From dgrigsby.spaces.live.com to dwgrigsby.wordpress.com in a click – Thanks Microsoft!

End of Service is March 2011, and you can backup your stuff (good – thank you, much better than what happened with Communities) and you can move it to WordPress – Sweet – Way better…

So if you are an existing Microsoft Live Spaces user and have stuff you want to preserve and/or migrate – get’er done soon.

Mine is now moved and http://dgrigsby.spaces.live.com will redirect to http://dwgrigsby.wordpress.com. So I am now a WordPress user — guess it is about time

Now I can backup the WP and move it to a WP on one of my hosters as well and have some additional fun in my spare time …
Whoot! – Thanks Microsoft for making me a WordPress User…. I guess there wasn’t an IIS / ASP.NET platform that was freely hosted to go too…

aka DotNetNuke, etc….. (did I miss something about a “bolt down” application on a Windows hosted Platform) Naw, won’t effect revenue showing everyone how easy it is to move from Microsoft to WordPress..

Just another sad end in a long list of Microsoft also ran competes… At least the “user experience” was a good one, and the MSN live Spaces expenses drain on Stockholders will be done March 2011.

I would have to say that is a “graceful” loss – Well Done.

The 2010 Big Project - eSignDocs (aka eLawDocs) aka what I have been working on

I know many of you have wondered what I have been doing that has kept me so quiet except for status messages and the occasionally FB Photo's, so here it is - eSignDocs.

This has been the major focus of my year and the first release 1.0.0.2 was out the door Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 as part of the new DocuSign MarketPlace. Many, many thanks to DocuSign for another outstanding referral concerning integration and DocuSign's fantastic API.

This project has allowed me to leverage almost every talent I have as well as every waking hour. I am happy to say I have been able to start tapping the wonderful talents in Indiana I know as well, with Jeff Conrad being my first.

This project has many exciting cloud integrations, some of which you may already know from my status updates:

DocuSign - The fastest way to get a signature. (rt)

Salesforce - CRM

DotNetNuke - The leading Open source ASP.NET Web Content Managment System

Avvo - Doctors. Lawyers. Ratings. Answers.

Back to coding for the next major release in December 2010 :-)

What my daily status message means to me and why it is under 141 characters and comes from Ping FM

So for those of you that are NOT computer geeks/developers/social media mavens, here is a response I gave a long time school friend on Facebook about my odd looking daily status message.

David W Grigsby is @grigsbyconsult & :-) listening 2 #BillyJoel & working on #Salesforce,#DNN,#DocuSign,focus:coding #status #indiana C# Wag+=;Bark-=

So here is the short hand skinny of what I mean the status to mean within 140 characters:

I am at Grigsby Consulting and Listening to Billy Joel and I am working on Salesforce, Dot Net Nuke, DocuSign and my focus is on programming C# (Microsoft .NET Language) and this is a Status message from Indiana and my little motto I saw on a bummer sticker when I was on vacation in August with Anna said "Wag more, bark less" I turned into pseudo C# code with the expanded version being Wag = Wag +1; and Bark = Bark -1;

Ping FM is a tool that lets me broadcast a micro blog (wall post) to many services at one time, so in order for the message to fit on all, it must be less than 141 characters.

The # sign before the keyword is so the Indexing and search engines know this is a main point of interest.

Salesforce is a CRM Package that I do development work for clients and ISV (independent Software Vendors) http://www.salesforce.com/

DNN - Dot Net Nuke is an open source ASP.NET content management system for websites that I do development work for clients and ISV (independent Software Vendors) http://www.dotnetnuke.com/

DocuSign is a electronic Signature capture system for signing documents via email without paper and thus saving trees, time and reducing paper/fax that I do development work for clients and ISV (independent Software Vendors). http://www.docusign.com/

So I hope this "makes more sense"

Working excerpt #2 from "Small Business Owners Playbook for Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office"

Original Version without cropped images



Working excerpt from "Small Business Owners Playbook for Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office" Chapter 4 - Play SFDC Contacts and Leads - Get your Outlook Contact data in the Cloud via Salesforce.com and toolbars

So as I sit here writing for my book and listening to Rick Germanson, on the Owl Studio's label (Thanks @jamiejams!) I was wondering how to explain my focus on the Outlook Inbox, and then it became quite simple. I have been using software and applications so long, I forgot that the basic communication point for people in an office used to be the "in box". That is were memos where put, interoffice mail and mail delivered from external contacts delivered by courier services like the United States Postal Service. How quickly we forget about the basic physical box on our desktop that has been virtualized. Most people don't even think about the outbox unless they send "delayed" email, so that physical box is all but forgotten.




