2009 has been a long year. It has also been the most prosperous year I’ve ever experienced. It has been a year of shifting perspectives, innovative tools, unexpected hardships, and unexpected blessings. It’s a year that I’ve spent re-acquainting myself with me in order to move forward with a new outlook on life and how I live it.

It’s funny that I should say that I have a new outlook on life because this article is precisely about how I’ve eliminated one outlook that I couldn’t seem to work around. And when I say outlook, I literally mean Outlook…Microsoft Outlook.

For years I’ve used Outlook as my primary communication tool. Calendars, Contacts, Tasks, Notes, and E-mail all contained in one convenient location. For years I’ve cursed at my computer time and time again when what I believed to be the necessary evil (Outlook) would fail to open, crash, slow my system down, you name it. The only reason I stayed with it so long was because of Exchange Server. The two together make for a seamless integration of all of your devices, keeping all of your data in one location accessible anywhere.

Trapped in the confines of Microsoft’s infrastructure has been the only option until recently. And by recently, I mean within the past year or so. You see, the functionality offered by Outlook and Microsoft Exchange is not exclusive to Outlook and Exchange. It is a concept; an idea that all of your information should be in one location and you should not have to do things more than once, and that duplicate information is inefficient.

The problem has been that the only tools available require spending more money than any of us want to spend on these things. How much does a day-planner need to cost? That has changed.

I credit this personal shift to a conversation I recently had between Loren Kutsko, Director of Strategy and Information Management at Food for the Hungry, and Mark Kaech, Grassroots Campaigns and Special Projects, also at Food for the Hungry. It’s inevitable that when you put us together, we’ll talk about the latest tools and happenings in the technology world. When I expressed my apprehension about making some major shifts in how I manage my information, which ultimately translates into a more seamless transaction in the real estate contract process, I was met with the reality that I was still doing things the “Gen-X” way, and not the “Gen-Y” way and that the tools that I need are available at a fraction of the cost.

As someone who considers himself open to change, to be struck with the possibility that I’m not standing at the front of the technology-progress boat anymore caused me to reassess my ways.

The Challenge

I’ll keep this simple. I want my contacts on my iPhone to be identical to my contacts on my computer. When I read a message in my inbox and it’s marked unread, I want it to be universally marked unread so I never have to read it again unless I need to re-visit the message. I want my calendar on my phone to have the same information as my computer, and the same information as my online calendar at Google.

I want complete and seamless synchronization of all of my data so I can get to it anywhere, anytime.

The Old Solution

Microsoft Exchange Server in concert with Mobile ActiveSync, Outlook, and Outlook Web Access. If not self hosted at my own facility with over $6000 worth of hardware and software required, at the very least, paid for on a single-user basis at an exchange hosting company for about $10.00/month.

The New Way

This is so simple it amazes me that I didn’t think of it before. A note of caution. If you aren’t willing to rethink how you manage your information, almost completely, you’ll be very frustrated if you try to do this.  In fact, you may not be able to do this. There are also some pre-requisites that are assumed prior to making this type of change.

• You need your own domain name.  Lose the gmail extension, the yahoo account, the free e-mail identity.  Get your own domain name and start branding yourself personally so you never have to change it.  If your company gives you an e-mail address, use it for company communication only, and get your own identity.  you@yourname.com is far more valuable than you123@yoohoo.lame.com.
• You need a smart phone, and preferably, an iPhone.  More tools will emerge at lower and lower costs, but this is where I am today.
• I matters not whether you have a MAC or a PC anymore.  Entourage and Outlook are no longer needed.
• Please use either Firefox or Chrome as your primary internet browser.  Internet Explorer should only be used if the idiots on the other end of the website you need to use have failed to develop a more compatible site and it requires Internet Explorer to work.  Safari will suffice, but I personally avoid it.  Firefox is my first choice for now.

So What are the Changes I Actually Made?

