Successful Blog

Cool Tool Review: RightSignature

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: RightSignature
A Review by Todd Hoskins

The hassles of finalizing a contract: hard copies, scanners, fax machines, signatures, documents, and FedEx. There are costs involved, both in time and dollars, but there is also that universal experience (excluding attorneys perhaps), of the “Yes! We’re almost done!” coinciding with, “Oh no. Not this again.”

RightSignature is a great example of a company that has fully explored the implicit pain points in this standard process, and addressed them with a fully functional, simple, and intuitive product.

“Digital signature” technology is cumbersome, especially when it requires one to go through extensive procedures just to authorize an approval. RightSignature does not force anyone to set up an account. An email arrives in the inbox, then the signee scribbles their autograph on the mousepad. RightSignature’s technology is in full compliance with US and EU e-signature legislative acts, which confirm the legality of electronic signatures.

rightsig

The feature set is impressive, with webcam photo authentication, biometric authentication, SSL encryption, Freshbooks integration, iPhone and BlackBerry signing capabilities, tools to track progress, and support for the most important file formats. It is missing SalesForce integration, which competitor DocuSign has, but every other aspect of the process is covered.

Plans range from $14 to $250 per month.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 5/5 – API access with Gold Subscription

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Don’t depend on Adobe alone. Cool, easy, and priced fairly.

Personal Value: 1/5 – Not yet. But someday.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, leadership, psychology, coaching, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving individuals and organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Cool Tool Review: Docstoc

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: Docstoc
A Review by Todd Hoskins

Docstoc is a virtual flea market for small business.

Stepping into a flea market, you must sort through other people’s clutter, junk, and art to find what is useful or beautiful to you. In the same way, Docstoc offers thousands of free documents, but you’re going to need to be patient to find what you need.

Looking for a contract? Relevant presentation? Template? Background article? Chances are, there will be something of value within Docstoc’s archives. Think of it as a combination of LegalZoom (a content partner), eHow, and SlideShare. Scribd is very similar (and with a better interface), but puts more content behind the paywall.

As a small business, you can upload documents that others may find useful and share in the ad revenue. When registering, Docstoc links your account with AdSense. Through your profile, you also get the chance to highlight the capabilities of your business. Or, you can sell documents on your site – market reports, e-books, etc. You keep 100% of the upload revenue for the first 60 days, and 50% after that threshold has passed. Clicks on the ads earn you a bit of cash, uploads can earn you cash, and clicks on your profile give you potential leads.

There is the good, the bad, and the ugly of being a community-driven site. The good is the sheer amount of content. The bad is how much of the content is devoid of value. The ugly is that the ad-supported chaos is just that – ugly.

The document viewer, on the other hand, is clean, easily branded, and allows you to quickly embed PDF’s, presentations, and other document types within your site or blog.


Todd’s CV –

There is a premium service, which gives you access to more free professional documents, storage, and an ad-free experience from $17 per month up to $120 per year.

I would like to see support for Google docs, more levels of curation, and marketing help for e-book publishers. The site could use some U/X help as well, but for free, I’m not complaining.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 2/5 – If you have extensive bylaws, handbooks, and approval processes, Docstoc has limited value

Entrepreneur Value: 4/5 – Go premium if you have the budget

Personal Value: 2/5 – One of a multitude of ways to now publish your novel, guide, or collection of resources

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, leadership, psychology, coaching, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving individuals and organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Cool Tool Review: Weave the People

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: Weave the People
A Review by Todd Hoskins

A few years ago I attended an intimate, oceanside conference outside of San Diego. The 70 of us in attendance spent the weekend participating in roundtable discussions, eating, and sipping cocktails. Sunday afternoon, while checking out of the resort, I met the people I wish I would have connected with on Friday. We exchanged contact info, but the opportunity was largely lost, as we live on opposite ends of the country.

This is a common frustration with meetings and conferences. How can people with matching interests, needs, and talents find one another?

Despite the growth of social technology, there is no replacement for the value and possibilities that can emerge from meeting face-to-face. Gladwell is right – there are limitations inherent in the “loose ties” of online connections. There is a reason that tweetups are popular and location based technologies have taken off. People want to meet, and any “friend” or “connection” is peripheral until you shake hands, share a meal or drink, and can establish trust looking at each other directly. Albert Mehrabian has proposed that words constitute only 7% of communication – the rest is tone and body language.

So, the Internet is an incredibly powerful medium for exploring, finding, and learning about people. Then, at some point, the relationship has amplified possibilities when we move from cyberspace to sharing physical space. This is exactly why Weave the People is such a valuable tool, by accelerating the discovery process, allowing organizations and people to connect with their wants and needs in group settings.

It works like this: If you are hosting a conference, meeting, or event, contact Weave the People, and they will work with you to develop a series of questions. These questions are designed to help you meet your goals for the event, whether you want to increase the connectivity of your employees, match vendors and buyers, or just help people have fun.

Weave will help you poll your prospective attendees, then “weave” together profiles in a simple, visually appealing layout. Send the link in advance of the event, and the people who are attending have a chance to navigate through the profiles and make decisions based on their motivations for being in attendance. For the less-socially-gifted, this is a gift in itself. You automatically have conversation starters that are pre-approved.

weave

I love the fact that Weave has a high-minded mission and philosophy, getting to an “authentic we,” utilizing technology to increase our humanness rather than our isolation. But it just works as well, making meetings more enjoyable and a better return on investment.

