My Little Voice

In case you were thinking “what does this guy do?”, Click Here to go to our Product Site… As I say, just in case you were wondering!!

So, Google have announced today, that they are to phase out support for IE 6, no big suprise there, given the conflict with Google and China (that’s the country, it’s not a new search product thst you have missed, before you jump off your seat to see how this new search engine works), and of course quite justified, but the real news for companies like ours is much better.

As a web application development company (hosted CRM Software), with the major part of our application development being contained in the browser, having to cater for older browsers is a real drain, on developer motivation and resources.

Now, if I had suggested to our OpenCRM client base that we need to drop support for IE 6, there would bean uproar, however when web sweetheart Google announce this change, that’s OK, it must be for very good technical reasons, so everyone nods sagely and agrees “it’s all for the best”.

Trying not to sound too bitter and twisted, it does not really matter, honest, so long as we can follow in thier footsteps, it achieves the same outcome.

So from Monday 1st February 2010 Software Add-ons – The Home of OpenCRM will be set to phase out IE 6 – Hooray!!!! (baloons and party games in the office).

I can’t imagine that Silicon Alley will be sending over a reporter to uncover the full indepth story, but it will be a big day for us.

Here at OpenCRM we migrate dozens of customers from competitive products, it’s one of the things that we do really well, sometimes the migration is due to cost, often it’s because our customer wants a more flexible technical solution or a stronger relationship with their provider, that’s us.

Whatever the reasons we have become very good at managing these moves, some sites are small and just require some data manipulation skills and then they are ready to go, others need a full system analysis to achieve their goals.

This article, published independently, gives in my opinion some solid ‘no nonsense’ advice for people wanting to move systems provider, worth taking note of the comments if you are looking to change.

Sales pitch : needless to say at OpenCRM we tick the boxes, I will summarise the advice in a separate post so that any interested company, looking to move to OpenCRM, can see how we stack up. Read the rest of this entry »

I thought this Huff Post article was interesting.

The recent hack of the website RockYou exposed around 32 million user passwords, which data security firm Imperva has analyzed to create a list of the worst passwords.

Want to know what terms to avoid?

Here are the top ten most commonly used passwords (see the full list of the top 20 in the charts below):

1. 123456

2. 12345

3. 123456789

4. Password

5. iloveyou

6. princess

7. rockyou

8. 1234567

9. 12345678

10. abc123

An attack that exposed 10,000 Hotmail, MSN and Live.com passwords yielded similar findings.

According to a researcher who examined the leaked data, “123456″ was the most frequently used password, appearing 64 times in total.

Wired adds,
Forty-two percent of the passwords used lowercase letters from “a to z”; only 6 percent mixed alpha-numeric and other characters.
Many of the top 20 passwords used were Spanish names, such as Alejandra and Alberto, suggesting that the victims were in Spanish-speaking communities. Nearly 2,000 of the passwords were only six characters long. The longest password was 30 characters — lafaroleratropezoooooooooooooo.

Interesting huh? I was pleased that mine does not show up, does yours?

One of our company New Years resolutions (yes we really do have them), is to send out a customer satisfaction survey. This is a first for us (in a structured way).

We are keen to see how well we do in the mid ground of our customer base, which accounts for a good number of our customers. We will always be acutely aware of the small number of projects that are hard work to keep on track, as well as the ones where we excel, in both cases customers are very vocal and (because of the project management escalation and communication around these projects), the implementions are very visible, so we want to use this survey to gauge our success levels for all of our users.

This is one way to measure our customers satisfaction, however, the second area we are keen to explore, which is a direct spin off from the results we will receive, is to develop further our referal program. This will reinforce the levels of customer satisfaction we are achieving !

So, two ways to monitor what our customers think, firstly ask them, then ask them to refer us, that will uncover who is willing to be associated with our business, an interesting project for us which I am happy to post the results for everyone to see.

I guess as a sidepanel to this excercise, we will pick up a host of issues to address and more items for the OpenCRM wishlist, both of which will no doubt raise areas for future discussion here.

I have just come off the phone from a potential client and he passed on a comment, made to him by a competitor (well not really, but it makes them feel good), which made me smile.

“What you going for a hosted solution, OH, you know they don’t work like everyone thinks they do, you need to have a cloud account with Amazon before you can use them, and you need an account for each user”…..

Now I know that this could just be a ‘newbie salesperson’ who doesn’t know his A from his elbow, it sure sounds like that, but are there really people out there, that don’t A) understand what SaaS is all about and B) so desperate for business that they are trying to mislead potential CRMers into believing this trash?