So here is the excerpt:

---

Inbox Control Center and Dashboard

Microsoft Outlook is my "Inbox Control Center and Dashboard" to drive my communications with all my contacts. I find this business and application area to be target rich for generating effectiveness and efficiencies by the integration between Outlook and Salesforce.com. This may be because I am a Software Integration Architect but at that same time I think you will see that you have many other integrations with Outlook that will enhance and enrich the quality of data and insight you have and can acquire about your contacts. I am exploring additional toolbars to scan business cards, send documents for electronic signature and etc. Since the largest and hardest part of implementing any CRM like Salesforce is getting all your contacts and leads in one place, I focused on the ones that help you accomplish that task. This is even harder if you have an existing CRM like Act or Goldmine, coupled with the social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The next hardest part is getting the contacts de-duplicated while managing all the Web and local content as well as networks and demographics connected to them. I will argue that the Small Business Owner's single greatest asset is the relationships with people they have and manage.

It has been my experience that Outlook integrations, generally called toolbars or plug-ins, are normally huge time savers when it comes to not having to "retype" or by reducing the number of clicks to get a task accomplished concerning an activity from that communication you just received, are about to send or attend.


The below figure is my Microsoft Outlook 2007 Inbox with the key toolbars and plug-ins numerated to match the below sections that cover each toolbar or plug-in at a high level that I use.

1. Microsoft Outlook Inbox - Inbox Control Center and Dashboard





1. This is your main point of message integration with most tool bars, notice the LinkedIn info button below RE: on the far top right side in the image below






2. You can get more information and download a free trial at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/default.aspx





2. Salesforce Toolbar Integration





1. This is your main point of data integration with Salesforce.com and is bi-directional, free and works with all Salesforce.com editions including Group. This allows you to add a contact in Salesforce and it comes to outlook via sync. Want a contact in Outlook in Salesforce, mark it for sync and sync it. It will even let you know about conflicting data a let you resolve it. This works the same way for email and cases. So if a tweet can be an email, now it can be in salesforce without an app exchange app integration and it works with all versions.






2. You can get more information and download the toolbar by logging in to your Salesforce.com instance and then going into setup. You will find the "Connect with Microsoft Outlook" menu item under the "Personal Setup" section as an option below the "Desktop Integration" menu item.





3. LinkedIn Toolbar Integration





1. This is your main point of contact integration with LinkedIn which is really a reference and invite tool for your Business Network at LinkedIn and is free.
   
   
   
   
   
   This allows you to review contact information by pressing the button in the email header by the contacts name to get a popout window. It also allows you to quickly invite them if they are not in your network.My Favorite Features are the info button, grab feature to create a contact from highlighted email signature and Invite.






2. You can get more information and download the LinkedIn toolbar at http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=outlook_toolbar_download





4. Gist Plug-in Integration





1. The Gist icon in the Windows taskbar is your main point of integration with Outlook Contacts and Email.Gist is a cloud based aggregator of contacts from multiple data sources and aggregates web content for each contact. Gist is currently in Beta and Free. Gist is manually bidirectional with Outlook via the Export Contact feature from the Clould application. The sync from Outlook is only to Gist, so you have to export from Gist, which just happens to send the exported contact as a VCF via email to your inbox is very handy. From the Gist Cloud Application you connect all your contact data sources including those you can export to CSV formats, merge contact records and then export the final version back to Outlook via the export. Next you mark to sync that contact with the Salesforce toolbar, and walla - You have a contact with all his info from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn now in Salesforce.com as a contact. If you want that contact as a lead first, you export the contact as a CSV and import to Lead per the LinkedIn export walk thru.
   Gist allows you to review contact information by pressing the button in the email header to the far left of the contacts name to get a popout window.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   My favorite features are Stack Ranking your contacts by your importance, not just email volume like in Xobni, being able to print a dossier, and merging contacts. I also like the Tag feature for quickly listing only a certain group.
   