You can watch some demos here.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – Very reasonable in cost. Mobile app (in planning) will make this even better.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Finding employees, partners, investors, and advocates at events just got easier.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Not all questions need to be business-related. Bringing the personal and professional profile elements together creates deeper, more sustainable connections.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Cool Tool Review: Personality Inventories

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools, products, and practices that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks in a business environment.

Cool Tool Review: Personality Inventories
A Review by Todd Hoskins

A few years ago Liz looked at the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator through the lens of personal productivity. For years, organizations have used personality tests to evaluate leadership styles, workplace interactions, and for team building. I think personality inventories are a great tool for examining interpersonal relations within a company, and can be a valuable tool for personal growth as well.

What I do not like . . . Companies that make hiring decisions based on personality test results are trying to mechanize their workforce. It is a bad practice, regardless of the research that supports it. If you have a role and need it to be filled by a “type,” then you will likely not get more than the type. The best hiring managers I’ve known make decisions based on qualifications, proven work experience, cultural fit, and gut instinct. The “ideal candidate profile” is just a way to expose your own needs. At some point, it needs to be questioned. (Don’t we all have stories of the “crazy hire” that turned out to be brilliant?

So, let’s be clear. You are not a type. You are a person who has patterns of behavior and preferences that can be categorized, but there will always be anomalies. No test can tell you (or your boss) who you are, but it can be an effective:

  • Conversation starter
  • Evaluation of biases and prejudices within your organization
  • Tool for evaluating work styles
  • Impetus for individual growth

Personally, I am a fan of Carl Jung, so I do like the MBTI. You can take a quick online test here. The online tests (especially the free ones) are not comprehensive, but every online test I’ve taken over the past eighteen years has confirmed the results of the first professionally administered test: I am an ENTP. Some would say this would make me an excellent dictator, assassin, CIA agent, or freelance writer. After taking the test, here is a good place to start looking at the type.

What can you do with it?

  1. Have a conversation: Does your office environment respect and nurture the various types?  Or, do you prefer some qualities more than others?  There is strength in diversity!
  2. Do you know how to talk or work with your boss in ways that are effective?  Peers?  Employees?  Customers?  SpeedReading People has made a business out of this, and I recommend their services.
  3. What are the strengths?  What areas are lacking?  Both organizationally and individually.

To a degree, you are who you are.  But there’s also great power in learning how to stretch and expand within the areas you gravitate to least.  For example, I am very, very strong on the “N” of intuition within the MBTI.  I am working on the sensory perception – this column represents some of that work.  How can I be more practical?  I may be good at integrating theory, but I put conscious effort into grounding myself in the concrete world.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – If you can afford it, hire a consultant to do this right.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Know your people, and let them know you.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Don’t stop with the MBTI.  There’s lots of great resources out there.  And remember, it’s just a starting place – data before insights.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Cool Tool Review: Eventbrite

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Eventbrite
A Review by Todd Hoskins

Months ago, we looked at Plancast, a great tool that has gotten even better. Plancast allows you to share and learn the events people are planning on attending.

What if you want to plan an event yourself? Eventbrite remains the leader in planning, promoting, and managing your events, especially if you are going to charge a fee.

I love Eventbrite for a few reasons. First, it’s well-designed – it does exactly what you expect it to do. Second, it allows you to collect funds without needing to use a third party. Finally, it takes just minutes to set up an event, email attendees, or place a widget on your site.

eventbrite1

The one downside I’ve experienced is that the search engine results could improve. It makes sense to list the event on GarysGuide and Upcoming as well, in addition to Plancast, Facebook, and Twitter. Eventbrite can be used for setting up registration, than the other services become marketing tools to direct traffic to Eventbrite.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – Even if you have registration on your own site, an Eventbrite page should be set up

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – The small cut Eventbrite takes for paid registration is worth avoiding the hassle

Personal Value: 2/5 – Family or class reunion? Sure. Maps, contact info, attendee list – it’s all there

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.

Cool Tool Review: Bartering & Alternative Currencies

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Bartering & Alternative Currencies
A Review by Todd Hoskins

What if you could hire a consultant, do a website redesign, or rent office space without spending a nickel?

For businesses that are forward thinking, or just tight on cash, exploring the frontier of bartering and alternative currencies, can not only help you through a cash crunch, it can also make you more connected within the communities in which you are active.

The Barter Network is a one-to-one exchange for products and services. For example, if you need to produce and file an annual report, someone within the network will likely be equipped to complete the task (there are over 20,000 participating members). Instead of paying in dollars, you could trade for one of your gadgets, an installation of your software, or fifteen hours of marketing expertise.

The process of bartering enables you to collaborate and get perspectives from outside of your business, share knowledge, and understand the value of your needs and assets apart from the industrial age notion of everything being measured in government-backed currencies.

Beyond bartering, there are a couple other projects that should be noted. First, TheSwop.com is a service launched last year focused on the exchange of favors for startup companies. “Favor points” are earned or spent, which is means you don’t have to find the exact match as with the Barter Network.

Also, Hub Culture is an organization I have been following for a while. Their Ven currency now has over 1.8 million units in circulation. With a sizable global membership, Ven can be used for a variety of exchanges from classes to Facebook Connect integration. They have a unique vision – worth checking out.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – The only drawback is driving your Accounting (and/or Tax) Department nuts, at least for a while.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – Innovative, connecting, and value-determining

Personal Value: 2/5 – Can you live a month without cash? It’s becoming easier.

Let me know what you think!

Todd Hoskins helps small and medium sized businesses plan for the future, and execute in the present. With a background in sales, marketing, and technology, he works with executives to help create thriving organizations through developing and clarifying values, strategies, and tactics. You can learn more at VisualCV, or contact him on Twitter.