Consider what you are trying to accomplish when you deliver a presentation, be it to allied professionals evaluating your firm, potential clients, or guests at a client appreciation event.

Often the most effective way to deliver your message can be accomplished through three simple tips shared by Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick.

Click here to view Made to Stick: Giving Presentations, Dan Heath’s three and a half minute video on FastCompany.com

WiseTREND is an organization that, according to its website:

…provides a set of specific industry-tested Solutions, as well as customizable Software applications for OCR, Document Conversion and Data Capture projects.

I’ve written on FPPad before (Improve Your Paperless Document Searches) about applying OCR to each and every document captured with a scanner. Doing so allows document management and search programs to look inside documents and match keywords entered in a search query.

Adopting intelligent search for documents means no more wasted time digging though seemingly endless trees of subfolders on a company server in an attempt to find one elusive document that ended up being misfiled when it was captured in the first place.

To get good quality OCR that can process batches of documents or run immediately upon document capture, you’ll need to spend some money on applications such as Adobe Acrobat or ABBYY.

But what if you just need to run OCR on one document for free?

WiseTREND offers a service called OCR Cloud 2.0, and anyone can evaluate this service by emailing a document image (PDF, JPG, TIF, PNG, and BMP) to ocr@wisetrend.com. Several minutes later (my trial took 8 minutes), WiseTREND will email back a PDF that’s been OCRed and thus has searchable text. It’s very slick!

Now I don’t recommend using the free email trial to OCR sensitive documents (I sent a receipt from a recent lunch meeting), but it’s a handy resource for that odd file you want to OCR for future reference.

If you have feedback on WiseTREND or other similar providers, I’m interested in hearing from you. Feel free to leave comments below or contact me via email.

Tweetdoc is free and extremely easy to use, and it outputs a fairly pleasing document to boot.

Click here to view the 96 tweets captured for FPABizSol.

According to the LiveOffice press release, Social Archive is:

the first social media archiving solution to capture and retain content from any public website, including popular social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as blogs.

Now I debate the statement that Social Archive is the first archiving solution (I’ve tweeted and blogged before about Arkovi Backups, Smarsh, SocialWare, and several others). Nevertheless, LiveOffice joins a short list of providers aimed at providing compliance solutions to registered representatives and independent RIAs who want to use social media websites.

Read the entire press release by clicking here.

Nevertheless, you can click here to view all tweets with the #FPABizSol hashtag.

Click here to view the entire conference agenda.

I’ll be attending most of the sessions on Monday and Tuesday, so if you see me, stop me and say hello.

By a 3-vote margin, this is the winning picture:

I eventually want to get around to updating the template used for the FPPad blog design. I’m thinking of selecting some themes from WooThemes. Anyone have any feedback?

But first I need to get through my current work helping clients with technology, writing several columns, and speaking at upcoming conferences.

I first found out from Google Alerts I set up to monitor Smarsh, an email hosting and archive provider for the financial services industry. I saw this post on Compliance Insights, and then turned to Twitter for more information.

According to @roguebob and @safetyinnumbers, Smarsh is experiencing a severe network outage that has disrupted its website service as well as its VOIP phone system.

But the company contacted @safetyinnumbers and assured him that “emails are queueing and not being lost.”

Twitter appears to be the best source for updates at the moment, though the lack of network service obviously makes it difficult for the company to update its own Twitter account, @SmarshInc.

First, firms want to implement a document management system to efficiently manage the volumes of paperwork and forms generated throughout the financial planning process. Second, advisers want to increase revenue and client service by capturing data on held-away assets through account aggregation software.

Late last week I posted commentary why document storage isn’t document management at advisors4advisors.com. On the account aggregation side, I recently learned of a webinar offered by ByAllAccounts aimed to address this opportunity.

Here’s a short clip from a press release issued today:

On Wednesday, February 24, ByAllAccounts will host a webinar to release findings from the Q1 Advisor Survey. The event – “Do you charge enough for held-away assets?” – will give financial advisors insight into how they compare to their peers in terms of billing practices. The webinar will address the following questions:

• How confident are advisors in increasing revenues in 2010?
• What percentage of advisors report, advise and bill on held-away assets?
• How much are advisors charging for this advice and reporting?
• What is the revenue potential for billing on held-away assets?

