name of the CEO. Simple, right?

Apparently not. I logged into the Register.com control panel to update the registrant’s contact information, but received a notice saying that the domain was “locked” and that the registrant could only be changed with a “change of registrant” form. This was confusing. Why was the domain name locked? There was certainly no setting in the control panel to lock or unlock a domain name. This seemed like an arbitrary setting with no rationale. Perhaps the domain name was registered through another registrar later absorbed into Register.com, or it was a setting that was chosen when the domain name was first registered. Either way, it didn’t seem practical and nobody was able to explain it, including a couple of otherwise friendly technical support representatives from Register.com.

Giving up on the online change, I looked at the change of registrant form. New problem – this form needed to be completed and filed by the existing registrant! This would not work in our case, as the employee left the business and there has been no contact with him ever since. In fact, I would think that this is the case in most scenarios where an employee leaves the company, so unless a transaction is being made by two separate parties, this seemed like a bad method for Register.com to facilitate this change in the first place.

Having nowhere else to turn, I dialed customer support and started asking questions. Surely there must have been another customer facing this issue in the past, and I thought that company representatives could help me through by using some type of loophole. I had no such luck. One representative told me that I shouldn’t worry; as long as I had the username and password to log into the control panel, it didn’t matter whose name was on the account. Another representative told me that I could just fill out the form, leave out the current registrant’s information and explain the situation in the notes block; we realized that didn’t work when the form was promptly returned to me.

The third representative told me that I should follow the steps outlined in Register.com’s dispute policy. I examined this policy closely and concluded that the only way to make this change would be to file legal paperwork, appear in front of a district judge asserting the change, and send the results of the proceeding to Register.com.

Needless to say, we decided it was not worth the time and money to conduct all of this litigation just to change a name. Instead, I went forward with an alternative plan – let’s transfer the domain name to another registrar that wouldn’t give us the runaround. Before doing so, I gave Register.com one final chance – I called them, explained the situation and told them that I would be forced to transfer the domain names if they didn’t offer an alternative. The phone representative actually agreed with me and said that the best plan would be to transfer the names. So, I transferred the domain names to another registrar, updated the contact information, and completed the work.

I wanted to note that I sent Register.com an e-mail alerting them of this post and asking them if they wanted to comment. I haven’t received a response in the 24 hours since I sent it, but if I receive one I will be sure to post it.

A couple of closing points. First, the moral of the story – unlike a decade ago, there are now hundreds of domain name registrars. Don’t let them bully you and have you jump through hoops; your time is precious. If your registrar won’t allow you to do what you need, find another one that will and transfer the names over. Transfers are quick and easy these days, and most registrars include a free year’s renewal with the transfer, so you’re not losing any money. Additionally, transfers are cheap, averaging about $9.00 per domain name.

Second, there is a larger issue. Companies must always balance the security of their business and their clients against functionality and convenience. If you have too much security, functionality and convenience suffer, driving away customers. With not enough security, you might make your customers happy in the short term but they’ll be running away with the first sign of trouble. In some business models, it is okay to lean a little bit more heavily towards one side, but there is always a limit. In this case, it might very well be that Register.com erred too much on the side of security and not heavily enough on the convenience side. After all, they lost a customer because of the issue. However, Register.com is a large company and might not mind losing a customer here and there for the sake of keeping domain name transactions secure. There is no right or wrong answer – this is a strategy that many business should think about from time to time in regard to its own products.

If you have any comments, feel free to post – I’d be happy to keep this discussion going!

Secure Certificates Explained

Let’s look at this in a real-world scenario. Say you’re looking to buy a book on web design, and as such, you go to the king of online book retailers, Amazon.com. You select your book, add it to your cart, and click “check out”. You’re about to be taken to the part of the website that asks for your private information such as name, address and credit card number.

Once you arrive at this point, you’ll notice that some interesting things have happened in your browser. First, your address bar will show “https://…” instead of the normal “http://…”. The extra “s” denotes that we’re using the secure HTTP, or SSL protocol. You’ll also notice that somewhere in your browser, an icon of a padlock appears. This also signifies that you’re on a secure website. With most browsers, clicking the padlock will bring up the secure certificate details of that site.

So, what happened here? When you moved to the checkout portion of Amazon’s site, You connected to its secure website. In doing this, your web browser opened an encrypted connection to Amazon’s server, a process that prevents a malicious user from eavesdropping on the information you’re sending to Amazon, such as your credit card details. Once you’re connected, Amazon sends your browser its secure certificate, which is an electronic document proving its identity. Your computer verifies this document with a “trusted third party”, typically the company that Amazon bought their certificate from. Basically, this company is vouching for Amazon. Your browser is happy, and you proceed with buying your book.

Do I Need a Secure Certificate?

The quick answer is, it depends. If your website is purely informational and nobody is submitting data on it, you probably don’t need one. If visitors are submitting personal information to you, or if you’re running an online store, chances are that you need a secure certificate. Think about it this way: instead of typing in data on a website, someone is shouting the information to you on the streets of New York City, where hundreds may be listening. If you’re worried about others hearing that information, you need a secure certificate.

How Do I Purchase a Secure Certificate?

Many companies sell these services. We recommend VeriSign and GoDaddy. Both are extremely popular. Although GoDaddy’s certificates are priced significantly lower than VeriSign, there is barely any quality difference.

If you have any questions, or if you’re still not sure whether or not you need a secure certificate for your website, feel free to contact us. We’d be happy to help.