I moved all of my data from Exchange to Google.  I moved my calendar to Google Calendars, my contacts to Google, and all of my e-mail to Google.  My notes are kept nice and neat using Evernote, my tasks…well, I never used tasks because we still need a good system that supports task dependencies and hierarchical action plans.  My website resides at another hosting provider, but all of the e-mail traffic is bounced to Google and handled by Google in a very easy to use Gmail interface.  No, I do not have a @gmail.com address.

How did I do this?  Well, it didn’t happen overnight.  I have lots of information that needed to be moved, and I’m still sorting out a few things here and there.  My website never went down, but my e-mail was interrupted for a few hours, so if you do this, you should make it a late night event.

All of these steps were accomplished in phases to ensure it was going to work, but there were some leaps of faith involved.  I made sure to get into the forums on Google to search for potential problems, then I dove in.

Before you do anything, backup all of your Outlook data.

Step 1: Establish Google Apps account for my domain.  (assumes you have a domain name already: www.godaddy.com to solve this problem.)

This is so easy.  Go to www.google.com/apps and sign up for Google Apps for Business.  It’s $50.00/year per user.  Go for the free 30 day trial (you can click here for that).

Step 2: Using the MX settings that Google gives you after you’ve setup your account, go to your domain manager at Godaddy.com or wherever you registered your domain, and modify the MX records.  Don’t screw it up and record the settings that were already there.  If you need to call someone there, do so.  They’ll help you do it.

Step 3: Watch the mail start rolling in.  It takes about 2 hours or so to kick in.

Step 4: Setup a new e-mail account on your iPhone using the gmail settings.  Now you have completely synchronized e-mail on your phone and through your gmail interface.

Step 5: Export all of your calendar data from Outlook or Entourage, or from wherever you keep it.

Step 6: Import your calendar from within your new Google account.

Step 7: Export all of your contacts from whatever program you’re using.

Step 8: Import your contacts into Google.

Step 9: Setup a new mail account using the Exchange option on your iPhone.  Follow these simple instructions to do so. Since you have already setup a mail account on your phone, make sure that your iPhone is set to sync only Calendar and Contact items, not mail.  The iPhone only allows one exchange configuration, so having a recent backup is going to make your life much easier at this point because you can delete your current exchange setup (if you have one) without losing your data.

Step 10: This is the last step.  Login to your Google Apps account (http://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com), click the Service Settings tool bar item and then Mobile at the bottom of the drop-down menu.  Make sure you enable Google Sync at the bottom.

That’s it.  Your e-mail will be delivered to Google, you’ll be able to use the Gmail interface to manage it, and you’ll have it on your mobile device on demand.  Your calendar and contacts will begin to fill up in your phone, seemingly magically, and everything will be synchronized.

Mashable.com recently published these findings regarding Gmail vs. Outlook. I stand with Google now.

Oh, and the very very last step.  Uninstall Outlook .

If you need some help walking through this process feel free to contact me and I can help you through.Similar Posts:

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Soonr is a great tool that allows you to synchronize folders which you choose on your computer with their online servers, allowing for backup, redundancy and document sharing.  It’s not perfect, but it’s absolutely saving me hours of paper shuffling.

I have already gone paperless.  It’s very rare that I handle paper at all.  Everything I do is originated on my computer, and anything that would normally be sent to me as a paper copy is sent through fax, directly to e-mail.  I use ZipForms to create contracts, Docusign to fill them out and sign them, and Soonr.com to make them available anywhere in the world.

The only time I deal with paper is if someone hands it to me.  Then it ends up in the office scanner and is immediately turned into a PDF file and saved directly through the network into a folder on my server.

Bulky Attachments

One inherent problem we have in the digital world are e-mail attachments.  Attaching a document to an e-mail is like attaching a flat bed trailer to a Prius.  The car wasn’t designed to carry all that bulky data.  The solution is to post the document online in one location and then give others the ability to access the information.  Attachments sent through e-mail are copies of originals.  Why not just make the original available rather than risking duplicates that no longer match.