To register, visit: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/517328579

I’ve written about ByAllAccounts several times on FPPad, so here are some of the more popular posts you may find of interest:

• Done with Quarterly Reports; How About You?
• The Custody Conundrum at Advisor Perspectives
• Technology Tips to Cut Costs and Increase Revenue

Please submit your vote below by February 19 (if you’re viewing this post in your RSS reader and the poll doesn’t show up, click here to view the full post). Thanks!

Thankfully, Chad Bockius of Socialware posted a summary of the webinar content plus the Twitter stream he generated during the event.

Click here to read Chad’s summary.

Click here to view the entire conference agenda.

I’ll be attending the conference all day Friday and will attend the ethics CE session Saturday morning (my CFP® certification renewal is due at the end of this month!). So if you see me, stop me and introduce yourself. Don’t know what I look like? Check my bio for a photo.

Also, if you’re interested in my other upcoming presentations, please check out my speaking page.

Finally, I complied a list of conference attendees on Twitter, so check it out to see who’s tweeting from the event. Most are using the #TDA2010 hashtag to identify conference-related tweets.

See you there!

I believe there will be a total of four panelists, each representing different backgrounds, experiences, and pathways into financial planning. All panelists are members of FPA NexGen, a unique community for up-and-coming professionals who represent the future of financial planning.

Click here to visit the FPA DFW Career Day 2010 event listing. Today (Wednesday) is the last day to register, so be sure to sign up!

The Career Day and CE event begins at 11am while the round table panel discussion is scheduled to begin around 2:30pm.

If you plan to attend the Career Day event, please seek me out and introduce yourself. Also, if you have questions about career development, bring them up during the round table discussion.

Click here to read the release on FINRA’s website.

Here are several links to coverage, reviews, and feedback by folks I follow in the blogosphere and social media space:

• AdvisorTweets: FINRA Issues Social Media Guidance: Tweets Do Not Require Prior Approval
• Rock The Boat Marketing: Compliance: FINRA Bounces Social Media Ball To Your Court
• Arkovi Backups: FINRA’s Social Media Guidelines
• InvestmentNews: Finra unveils guidelines for social-media and business blogging
• SECLaw.com: FINRA Releases Social Media Guidance For Brokers
• Smarsh: FINRA Tackles Social Media Compliance with FINRA Regulatory Notice 10-06
• BlissPR: FINRA’s Social Media Guidelines – Is 10 Pages Enough?
• Financial Advisor: FINRA Cautions Advisors About Social Media
• Gilbane Group: FINRA Affirms Regulation of User-Generated and Social Content
• Compliance Building: FINRA Issues Guidance on Social Networking Sites
• IT Knowledge Exchange: FINRA compliance rules extended to social media platforms
• [New as of 2/11/2010] Backupify: Financial advisors are required to keep social media records, even if it’s impossible

Click here to read Rewarding Talent Beyond Billable Hours.

ROWE is the brain child of Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, authors of the book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It.

I’ve always been curious how well the ROWE principles would work in the financial services setting. As evidenced by the CPA firm reviewed in the article, ROWE is freeing employees to work how and when they want, but to always be striving to produce results in all aspects of work.

Would ROWE work inside independent financial adviser firms? What do you think?

While this article is directed to lawyers, it is directly applicable to financial advisers who use iPhones to access information about clients.

But don’t the iPhone 3G’s encryption and unlock code features protect data from nefarious characters? No they don’t, according to Sharon D. Nelson, Esq. and John W. Simek of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.

Click here to read their article, Why Lawyers Shouldn’t Use The iPhone: A Security Nightmare.

According to Google Analytics, these are the top 10 posts published on FPPad in 2009.

• November CFP® Certification Examination Results Mailed
• Adviser Use of LinkedIn May Violate SEC Rules
• CRM Review: AdviceAmerica ClientVision
• How Long Does it Take to Complete the CFP® Certification Process?
• Satisfy Compliance Requirements For Social Media Content
• Proposed SEC Custody Rules Could Cost Advisers Extra $8,100
• More Outlook Optimization with “Inbox Zero”
• Tamarac 9 is Industry’s Latest Integrated Solution for Advisers
• Avoid This $600 Mistake on Your Tax Return
• Twas the Night Before Christmas: Adviser Technology Edition

Happy New Year!

