Click here to visit The Standard® Webinar Series page and view the replay (63 minutes). It’s free!

Also, I finished updating a presentation on productivity tips oriented to financial advisors. I’m presenting these tips during a webinar presented by The Standard.

The FREE webinar is this Thursday, July 8 at 12PM ET, 9AM PT (sorry for the late notice).

Click here to view The Standard Webinar Series page and my presentation titled Productivity Tips: How to Get More Done.

I hope you will join me on Thursday and I trust you’ll get a least two or three tips to help you work more efficiently and effectively to get more done for your clients.

For the second quarter of 2010, the Dow fell 10 percent, the S&P 500 lost 12 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 12 percent (and some portfolios may need rebalancing). But guess what? The amount of service you delivered to clients didn’t decrease. If you bill based on AUM, you’re going to take about a 10 percent cut in revenue compared to the first quarter (unless you were one of the lucky ones who sold in May to go away).

For many of you, why are you willing to accept less revenue for sustaining, or even increasing, the services you provide?

Now if you are strictly an asset management firm, I do feel that AUM fees are an appropriate compensation model. You have been hired to manage assets and deliver alpha whenever possible. When you do, your client portfolios are larger and you are rewarded with higher fees. When you under-perform, your client portfolios suffer and so do your fees. Everyone’s interests are aligned and clients know what they’re paying for.

But if your firm delivers more than just asset management services, billing solely on AUM does nothing to communicate the value of the additional services you provide. You may go to great lengths to put a comprehensive financial plan together, covering insurance needs, tax strategies, estate planning, the whole nine yards. But if your fees for these services are wrapped up in one AUM fee schedule, how does the client place value on these other services?

Instead, fees for planning and advisory services should be based on the needs and complexity of the client. Need to perform an estate review? That has a price (and perceived value) associated with it. The same goes for tax planning.

I don’t have an answer today on what can be used to replace AUM fees, but I have many ideas in my head. But it is clear to me that what the industry needs is a better way to quantify the unique circumstances of each client and align fees according to the services delivered.

Presentation Studio allows users to design, edit, and publish custom performance reports using built-in elements. In addition, reports can be created in a batch process and saved to PDF or XPS files.

For more information on the Presentation Studio enhancements, follow the link below and expand the PortfolioCenter 5.0 header in the page.

https://schwabpt.com/resources/presentations/

To read the press release from Black Diamond, click the following link: http://www.blackdiamondreporting.com/whoweare/press

BlueSky is a web-based platform that enhances standard portfolio management and performance reporting features by adding an array of customizable options. BlueSky users can now configure the appearance and settings of their home page under the SkyViews feature.

Pre-configured report objects can now be added to a user’s home page under the SkyBoxes option, and comprehensive report pages constructed for each user are available under the SkyPages feature.

In addition, Black Diamond announced that it is expanding its Client Advocates team to better support the company’s clients. In the press release, Reed Colley, CEO of Black Diamond Performance Reporting, said, “Our expansion of our expert support in the areas of transition and data conversion are in response to the growing demand we are seeing from established wealth management firms.”

I have not yet viewed the new BlueSky platform, but I hope to arrange a demo soon and report back on its features and usability for advisers considering the system.

In the first significant step in the broker/dealer environment, Cambridge Investment Research announced that it plans to support their representatives’ use of social media by adopting compliance and monitoring software from Socialware.

Click here to read the announcement from Financial Planning Magazine online.

FPPad subscribers have read about Austin, Tx. based Socialware before and their tools that help advisers and representatives satisfy compliance requirements when using social media websites.

The fact that Cambridge is stepping up to the plate and giving the tentative green light to its reps means more and more financial professionals will be able to manage social media profiles to engage in conversations with clients and prospects.

At the time, the ByAllAccounts-to-dbCAMS connection wasn’t 100% official as there were some behind-the-scenes issues with data relationships and configuration concerns. Also, dbCAMS users had to pay an annual fee to FCSI in order to use ByAllAccounts’ aggregation, and that fee was on top of the normal fees charged by ByAllAccounts.

Nevertheless, I demonstrated my engineering aptitude and ability to troubleshoot good enough to convince ByAllAccounts to allow me to use their service with CAMS. It was a good decision on their part as it led to a few new contracts for ByAllAccounts as I demonstrated my success to other CAMS users.

Finally, ByAllAccounts today announced an agreement with Morningstar, Inc., to provide enhanced access to aggregated client account data for users of Morningstar® Principia® CAMS (formerly dbCAMS). In addition,  users of CAMS no longer need to pay an annual access fee in addition to the ByAllAccounts fees. That is a positive development for everyone.

Click here to view the Marketwire press release ByAllAccounts Offers Enhanced Account Aggregation to Morningstar Principia CAMS Users.

Last Call! Conference Committee Scheduled to Act on Fiduciary Provision on Wednesday.

The Conference Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday on the fiduciary provision. The Senators on the Conference Committee are the key votes.