   




2. You can get more information and download the Gist Plug-in after you setup an account when you connect Outlook at http://www.gist.com





5. Xobni View Pane Integration





1. This is your main point of contact integration with Xobni which is a powerful reference and statistics tool for your contacts in Outlook. Xobni has a Free mode with additional features requiring a paid upgrade. This allows you to review contact information without pressing any buttons like you have to with the LinkedIn info or Gist buttons. My favorite feature is the Email Graph showing email activity times. I also like the networks and related content tabs to eliminate the need to search for attachments and email conversations.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. You can get more information and download the Xobni toolbar at http://www.Xobni.com






6. Twinbox Toolbar Integration





1. This is your main point of contact integration with Twitter and is a great tool for getting and sending tweets just like email you do with email. Currently this toolbar is in Beta and is Free
   
   
   
   
   
   I really like that it brings the Tweets into a sub-inbox by Twitter account and automaticlly adds a Direct Folder, Mentions Folder and the Home folder for all the Tweets from the people you are following. This allows Xobni to index them as well as allowing you to get deeper and richer content added to Salesforce.com without having to purchase a Salesforce App Exchange App which would leave Group Editions high and dry. This way you can just add the tweet to contact or case just like you add an email from the Salesforce.com Toolbar. My favorite feature is the ability to add Search folders just like you add search columns in other products like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to watch for keywords or twitter addresses of people of interest to you. This make it easy to keep up with competition on twitter and you can use Google alerts to do the same for Web Content.





2. You can get more information and download Twinbox at http://www.techhit.com/TwInbox/twitter_plugin_outlook.html





7. FBLook Toolbar Integration





1. This is your main point of contact integration with Facebook and is a great tool for getting updates on requests and fiends status. You can update your status quickly from here as well. Currently this toolbar is in Alpha is Free
   
   
   
   
   
   I really like that it brings the request and status updates into Outlook without me needing to open a browser to get my updates. I normally do all my updates via email to Ping.fm so I don't normally use the update feature of the toolbar.







2. You can get more information and download Fblook at http://www.techhit.com/FBLook/





8. Skype Toolbar Integration





1. This is your main point of contact integration with Skype and is a great tool for voip communications; instant message, calling and screen sharing. You can call from your email quickly using the toolbar. Currently this toolbar is Free, as is Skype and require Skype and a Skype account. Like Gist and Goto Meeting you will have a icon in the Taskbar.
   
   
   
   
   
   I really like that it brings the "Phone" and "IM" to my inbox where I work.



2. You can get more information and download Skype at http://www.skype.com





9. Goto Meeting Toolbar Integration





1. This is your main point of contact integration with Goto Meeting and is a great tool for conference calls, presentations, screen sharing and recording of the online meeting as a all in one video. You can schedule a conference call meeting quickly using the toolbar and it is sent as a regular Outlook calendar appointment to all the attendees with all the information needed for the call. Currently this toolbar is Free and is turned on by a preference setting in Goto Meeting options from the icon in the taskbar. Goto Meeting is a monthly subscription product and in my mind the best in breed product and worth every penny. The recording feature helps me refine my skills by reviewing as well as a life saving note taker as it is there to refer to after the meeting is finished.
   
   
   
   
   
   I really like that it brings the conference call appointment setup and participation to my inbox where I work.



2. You can get more information and download a trial for Goto Meeting at http://www.gotomeeting.com

So now that you have an overview of the Inbox Control Center and Dashboard, it makes since to talk about at a high level about making the authoritative contact data be in Outlook while still being synchronized to each respective service and network. Below is a the basic top down flow to get this accomplished.

1. Install the toolbars above - Items #2,4 are required to de-duplicate contacts from other email systems and networks into one account and #3 &5-9 are efficiencies


2. In Gist, connect to all of your networks, email providers and import all your non-listed sources as CSV files - See LinkedIn walkthrough latter in this chapter as an example of how to use create and use CSV files


3. In Gist, Merge duplicate contacts from multiple sources into one, I would start with you active clients and leads first. You can tag and set stack ranking as you go through them


4. In Gist, Export the de-duplicated contact - It will send the contact as a VCF via email to you


5. In Outlook, open VCF in email and add to contacts. This will cause outlook to ask you to merge if there is already a contact by that name, and let you review the data first.


6. In Outlook, open the new or updated contact and mark to sync with Salesforce using the Salesforce Tab on the contact. If it is a lead vs a contact, export the contact and import via the Import Leads option in Salesforce.com Setup

The next part of the chapter is a walk through of the step by step example of both a contact and a lead going thru the above process. I will also cover how to attached emails to contacts and cases.

---

This is the end of this excerpt.