The clients were pleased with their tax assessments,
With visions of goals and model investments.
My partner and I, after giving a greeting,
Had just settled in to a new client meeting.

When out in the hall there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
Away to my netbook I flew like a flash,
Double-clicked on Google Chrome, fearing a crash.

The browser popped up and loaded GMail,
The subject said “Open for tools that will scale.”
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But cutting-edge technology, with Morningstar and G-Sphere.

I questioned if loading was seamless and quick,
I’ve tried this before, they just don’t do the trick.
“Yes,” the message read, “all your problems we’ll tame,”
It listed CRM tools and called them by name!

“Now Redtail! now, Salesforce! now, Zoho and Junxure!
On, Ebix! on, Goldmine! On eMoney and ProTracker!
To document notes! to provide instant recall!
Now aggregate! Aggregate! Aggregate all!”

Aggregation tools provide data to feed,
No more manual entry, meeting my need!
And into PortfolioCenter it flew,
CashEdge, Advisor Exchange, ByAllAccounts, too.

And Advent, Principia CAMS, are those unknown?
“No,” it read, “we also support Cornerstone!”
As I sat back in my chair, and was turning around,
Through my door came a consultant with a bound.

“I’ll streamline your practice, grow profits,” he vowed,
“I’ll even move documents out to the cloud.”
A bundle of web apps like none I had seen,
NetDocuments, Docupace; no paper means green!

“What if I want something locally hosted?”
“No problem, my friend, I’ll get to it,” he boasted.
“Installed on your server, where speed is the key,
Try Laserfiche, Sharepoint, or CabinetNG.”

“Rebalancing with spreadsheets leads to a mess,
Have you tried TRX or Rebalance Express?
Over thousands of trades you’ll surely corral,
Use TradeWarrior, Tamarac, or iRebal.”

I asked about Twitter, LinkedIn and social tools,
“Aren’t they just time-wasters and only for fools?”
“Not entirely,” he said, “but be cautious,
Satisfying compliance can make you nauseous.”

“Rules on Web 2.0 compliance are harsh,
so backup your tweets with Arkovi or Smarsh.
While they’re tools you can use to market for free,
don’t run afoul of FINRA or SEC.”

“For true backup, use offsite storage for files,
when you lose a hard drive, you’ll still be all smiles.
Egnyte, Mozy, Dropbox, EVault, Carbonite,
help avoid business continuity fright.”

Before I could thank him, he left through the door,
Even with so many tips, I still yearned for more.
He left no trace but for this note on my website,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Remember that CFP Board posts regular status updates to its website to inform examinees of the scoring process. Today, CFP Board released the following update:

Still curious on exactly how long it takes between taking the exam and receiving official certificaton? This post on FPPad, How Long Does it Take to Complete the CFP® Certification Process?, should clear up many questions.

In addition, CFP Board recorded their webinar on July 30, 2009 discussing the post CFP® Exam process and what examinees can expect while waiting for results. I’m including the YouTube video below for your convenience.

Needless to say, this proposal did not go over well, especially when costs for surprise audits were estimated to be north of $8,000.

See previous posts on FPPad: Proposed SEC Custody Rules Could Cost Advisers Extra $8,100 and SEC Surprise Audit Proposal Likely to be Dropped According to FPA.

Yesterday the SEC passed new custody regulations, and the surprise audit provision for RIAs who only debit fees was dropped. In addition, the SEC published a custody matrix, if you will, defining the different adviser arrangements along with their respective duties and responsibilities.

The folks over at RIABiz posted more about the custody provisions, plus they included the custody matrix chart for reference.

Click here to view the custody matrix on the RIABiz website.

The blog is called The Total View, published by John Luciano. Advisors may recognize John as the Director of Sales and New Business Development for Advisor Exchange, LLC, an aggregation and portfolio interface solution provider.

My post highlights the significant portion of revenues that advisors receive from qualified plans, but only after they’re rolled over into an IRA. Using account aggregation solutions, advisors can access data on held-away accounts to provide investment advice and calculate asset-based fees, increasing overall revenue for the firm.