I guess this is a beware post, the world is full of stupid people (yes, I even count myself in this group at times as well), so check with an adult before you believe what your told, or read up on the Electrical InterWeb, there is a load of good solid reference to SaaS and the benefits.

I will, of course, post a link to our own SaaS benefits document, just as a blatant Sales Pitch for OpenCRM, but it did make me smile :0)

On the 31st of December at 12:00 all OpenCRM systems will start to update automatically.

This will be complete by 9:00 1st January.

This change will affect all OpenCRM users.

The main update will set the default level of VAT to 17.5%. The current level of 15% VAT will still be available as an option. Existing records will not be effected, thier rates will remain as originally set.

As part of this update, we will be streamlining the way that VAT is managed across all versions of OpenCRM, in particular vertical or bespoke solutions.

If users are using line level VAT the table that manages the VAT selection is being rationalised also.

This is the second phase of development that sees a full merge of all versions and add-ons for OpenCRM, including muti currency support for SageLink for OpenCRM.

I thought this article and more particularly the comments were interesting.

If your in the Software Biz this will be something that has crossed your desk, for sure.

http://bit.ly/8aVhRO

Just to paraphrase a little …… Developers and Bosses comments….

Music always helps me ‘tune out’ the distracting noise! This noise is always a distraction and cant in anyway be seen as helpful and team building! I am a developer and I have an opinion, well yes, of course!

I am a boss and therefore I do not know anything about what  developers might want! I am a boss and don’t care if my decisions effect the team and their productivity! I am a boss and therefore …… !

You are a developer and therefore by definition you know everything that there is to know about everything (really?) “what is this thing called bug!”

On a serious note :

In my experience music is very useful if used correctly, as a genuine balance to the distraction of a modern open planned environment.

One of the best comments was the quote about the boss who looks at the developer and sees him in true ‘chill out mode’, hands behind his head, feet on desk, and asks why he is paying the developer for what he is doing at that moment and the manager comments that this is exactly ‘what’ you are paying for, all the rest can be got for $4 an hour off shore… this is the bit that counts… Unfortunately most bosses would just focus on the “$4 an hour” bit of the comment….

Well the iPhone speculation has started and the buzz is (can’t say the info is 100% reliable, more intelligent guessing me thinks), the next iPhone will be 4G enabled (no damm good in the UK then for sometime but with US networks already gearing up (2011 & 2012) we can’t be so far behind [or can we]), have multi tasking, have 32&64gb as standard (could even be a 64gb starting point), battery much improved which may even be removable (nice idea but I will hold off jumping in the air until I see the design, if this has any truth), have better camera, on the screen side (well probably on both sides :0), so will be video chat enabled, with a flash! (Hmmm not sure about that – battery had better be a chunk better don’t you think).

Could be launched for July 2010 (pure speculation, but perhaps Market competition will bring this forward), also real GPS built in, OLED screen, smoother more vibrant, better for video chat, IM enabled with a message light (now we are just inventing stuff :0) …..

Anyway, the speculation has started !

Additional comment : I guess the big thing that I gloss over is the name implying a true 4G product! Obviously this relies on the networks. In the states the most common contenders, Sprint and T-mobile use, or are developing a high speed, 3.5G network which is currently incompatible with the iPhone hardware. Probably a better chance that Apple add the hardware (frequency) capability, than the networks change thier frequency range to accomodate Apple.

Although it’s rumoured that Verizon are looking at signing a deal with iPhone this looks less likely next year. But as the US number one (89 million user -v-AT&T 86 million) expect a great courtship!

AT&T are rumored to have an end point to thier Apple iPhone agreement during summer 2010, that’s going to be a hot spot to watch.

I guess two of the huge growth areas are going to be Data Integration and Open Source, as companies are forced to consider these strategies, either due to technology change constraints or budget.

Obviously this begs a question, how are these two areas relevant to each other, is this a particularly strong growth area?

Data Integration tools are becoming indispensable in the Enterprise. As companies merge, acquire and grow, their systems need ways to share data. Cost can be a challenge, budgets do not always stretch to the IT change over, or if they do, it’s a planned migration sometimes over years. Sometime technology just does not have an answer, one product, working well for a business with a user adoption because of the familiarity of the application, needs to be retained, and giving rise to the technology challenge of a data migration solution.

To help qualify what we mean by data integration, I recently read this definition: The process of combining data residing in different data sources and providing the user with a unified view of this data.

I guess, because of the economic constraints outlined above, Open Source is becoming a more compelling argument.

