blog

Highrise on the move

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As previously posted, I’m a fan of the Highrise CRM site. I’m impressed how Nate & team are keeping users in the loop about the changes, such as this announcement email/post. While a long email, it’s one that I actually read all the way to the end of. My team & I are happy that cases are finally part of the company/contact page.

Definitely steps in the right direction!

 

 

Carrot plate

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“I don’t carrot all” plate from @crateandbarrel seems fitting for #TGIF.  I’ll probably end up eating potato chips on it.

The doctor is in

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Last week I read an interesting blog post about seeing a doctor before retiring. I’m still a long way from retirement, but it’s good to be aware of the tasks related to that plan. The post mentioned the obvious such as visiting a financial planner or a lawyer, but the doctor was a surprise to me. Doing a full workup makes sense in planning for the future, especially if your company has a robust health insurance plan to cover it. While scary to find out that you have a potentially terminal illness, it’s wise to be prepared financially when planning for it and how to best allocate your 401(k) resources, etc.

Perhaps it’s time to revise the adage to eat an apple a day keeps the doctor happy!

Suggestions for Highrise

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I was excited to hear that Highrise would become a subsidiary of 37Signals/Basecamp rather than being sold off to a big company like Salesforce or Microsoft. I’ve been using the 37Signals suite (including classic Basecamp and Campfire) for years now. I do also use the new Basecamp and have really enjoyed the modern feel & features of it. I’m glad that Highrise will now get some TLC as it sorely needs an update.

So why have I remained with Highrise then? It is just because of laziness and unwilling to deal with the hassle of exporting to a new CRM system? Nope. It’s because Highrise covers all my team’s basic needs and does it well still. Even though we have an office, almost everyone works remotely. It’s about being able to share key information with easy access without having to worry about the airport wifi being strong enough to support a VPN connection to an internal CRM server.

With that in mind, here are my top 5 suggestions for Nathan et al:

  1. A better search: First thing a new team members asks me during training is why does Highrise have 2 search boxes and the inevitable comparison to Google’s 1 box. While my standard reply is that don’t we all wish we could be like Google, it would be great to be able to search across contacts, companies, notes, tags, etc. all in one place.
  2. Cross category tags: Currently only contacts can be tagged. This leaves cases and deals on their own, even though they can be associated with a contact. We’ve found tags useful for tracking marketing campaigns and it would be great to associate the resulting sale with the marketing campaign.
  3. Drag & Drop upload: ’nuff said
  4. File preview: Definitely a time saver to have an in-browser preview of the file (such as PDFs, Word docs) to see if it’s the correct one to download.
  5. Mobile app: Would be double plus good if it had a business card scanner feature.

Can’t wait to see what the new Highrise will be like!

Helpful use for a QR code patch

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File under “why didn’t I think of this” — iron- and sew-on QR code patches. The patches (and stickers) are available from a company called stkr.it. In addition to creating the QR code, they’ll also host an audio or video file forever.

These fabric patches would be very useful on the bags & clothing of people who cannot tell others about themselves. Scenarios range from lost toddlers to dementia patients to autistic wanderers. The police or whoever found the lost person could then scan the patch and see a video or hear an audio of the emergency contact details. It would be useful to also include a description of the lost person or show the person in the video for confirmation.

Granted the information isn’t as easily accessible as an ID bracelet, but the option to include more detailed information is a valuable one.

 

Business Etiquette

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I recently read The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success as I felt I needed a refresher on the do’s and don’ts in this digital age. Although I got my first computer in the 3rd grade (my Mac SE still works), the permanency of Facebook, Twitter, and selfies do make me a bit wary of what I share online since the privacy line between personal and professional has blurred so much. 
 
The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success by Barbara Pachter et al.
The Essentials of Business Etiquette: How to Greet, Eat, and Tweet Your Way to Success
by Barbara Pachter
 
Alot of it was for people just entering the job market or common sense (like “don’t eat messy food during an interview meal” also applies to first dates). The section on Facebook’s privacy settings was useful, albeit a bit outdated since Facebook constantly changes that. The author’s tone was very personable and inviting, given that manners can be a delicate subject.