Click here to read my guest post, Don’t Wait Until a Client Retires to Advise on Held-away Assets.

Today I learned from this AICPA Journal of Accountancy tweet that the IRS has posted proposed regulations titled “Basis Reporting by Securities Brokers and Basis Determination for Stock” available for viewing on the Federal Register website.

Click here to view the PDF in all its 141 pages of glory.

I don’t quite have the time to browse the proposal right now, but thankfully the folks over at the AICPA JofA just posted a good summary of the proposal.

Click here to read the AICPA’s JofA Regulations Proposed on Basis Reporting by Brokers.

Update 12/21/2009: Also read this article Brokerages face 2011 start date for reporting cost-basis info from InvestmentNews.

However, there’s no real insight as to what exactly the proposal means for independent financial advisers. Hint: It probably doesn’t change much of anything, as custodians are likely to bear the brunt of the regulatory changes. If anything, that means custodial fees likely will go up.

The comment period for this proposal is open until February 8, 2010 and a public hearing is scheduled for February 17, 2010. That will be a barn-burner of a hearing!

But when the time arrives to hire for your firm, will you rely on providence or planning to find the right employee?

When I say rely on providence, I’m referring to firms that cast a wide net by posting want ads across the Internet and wade through the deluge of résumés that pour in. Yes, posting a job description on industry related sites is more likely to generate qualified candidates, but  firms are hoping that ideal candidates are constantly watching the job postings for new positions. Hence the reference to providence.

So instead of relying on chance to find the right employee, advisors should turn to organizations that specialize in matching talented individuals with open positions.

Last year I reviewed Succession Registry (although now the site redirects to Practice Lifecycle which also looks inactive) and now I want to highlight a newcomer to the recruiting scene, New Planner Recruiting.

Established earlier this year by Caleb Brown and Michael Kitces, New Planner Recruiting aims to place students enrolled or graduating from CFP Board registered education programs with firms seeking full-time entry level talent.

There’s a lot of good information on the New Planner Recruiting website, so I encourage advisors to visit the site and learn more about the services provided.

Addendum

Here’s my short list of some of the better industry related job boards out there for firms who like to cast a wide net.

• FPA® Career Center
• Local FPA Chapter Job Board (click here to find a chapter, click here for FPA DFW’s Job Bank)
• NAPFA Career Corner
• Financial Planning Magazine Job Discussion Board
• InvestmentNews Career Connection
• Ok, I concede; your local Craigslist (I admit, I’ve been hired before through Craigslist)

I could spend a few paragraphs explaining how to install the bookmarklet and how it makes reading stuff on the Internet easier, but allow me to let the pictures tell the story.

So, out of the two identical articles below, which one do you want to read?

This?

Or this?

Enough said. Now go get Readability.

Update 12/21/2009: Here’s an article from Davis Janowski at InvestmentNews discussing online conferences; No fuss, no muss, but forget about freebies. He highlights the Forbes iConference series among other events.

I attended the Forbes Advisor iConference Building a Rebound-Ready Game Plan on Wednesday of this week. I believe this is the second 100% web-based conference put on by Forbes. Note that InvestmentNews also recently held a 100% online event covering ETFs, but I don’t currently manage investments, so I skipped the event.

If you missed the event, replays are available for 90 days after the iConference. This FPPad post has details on how FPA members can attend for free.

Here’s my feedback on the Forbes event.

Format

Attending the iConference was easy; fire up an approved web browser (Internet Explorer 6 or higher or Firefox versions prior to 3.5), log in, and the iConference was underway. There were three main areas of the iConference:

• Presentation Area
• Networking Lounge
• Exhibit Hall

Navigating the Presentation Area was easy, and attending a live event was as easy as clicking the Attend button. This fired up a separate window that contained the presentation content.

There were two types of presentations that I attended. One type featured pre-recorded video of a Q&A session (e.g. the Steve Forbes keynote address) or a pre-recorded presentation (e.g. André Guillemin’s Mobile Technology presentation). The second type featured audio only presentations, typically of panel disucssions, accompanied by slides in the main window.

