Clean Living

Many of us receive a daunting number of emails each day. They may come from co-workers, clients, vendors, or even the home office. This inflow of emails can lead to a cluttered email inbox that makes it difficult to sort out what is urgent, what can wait a little bit, and what can be put on the back-burner until you get some time. Fortunately, there are tools that can help you organize those emails in your inbox to help you determine importance, while still being able to focus on day-to-day activities like managing accounts and advising clients. Read more

The Rise of eService?

Last week I noticed an intriguing idea while browsing activity on LinkedIn^®. Michael Kitces, writer of the financial planning blog Nerd’s Eye View, observed that “the latest decade was about consumers learning to trust buying products online, the next decade will be about buying services online.” Read more

Get in Touch with Your Computer

I’ve been a Windows computer user for years now, first growing accustomed using a mouse with desktop systems, and then using a trackpad as laptops became more convenient. Laptop trackpads are often small, have terrible multi-touch capability, and typically are just not very good. The upside is that they allow the machine to be used where using a mouse would be impractical. I would never have considered a trackpad as the ideal interface method for a PC—until this Christmas when my fellow Cambridge Technology Consultant, Gabriel Cooper, gave me a Logitech T650 wireless touchpad as a gift. Read more

Separate the Wheat from the Chaff

In agriculture, to separate the wheat from the chaff involves threshing harvested wheat so the kernels of grain can be segregated from the dried husks surrounding them, known as the chaff. The actual process behind the title of this article might not be familiar to those who don’t spend a lot of time in farm country. As a figure of speech, it means to retain that which is valuable and discard that which is not. Read more

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Today, more than ever, advisors are trying to watch their bottom line by cutting unnecessary costs. Very few offices have an unlimited technology budget, which makes “free” software and services appear attractive.

The problem with “free” software or services is that they are rarely, if ever, truly free. Companies need to make money in order to exist so it is important to understand how a company makes money. Let’s take a look at some common business models for “free” software/services.

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Preparing for Windows 8

I’ll wager that when it comes to real effect on the everyday lives of rep-advisors that this year’s biggest technology event won’t be Apple’s next iPhone or the newest tablet running Google’s Android. It will be something that sits a lot closer to the core of our everyday business– the release of Windows 8. Described by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, as their ‘riskiest product bet’, the new Windows will be the keystone in a unified user experience across the four main categories of consumer electronics – PCs, Tablets, Smartphones, and televisions. Read more

To Excel or not to Excel

I recently had the opportunity to present one of Cambridge’s TRAIN webinars, a series dedicated to Practice Management education.  This was my third TRAIN in as many years. Having previously delivered presentations revolving around the web, namely discussion of essential website design and the broad impact of cloud computing, I decided to dig into operations a bit. I chose a topic lurking in nearly every office, but rarely receiving any real scrutiny.

I chose spreadsheets. Read more

An Apple a Day…

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”  This old saying may be good advice, but it doesn’t mean you should forego immunizations and regular checkups. The same goes for your computer, no matter what operating system it has. Read more

Are you putting too much trust in your email?

According to news sources, on January 17 of this year the FBI team responsible for investigating the hacktivist group ‘Anonymous’ held a conference call with their colleagues at Scotland Yard. The conversation that was said to be somewhat sensitive, included a discussion of Scotland Yard secretly seeking judicial permission to delay the arrest of two British suspects while the FBI gathered more evidence against the rest of the group. According to reports, the FBI felt that allowing the contents of the call to become public would damage the investigation and embarrass both organizations, so they took steps to password protect the call. Read more

March Madness has Nothing on Millenial Madness

Not unlike you, I love numbers. Mine however, are not relative to performance or beta, but those that impact digital media choices and effectiveness.

One of my favorite sources is the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Since 2004, I’ve looked forward to their insights into all things internet. And, as you’d imagine, a lot of their focus has been on social media.

In August of 2011, their research found that 65% of all internet users used social networking sites. And of those, here is the breakdown by age: Read more