Synchronizing Online

Soonr.com is one of many services that allows this.  When I generate, or receive a PDF file (every document that I transmit digitally, if not already in PDF format, will be converted to PDF format) I simply save it to a folder based on my method of organization.  Soonr runs on my computer and monitors folders that I choose.  Any time there is a file or folder added to the folder that is being synchronized, it is uploaded securely to Soonr.com and made accessible to me anywhere in the world, from either a computer, or through their iPhone application.

Sharing Files

The true brilliance lies in the ability to share the files.  Now, I can give access to important contract information to the people who need to see it.  By sharing a password protected folder online, I can simply direct my title company, inspection company, attorney, buyer’s agent, etc., to the shared folder and give them access to specific documents, or folders.

Soonr.com is just one of many different services that help you with this type of backup and online collaboration or “cloud computing.”Similar Posts:

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Technology is evolving so quickly that one method will be phased out faster than you can … well, see?  It’s happened again.  As the paper world slowly morphs to the digital world, which is probably so slow because of the learning curve, people will develop systems that will overlap, and may ultimately confuse the flow of information.

If you’re a meticulous record keeper, and you’re tired of a desktop full of messy files and icons, and you don’t want to deal with paper anymore, AND your brokerage doesn’t offer a transaction management system that automatically stores your documents online, it may be time to employ the simplicity of Windows Folders to manage your digital filing cabinet.

With a simple folder structure and a consistent system of naming conventions, you can be assured that all of your information will be where you expect it to be.

Naming Conventions

Don’t be confused by this term.  It’s simply how you name and organize your folders.

How I Do It

This is so simple, yet some think it to be so complicated.  Folders and folder heirarchy has been around since the early days of DOS (don’t know what that is?  No worries.)  Windows allows you to create a folder, then create a folder inside a folder, and so on, and so on.

On my desktop, I have a folder called Transact.  In that folder, there are sub-folders.  Each sub-folder is named after the client.  I call these “client folders.”

The transaction folder contains the client folders.

Inside one of the client folders is a list of properties that have been tied to this client.  I refer to these as “property folders.”

The client folder contains the property folders for that client.

Inside each property folder is a set of folders that are typically the same every time.  I call these by their label.  For instance, in 1234 Overthere Street, there’s a folder for all of the photos that I take of the property.  There’s a folder for listing documents, and there is a folder for each offer that I receive on the property.

The property folder contains all of the folders for the digital content generated during the listing and contract timelines.

The key to successfully organizing your digital documents if you don’t have an online transaction management system is to have a solid understanding of how you can organize folders in Windows (by the way, this works on a Mac too) and apply your own personal touch to the folders you create.

By creating a system that you understand, it will always be consistent, and you’ll learn how to quickly access the information that you need when you need it.  After you have your own system, simply create a shortcut to that folder, and you have a quick way to pull up every piece of digital information related to your real estate business.

To top it off, you can apply an online file sharing and collaboration tool called a “cloud” like Soonr.com, which allows you to install a program that will monitor your Transact folder and all folders inside that folder, and subsequently upload and synchronize all of the files contained therein to the soonr.com server.  This gives you global access to your organizational system.

Get organized today.Similar Posts:

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It’s true.  Most of my time is now spent being referred by a select chosen few from my list of “Twits” to the news, information, and media that they find, and I’m sure the same goes for them.

Twitter is like standing in the largest cocktail party on the planet, except that you can tune out all of the chatter you’re not interested in, and you can locate and connect with those few people that are talking about what you’re interested in.  Imagine how much time you would save at a charity fund raiser if you were able to identify the people you knew were interested in the same things you were interested in without having to spend half of the evening schmoozing those you have nothing in common with just to find those who you do have something in common with (whew!)

Are we creating our own little exclusive tight knit mini-countries in cyberspace?  Who knows.  What I do know is that because of the proliferation of exceptional material that I am referred to through Twitter and those that I have chosen to follow, I no longer find it necessary to search Google as much.  In fact, I hardly use a search engine anymore.