Both types of presentations were followed by a live Q&A session where questions submitted by attendees were addressed by the presenters. While I suspect many of the presentations were recorded, these Q&A sessions were live, as quite a few of the questions I submitted that day were read out loud word-for-word.

The Networking Lounge was essentially a chat room where all attendees could interact with one another. There’s nothing special to report here, but I never figured out how I could see who was logged in to the chat room. It was a crap shoot that someone would reply to questions or statements posted in the Networking Lounge (though Forbes staff members were always present to provide feedback).

Lastly, the Exhibit Hall featured virtual exhibit booths from vendors and sponsors. All booths featured a chat window, and here I could see the staff running the booth as well as the guests attending the booth. Some booths featured short video presentations about the company or organization, and electronic handouts and materials were available from most exhibitors.

Overall the iConference event was pretty much conducted just like live conferences, and I was impressed with how smoothly everything ran for me. I know other attendees encountered audio, video, and other technical issues, but I didn’t experience any problems throughout the entire day.

Format score: 10 out of 10

Content

The theme of this week’s iConference was Building a Rebound-Ready Game Plan, but it very loosely tied in the content from the presentations. So while I learned some new information, I don’t feel the iConference sets up attendees with a solid game plan to navigate the rebound.

I ended up posting much of the interesting content from the iConference on Twitter using the hashtag #FAiC09.

Click here to see search results of #FAiC09 tweets (PDF).

(So I fudged the formatting to make these search results look halfway decent when printing to a PDF file. Does anyone have tips on how to print more attractive search results from Twitter?)

Again, the content seemed recycled from other events and didn’t seem strongly tied with the game plan theme, so I’m scoring this a little lower.

Content: 6 out of 10

Execution

Again, the iConference ran without any technical difficulties for me, the questions I submitted were addressed, and the content was compelling enough for me to attend nearly the entire day.

Add in the fact that I didn’t have to travel, book a hotel room, or take a substantial amount of time away from my business, and the iConference model is a very attractive medium for the delivery of continuing education and professional development.

Execution: 10 out of 10

Summary

So with a total overall subjective score of 26 out of 30, you can see that I’m impressed with the concept of a virtual conference and pleased with the effort put forth by Forbes to conduct the event.

I really do believe that we’ll see an increase in popularity and availability of virtual events that stretch beyond the standard one hour webinar that are so prominent today. Don’t get me wrong: short webinars won’t go away, but combining the webinars into larger events with networking and exhibitor opportunities at low or no cost is very appealing.

Here’s one recent example.

December’s Financial Advisor magazine features a write-up of PaperPort Professional v12.0, reviewed by Joel Bruckenstein. In the review he says:

…its ease of use, low cost and robust features make it an attractive option for smaller advisory firms with limited technology and training budgets.

and…

For the price, PaperPort provides a great deal of functionality.

Sounds fairly promising. For $199, advisers can get an entry-level document management and scanning solution that provides some of the basic functionality needed to implement a paperless office. What’s not to like?

Turn over to Amazon.com to buy the product, and right off the bat PaperPort Professional v12.0 is marked down 30% to $139.99. But wait a minute: Customer reviews of 2 out of 5 stars is troubling. So what gives?

Some of the highlights from Amazon.com reviews include these gems:

The OCR [Optical Character Recognition] is not improved since 11.2 … It still does not OCR accurately when it is a pdf document.

Over all, IMO, the “improvements” to PaperPort 12 aren’t. The pretty new face is nice, but that’s not enough of a reason to get the program.

However, potential purchasers of Paperport 11 or 12 need to know that there is a copy protection Docucom Watermark that may intermittently show up on your pdf files made with Paperport – making them unusable.

So the OCR engine is unimproved and buggy, version 12 seems improved only cosmetically, and there’s a Docucom watermark on scanned images? In my experience, accurate OCR and watermark-free images are essential in any document management solution worth its salt.

These drawbacks definitely seal the deal for me: I don’t recommend advisers look to PaperPort Professional v12.0 as a potential document management solution.

Make no mistake: I’m not bashing Joel’s review in Financial Advisor magazine. PaperPort does facilitate scanning, it offers a file manager, and it’s cheap compared to other solutions on the market.