Working excerpt from "Small Business Owners Playbook for Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office"

Original Version without cropped images


Working excerpt from "Small Business Owners Playbook for Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office" Chapter 4 - Play SFDC Contacts and Leads - Get your Outlook Contact data in the Cloud via Salesforce.com


Question: So..do you have any glimmers of how to use salesforce.com and harvesting info from contacts on LinkedIn?

Rephrased: How do you import contacts into Salesforce from LinkedIn?



Answer: Below is the Overview and Illustrated walk thru and this also works for importing into Outlook and other CSV aware applications


Overview:

1. In LinkedIn use the Contacts export to CSV button


2. In Salesforce Setup Customize the Leads Object by adding LinkedIn to Lead Source picklist


3. In Salesforce Setup run the Import Leads from CSV file wizard

Illustrated walk thru:

1. In LinkedIn use the Contacts export to CSV button





1. Goto your Linked In Contact Page shown below






2. Click the Export Connections Icon below the contacts pane






3. Enter the Human readable password and then click the "Export" button






4. You should get the Contacts Exported Success Page






5. File is saved in your download folder per your browser download folder setting as "linkedin_connections_export_microsoft_outlook.csv"






6. Optional: Open File with Excel / Open Office Spreadsheet






7. Optional: Edit File with Excel / Open Office Spreadsheet to add,change or delete columns and data








2. In Salesforce Setup Customize the Leads Object by adding LinkedIn to Lead Source picklist








1. In Salesforce goto the "Setup" (link in the upper right) and expand the "Customize" menu option under "App Setup" and then expand the the "Leads" object and click the "Fields" option in order to edit the Lead Source picklist by clicking the field name "Lead Source" and NOT "Edit"






2. Click the "New" button in the "Lead Source Picklist Values" section be able to add "LinkedIn" to the list






3. Add "LinkedIn" to the list (you can add other sources like Facebook, etc by putting them on seperate lines)






4. "LinkedIn" has been added to the list








3. In Salesforce Setup run the Import Leads from CSV file wizard








1. In Salesforce goto the "Setup" (link in the upper right) and expand the "Data Managment" menu under the "Administrative Setup" and click the "Leads import" option and then click the "Start the import wizard" link






2. On item "10." choose "Email" from the radio buttons and then on item "6." choose "LinkedIn" from the drop down and then on item "5." click the "Choose File" button






3. Choose the file "linkedin_connections_export_microsoft_outlook.csv" and click the "Open" button






4. Completed Step 1 should look like below and then click the "Next" button






5. I removed the imported field name "Middle Name" from the Salesforce "Full Name" and left it "none selected". So Completed Step 2 should look like below and then click the "Next" button






6. This is a confirmation page of the previous steps. So Completed Step 3 should look like below and then click the "Import Now" button






7. This is the complete page and tells you about the email you will get with the recap of the import process. So the Complete Step should look like below and then click the "Finish" button






8. This is the copy of a completed email and tells you how many Leads where imported and if any errors occured. Notice that 18 where not imported because the email already existed in the leads. You can go to your "Leads" tab now and you should see all your new leads in the "My Unread Leads" view

Are you drowning trying to manage Leads&Contacts with Salesforce.com,LinkedIn, FB, Outlook,your site and Business Cards?

Hello and Happy New Year!

Are you drowning trying to manage Leads&Contacts with Salesforce.com,LinkedIn, FB, Outlook,your site and Business Cards?

Well you are not alone :-)

My integration spreadsheet already has 9 columns for where my leads and contacts are:
Facebook,LinkedIn,Outlook,Salesforce,Twitter,Smaller Indiana,MSN Messenger,Phone SIM,Business Card

So I know I left out some (understatement I am sure), but that is the point, your network becomes complex with the many to many relationships.

Right now Outlook is my "ping.fm" aka central point and I work out from there using toolbars, but as you know there are situations where contact information is only in one silo.

I am interested in your stories, issues, successes in managing Leads&Contacts with Salesforce.com,LinkedIn, FB, Outlook, your site and Business Cards.

I am working on a chapter in my new book "Small Business Owners Playbook for Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office" and wanted your thoughts, concerns, tactics, failures, successes to add to mine.

You will receive mention if your approach or story is used, assuming you want it :-)

Best success and worst failure if used (with permission) will get a signed copy of the book when released in Q1, 2010.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Here is the mock cover at this point http://www.grigsbyconsulting.com/Publications/SBOP4SFDCnMSOffice.aspx

Book Review Series - Get Found Now! Local Search Secrets Exposed

Book Title: Get Found Now! Local Search Secrets Exposed

Authors: Richard Geasey and Shannon Evans of Practical Local Search

Subject Matter: This a great book focused on the Local Search silo of the larger Search Engine Optimization (SEO) discipline with a step by step aproach.