Twitter has become my search engine.  It lets me know when someone else searches for something I’m interested in, and it points me to all of the great things that people I’m connected to recommend.

Tweet me today.  @realscottsdaleSimilar Posts:

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If I am carrying on a conversation over e-mail that is important enough that I need to keep a copy of all correspondence, there are a few different ways to accomplish this task, but ultimately, the best way I have found, and the cleanest way is by using a support ticketing system.

Threaded E-mail

Most e-mail clients, depending on your user settings, will quote an original message in your reply so the recipient will be able to remember what the original message was.  Then, when they reply to your reply, the same thing happens, creating a very long thread of messages within an individual e-mail.

Problem:  If you reply to a message, then you reply to the same message again (assuming you may have left something out), you now have two sent messages with different replies.  The recipient, when he or she replies to your reply, will only quote one of your original replies, breaking the thread permanently.  This broken heirarchy can grow exponentially as time passes, messages change hands, and recipients grow.

E-mail Space Requirements

Keeping every message that ever comes into your inbox is inefficient in more ways than just taking up space on your laptop or computer, or server for that matter (that’s a whole different topic.)  Not only does it eat up space, it also eats up your time because you end up with a mountain of e-mail, and unless you have a clear system by which you read and sort your e-mail, and an effective plan to ensure your messages are permanently archives OFF SITE, meaning not on your laptop or computer, then you’re asking for hours of wasted time and frustration.  Storing your e-mail in folders is one solution, but it doesn’t remove you from the same risks and problems associated with having it all in one spot.

Keeping your e-mail on your mail provider’s server also poses a problem, because eventually it will cause your mail quota to be exceeded, and this ends up costing you time and energy, and sometimes added fees from your service provider if you don’t clear it out from time to time.  Clearing it out means eliminating it.

Support Ticketing System

The computing world is run on databases.  What better use of a database than to capture all of your important communications that you may have to refer to later?

A support ticketing system is a middle-man that automatically archives every message sent through the system and offers easy access to that system for future reference.  There are many flavors of ticketing systems out there, but I use one that I have found to be far superior to the rest.  The reason this is the case is because it takes on one feature that many other ticketing systems do not.  It allows the end user (the person who initially contacts you) to start a new ticket simply by sending you an e-mail.  It also has a zillion other fancy bells and whistles, and it runs on your own server, or a hosted server, so you have complete control over it.

How does it work?  Easy.  The support ticketing system is setup to monitor a single e-mail address (or multiple addresses if configured to do so.)  When someone sends an e-mail to this address, it sits on the server waiting for the ticketing system to check for the e-mail much like you would if you were using Outlook Express or another mail program.  If the system finds a message waiting in the wings, it “parses” the message.  In other words, it looks at the subject line to determine if there is an existing ticket number in the subject line or if it’s a new message.  If the message is new, the ticketing system assigns to it a new ticket number, records the message in the database, and forwards a notification along with the message to me, or the designated operator, at a different e-mail account.  If the message has a ticket number in it already, it adds the message to the last message that came through with the same ticket number, thereby recording the conversation permanently, and at the same time, notifies me, or the currently assigned operator.

When I get a new message with a new ticket number and reply to it, it goes to the same address that the ticketing system is monitoring.  In this case, when someone sends a new e-mail to whatever@realscottsdaleliving.com, my reply will also go to whatever@realscottsdaleliving.com.  The address is always Whatever@realscottsdaleliving.com, and every message involved in the conversation will bounce off of this address, leaving a copy of each subsequent message in the database.

Because I have this system in place, I know that every message that has a ticket number on it can be deleted from my mail client immediately after I’ve read and replied to it because all of the messages are safely stored on the server, permanently, including all attachments.  I no longer need to stack up messages in my in-box.

Researching tickets simply involves visiting a public website that allows me to search by many different methods to locate the information.