When we talk about Data Integration we traditionally mean Extract, Transform and Load, commonly referred to as the ETL process. This commonly suits two types of Projects, the Data Migration solutions, moving data from one system to another and the Data Sharing Projects, making the data available to be processed by other systems or as a view in other applications.

At OpenCRM (http://opencrm.co.uk) we have been working on a number of projects that require these ETL processes, and the big question is how best to generic’ise and provide the solutions. Obviously, using Open Source tools to assist with the core migration or transformation tool helps all round. This keeps the cost down for the client and can (in some cases) speed up delivery, utilising tried and tested components, as a building block in the development cycle.

Are these building blocks useful for IT depts? I would suggest that yes, lots of IT depts that we work with are similar in structure to smaller Software Development companies, with their own development resource in-house and a management structure looking at the commercial relationship with finance depts. I would argue that these IT depts benefit enormously from Open Source code, partly because it allows them to focus on the end point of a project and not get too bogged down with the nitty gritty, which as we know can eat up valuable resources and take considerable time, letting them use the code as a building block, so that they can progress their deliverable’s quicker and (dare I say it) more visibly to their management team.

Should these IT Depts contribute something back to the Open Source communities that developed these building blocks, well yes frankly, that’s the whole point of Open Source, especially if they are going to be distributing the code to other parties within their group or sister companies.

So, Open Source Data Migration tools, a good thing to be involved with over the coming years? Yes, I think they are…. I know that OpenCRM has already embarked on a number of integration modules, using community led tools that have benefited from the commitment of resources from Software Add-ons.

If you’re interested in hearing more about Software Add-ons – The Home of OpenCRM, please click here, we would love to hear from you.

Just a quick update on some testing of our hard ‘opt in’ and soft ‘opt in’ eCampaign.

Just to qualify what I mean by these terms;

Hard – the person has been asked specifically if they would like to receive details by email, and have elected to do so by ‘ticking’ a box. This list is also cleaned on a regular basis, with the person being asked either, “do you want to remain on the list”, or at worst “here are your subscription details, do this thing if you want to be removed”. So in principle a high level of “buy in”.

Soft – these are the ones where the “box is already ticked” and they need to untick it, or the data comes from ‘other advertised’ sources, with contact details soliciting contact.

Now, I guess my initial instinct was that the Hard opt in details would get a higher delivery rate, as these are actively checked, and that was the case. But there has been a percentage of these addresses that were undeliverable, which is odd if the address was checked within the last 8 weeks (as the case with the list we purchased), and some of the Out of Office Replies indicate that the address has been retired for some time – I got one, from a small business, that said they were closed as the owner had literally retired, so no emails would be read on this address, Hmmm so could that really have been checked in the last 8 weeks, perhaps, but seems odd!

Of course there will be address details that have just “gone away”, are incorrect (human error), or just got sick of receiving emails and turned the address off, but if what you are paying for is clean data, and this is being ’sold’ to you as a service to maintain the cleanness of the data (8 weeks check period), then I might have expect less problem records.

The other big thing for me was the ‘click through’ rate.

We track, through OpenCRM the click throughs from the email, and the specific links that get clicked. We track this right down to the specific contact that was sent this email. Incidentially, we track each click through, so if you click on three different links, we receive the activity report of each click, from where (campaign, mail piece and link in mail piece), when and context in terms of the campaign, and because we run a live statistics component on our site, we can see who enters the site (in real time, not just Google analytics), which pages you view, in which order, and can invite you to a Live Chat to help answer any immediate questions. Now this is all a bit Big Brother, but a great marketing tool.

Back to the plot …….

One interesting point relating to click throughs, we received 40% more from the Soft Opt In list, than the Hard list. Which given logic, we thought was odd.

We actually received a higher number of enquiry from the Soft list, and incidentially, they spent more time online.

Part of our sales process is to make it very easy for prospective clients to see the product ((OpenCRM Demo) so the ability to see browsers who start at the OpenCRM website, go to the online demo and see what they view and how long they are online, gives us a wealth of information to help profile our approach.

So, upshot at this stage, ‘Hard’ did not give us anything more except a higher bill to procure the data, and ‘Soft’ is easier to come by so gives us a larger marketing opportunity.

We will do the next batch of 20,000 pieces and keep you updated.

Note : just a point, one thing that does need highlighting, when we relay emails we need to be aware of any potential high rate of undeliverable’s, this can have an impact on the mail cluster and any black marks against the IP addresses. So ‘Hard’ (with a lower % failure rate) does have an advantage in lower human resource costs, in short we don’t need to check as often or as deep when sending to the Hard Opt In list, as generally the data is more accurate and therefore undeliverable’s are less.