Publisher: Create Space https://www.createspace.com/ a DBA of On Demand Publishing, 2009 (Amazon)

ISBN: 1448614643, 9781448614646

Complete Review:

Background

I was very fortunate to have a good friend of mine, Denise Barnes introduce me to Shannon Evans via Facebook. So soon after we are "friended" I get an IM from Shannon, asking if I would like to review her latest book. That is like asking a book worm if it wants to eat! So I get the signed book as promised. I love signed books as to me it is like getting a Gold Star on your paper! Wow, was I amazed that Shannon and Richard had put in one nice handy source what most of my small business do it your self marketers needed. So after 58 minutes cover to cover with 4 pages of notes of great points and tips I was ready to write the complete review below with key take aways, my feedback and my editoral edits. I have added this book to my Google Library and my LinkedIn Amazon book list.

Key take aways by page of what I thought was great that I didn't know or validated what I did know:

Page 29: Photo's and Video - Great, I missed this in my own listing

Page 30: 10 Listings for the same company! whoa, I missed that one two

Page 34: Okay, don't go overboard on the duplicate listings - Warning Google ban hammer

Page 36: Free Google Analytics from your listing, even if you don't have Google Analytics setup for your site

Page 55: Virtual Office via UPS Store, yep I do this and I avoid the customer walk in by adding "by appointment only" and list my virtual office in the "Carmel Art's District" where I live.

Page 56: Skype, another great tool for the virtual office

Page 70: Dear client, please make a standard Company Bio and associated keywords, so you can cut and paste at each site to maintain consistancy. This should come from your business plan ;-)

Page 72: Twitter, if you don't have your account, get it now, use it latter - I love ping, as you can send to all your platforms your "status update" daily with one button.

Page 79: Business Listing Hijacking, way worse than your neighbor hood wifi squatters, so great point on looking at your exisiting listings even if you didn't creat them, as somebody may be using yours

Page 87: Yelp, great new resource to use, I wasn't aware off

Page 96: Great reference to InfoUSA if you didn't know about them, I used to get the CD's for the data :-)

Page 112: Google news for your press releases!!! I missed that one completely

My feedback:

1. I would love a roadmap with value metrics aka doing these this gets you 50% of the bang, then this will get you another 15% as we are all limited on time, and who else but the author can really tell you the path of most results with least amount of effort?

2. How does Cha Cha figure into the local search space?

3. How does Navteq and InfoUSA reinforce Points of Interest integrity with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo Maps?

4. Overall Stats and focus on how each peice reinforces reputation and integrity 5. Don't forget how your blog plays into this as well as your Youtube channel

My Editoral edits and comments:

Page 9: Clarify how a website is an advantage as it definitely is!

Page 8: I would like a reference with all figures (images) from all the pages for make references in research and why not show Bing and Yahoo as well?

Page 10: Add screen shot of Google Text Entry

Page 11: Odd orphan Image and paragraph

Page 13/14: Odd space to short of Chapter

Page 15: Mobile/PDA impact and point to page 59 where discussed latter

Page 60: Picture to Dark

Page 87: Poin out citysearch can be backdoored by insider pages on page 90

Paragraph review or Conclusion:

Okay - 58 minutes cover to cover with 4 pages of notes of great points and tips. Okay I read fast, but I think most should be able to read, absorb in 4 hours. My initial estimate is this book will save the average do it yourself (DIY) small business owner/marketer about 60 hours of research at the library ( I have done this without Shannon's book) and they are in my Google library. This is a value of $3000 if the person brings $50per hour they spend on their business selling, managing, etc. I suspect they will be able to implement the sample walk thru's in 8 hours and see results in 24-72 hours. So for a similar investment of $50 per hour, they will spend $400 in results bearing work and if they get 1 new sale per week with a net sale profit of $50, they break even in 2 months for their time, 1 more week for the book and miles ahead in profit by the end of one year. Net, net, net is no need to invest in $3000 of research, use $400 of DIY time to get $2500 back in a year minus the book and DIY time, net $2050. Yes, I like numbers that involve time and money. I will be posting a "Book review" on my site and blog, so you can see my references and why this book is such a brilliant concise "head shot" for the DIY Small business and pros of the IT community that do this day in and day out.