In the ticketing system, I am referred to as a Support Operator, and I am assigned to a specific Department within the ticketing organization.  Ticketing systems allow you to create multiple departments with multiple operators for each department, each with their own custom automated responses, knowledge base articles, and independent e-mail addresses.

The amount of customization you can do within your ticketing system is off the charts.

Right now, if you are a REALTOR and you inquire about one of my properties through the ARMLS system, the message goes to whatever@realscottsdaleliving.com and creates a ticket number.  All replies are tracked in my own system.  It gives me complete control and ownership of the messages that I communicate throughout the course of a day’s business.

Even if you aren’t a REALTOR, and you happen to send me a message at whatever@realscottsdaleliving.com, you will be assigned a new ticket and our conversation will begin.  Since most people don’t manage their e-mail in-boxes effectively, I can count on you keeping that message in your in-box so that if you reply to it at a later date, the ticket number will have remained in the subject line and your response will be added to the system.

One of the other nice features of a ticketing system is the ability to assign the issue to other Operators in other Departments that have been defined in the system.  Since the system is based on the internet, there is a web interface that allows anyone on your team to become part of the support system.  Moving issues and conversations between people within your organization while maintaining a consistent record of an entire conversation becomes very simple.  Imagine how difficult it would be for more than two people to monitor the conversation thread if all you had was individual e-mail accounts where messages were downloaded to different computers.

Nightmare.

Ticketing systems are a perfect solution to help your business create an identity that will never change.  Imagine Judy working the front desk for 5 years.  For her entire time of employment, she sends mail out to the agents in her office and the agents get used to sending mail directly to her using her e-mail address.  But what happens if Judy moves on?  Now you would have to notify all of the agents that Judy’s e-mail address is no longer the point of contact.  Rather, James has taken over.  So now everyone updates their contact list and a ton of uneccessary work is required from a whole lot of people who don’t need to be spending time doing that work.

Wouldn’t it be easier to give your office administrator position an e-mail address, then assign Judy, or James to that position as an operator in the ticketing system?  The agents wouldn’t know the difference, and they’d never have to change anything.  They would always send their requests to admin@company.com, or support@company.com, or accounting@company.com.  Whomever is assigned to each department would receive the requests.  If that person moved departments, or left the company, the IT director would simply remove them from the department and add the new person.Similar Posts:

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Yesterday I discovered and implemented one of the coolest websites I have come across in a long time.  The site is called soonr.com and it’s designed to provide document collaboration and backup services for your computer by creating your own personal computer “cloud.”

Here’s how it works.  You create an account on soonr.com.  You download the soonr application and run it.  In the application you tell soonr.com which local files and folders you want to keep updated at soonr.com and away it goes.  Soonr will mirror your local folder to their website and then give you the ability to share it with others or synchronize it with another computer.  Login to soonr.com and there you’ll see all of your documents, which you can view online, send, print, and edit right there.  The best part about it is that there’s a free iPhone application for it that allows you to access your word documents, powerpoint presentations, pdf files, images, you  name it, you can do it.

Apparently the world is catching the buzz on Soonr.com.  Since this article was published, which was only a few hours ago, one of the “folks” over at Soonr.com commented with a few more features that I didn’t yet know about:

“When you are away from your office and you need access to your documents, why wait until later. Do it Soonr.”

That was the founding principle. Have you discovered that you can share your printers just like a document? The cool thing is that you can print to any shared printer without having to deal with drivers, etc. So if a client calls and wants an updated quote and they are using Soonr, you can print directly to their printer – all from your iPhone or iPod Touch. I love that feature.

Or a more personal use…you want to send a picture to your friend or family member. Send it directly to their printer then call them and tell them to go look. It freaks them out, “How’d you do that?”. Great fun.

My backup needs have just been met.  The caveat?  Only 500 MB storage is given to you free…but if you do the math, the current price on an 80GB hard drive (old school, internal) is about $40.00, and they’re giving you 500MB.

Give it a try today!Similar Posts:

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