But unfortunately, with the low price comes some significant shortcomings that I believe fail to meet most adviser’s expectations in a quality document management solution.

On December 9th, another iConference is being offered titled Building A Rebound-Ready Game Plan.

How did I find out about this resource? By chance, I was navigating the FPA national website looking for information related to my position as the incoming Technology Director for the FPA DFW chapter. Set over in the FPA News Brief section is a single-line link titled FPA President Part of Forbes.com Regulatory Webinar. I clicked the link and learned of the iConference.

Registration to the iConference is $75, but FPA members can attend the iConference for FREE. Here’s how.

Click over to the FPA News Brief to find the special promotional code. Just use the code when registering for the iConference and the $75 fee is waived.

This will be my first virtual conference, so if I have the time and inclination, I’ll post my reaction to the event and any significant takeaways.

Today, my Twitter feed @BillWinterberg is featured in FINS from The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 10 Twitter feeds for career-minded advisers to follow.

Here’s a quick snapshot of my listing (click the snapshot for the full article):

It’s a privilege to be named along side 9 other excellent influential individuals on Twitter. I had no idea that this list was being published, so it’s great to be recognized by an independent organization as someone to follow for high-value professional development content.

Also, that twitpic link (http://twitpic.com/rm9ha) shows how to find the financial planning wave on Google Wave. If you’re on Google Wave, search for us and join the discussion.

So in case you haven’t done so already, click here to follow me on Twitter. I promise to continue to deliver relevant links and discussions of topics pertinent to financial service professionals and independent financial advisers.

It’s that time of year again when Financial Planning magazine publishes its annual survey of technology in use by financial planners and advisers. This is the third year for the survey, and again Joel P. Bruckenstein tallied up the responses (from over 1,500 individuals!) and reviewed the results.

Click here to view Bruckenstein’s review of Financial Planning’s 2009 Software Survey.

Just as I did last year, I’m posting my 30-second summary of the review. I’m listing each comment along side those of 2008 for easy comparison.

• 1,550 people responded to the 2009 survey (over 4 times the 350 responses in 2008)
• 24% said they use Microsoft Outlook as their CRM (barely down from 25% in 2008). That sound you hear is me slapping my forehead. Zoho CRM was a surprise write-in response.
• SaaS CRM programs still lag their locally-installed counterparts, just as in 2008
• MoneyGuidePro is the most popular financial planning package with 20% of users (down from 23% in 2008). Now 19% reported no planning software used, up from 11% in 2008
• In portfolio management software, Morningstar Office topped responses with a 24% share (after not even making the 2008 list because of a survey design glitch), beating out Schwab PortfolioCenter® (19%, 18% in 2008) and Albridge (14%, 18% in 2008). This year, 23% said they don’t use anything, down from 28% in 2008 (again, likely because they don’t manage money or they get portfolio data off of a broker/dealer website)
• Account aggregation adoption still falters. The topic received a 5-sentence paragraph mention in the 2009 article. 70% responded that they don’t use account aggregation software (down from 75% in 2008). ByAllAccounts and CashEdge led the choices for those that do use it. I guess a lot of advisers are simply waiting for clients to retire to capture assets held in captive retirement accounts.
• Paperless office and document storage systems continue to be nearly non-existent for the majority of respondents. Note to Financial Planning magazine survey designer: As Adobe admits its Acrobat software is not a document management application, a point freely expressed in the survey article, so why continue to list it as an available choice in the survey? I know it was listed in prior years’ surveys, but in my opinion this continues to skew results in this category.
• Rebalancing software gained in use from 22% in 2008 to 33% in 2009. Prices in this category are falling and more vendors are entering this space with competitive solutions. Tamarac, Advisor Software (on Schwab and TDAmeritrade’s custody platform), and iRebal continue to lead this sector.

Those are the significant takeaways from this year’s software survey. There’s lots more in the article, but this short summary should give you the overall concept of what was highlighted.

I learned today via AdvisorTweets on Twitter that the webinar has been postponed for three months. It now is scheduled for March 17, 2010. One thing that hasn’t changed is the $50 member/$100 non-member registration fee required to attend the event.

Click the image below to connect to FINRA’s website and get the new details.