Calls from constituents do matter. Please call your Senator and urge him or her to vote for the House provision establishing a fiduciary duty for brokers providing investment advice to retail investors, NOT for the Senate’s version which proposes a “study” of whether brokers should have to put client’s interests first.

Christopher J. Dodd Chairman (D-CT) - 202-224-7391
Tim Johnson (D-SD) – 202-224-5442
Jack Reed (D-RI) – 202-224-4642
Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) – 202-224-6542
Richard C. Shelby Ranking Member (R-AL) – 202-224-5744
Mike Crapo (R-ID) – 202-224-6142
Bob Corker (R-TN) – 202-224-3344
Blanche Lincoln (D-ARK) – 202-224-4843
Patrick Leahy (-VT) – 202-224-4242
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) – 202-224-3254
Saxby Chambliss (R-TN) – 202-224-3521
Judd Gregg (R-NH) – 202-224-3324

Regards,
Knut

Knut A. Rostad
Chairman
The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard
www.thefiduciarystandard.org

According to a PRNewswire article, Pershing announced that it has introduced a version of NetX360™ that is compatible with the Apple® iPad™.

Click here to view BNY Mellon’s Pershing Unit Introduces NetX360™ for iPad™ from PRNewswire.

While Pershing may have introduced the iPad-compatible app, I cannot find the app in the App Store as of this writing. The iPhone-compatible app is available, but not the version enhanced for the iPad.

The iPhone version of NetX360 Mobile has not received favorable reviews. It has just one 5-star rating compared to 16 1-star ratings.

common complaint is that trading is not supported at all within the app. NetX360 Mobile does allow read-only access to client account balances, contact information, and transaction history. But several reviewers complain that their B/D shouldn’t charge a monthly fee (typically $10/month) for basic access to account information.

This month I tackle the issue of the constant back-and-forth messaging in which advisors often engage to schedule meetings with clients and colleagues. There is a better way!

Click here to read “A Simpler Way to Schedule Meetings” at Morningstar Advisor.

This article was originally posted on April 29, 2010 to advisors4advisors.com, a practice management website for independent financial advisers.

Last week, CBS News released an investigative report that revealed how documents with private information were accessed from the hard drives of used photocopiers.

Compromised data included internal documents from the sex crimes division of law enforcement, payroll information, and health and medical records.

Click here to view the five-minute video.

There’s no doubt that wealth management firms across the country are subject to this same risk. Many are just not aware that images of photocopied and scanned documents are stored on a machine’s internal hard drive. If one does know about the document storage, copier manufacturers do not make it easy to permanently delete the stored images (one manufacturer charged an extra $500 for the special feature to enable hard drive deleting!).

The lesson to take away from this report is to always follow a procedure to ensure sensitive information is permanently deleted from office hardware before removing it from your firm. This applies to any imaging hardware, including photocopiers, scanners, and fax machines.

If the stored images are not deleted, your firm could be exposed to significant liability if any client information is subsequently obtained and used for nefarious purposes.

Earlier today I received an alert that Fiserv, Inc., a financial services technology solution provider, announced its acquisition of AdviceAmerica and will add the company to its Investment Services unit.

Click here to read the press release from Fiserv.

Overall, I liked ClientVision for its simpler user interface and easy learning curve. After all, ClientVision integrated inside Microsoft Outlook, so if advisors know how to navigate Outlook, they can navigate ClientVision.

The press release didn’t mention ClientVision specifically, but I assume that the CRM will continue to be supported under Fiserv’s management.

Let’s hope that the folks managing ClientVision can throw in that global search feature that I talked about in my review. That combined with the low price point would make a capable entry-level CRM for many advisers.

Two technology vendors that have been featured on FPPad before, ByAllAccounts and Tamarac, today announced a partnership to add ByAllAccounts’ account aggregation capabilities to the Tamarac Advisor® integrated portfolio platform.

Click here to read the press release ByAllAccounts and Tamarac Deliver All-in-one Platform for Financial Advisors to Streamline Operations and Workflow.

I last covered ByAllAccounts in February this year as the company started offering periodic webinars to advisors on a variety of practice management topics, including account aggregation.

And Tamarac was featured on FPPad in September of last year as it announced the release of Advisor® 9 platform.

It’s interesting to note that the September article indicated that Advisor already included support for ByAllAccounts account aggregation, so it’ll be interesting to see what enhancements, if any, are generated from this new relationship.

I’m putting some feelers out for more information and will do my best to report back as I receive it.

See our previous entries:

• Anti-Fraud Measures Your Practice Needs
• Follow Up to Fraud Prevention Practices
• Weitzman’s Right to Use CFP® Certification Mark Suspended

According to Ron Leiber at the New York Times (Ron and his family were former clients of Weitzman), Weitzman was  sentenced to 97 months in prison yesterday.

Click here to read the entry in the New York Times Bucks blog.

Again, I can only stress how important it is to have clearly defined processes as to how your firm fights fraud. Take the opportunity to tell clients what you do and how you keep staff responsible for the safeguarding of client assets. A dose of proactive communication can go a long way when so many stories are being published about advisers accused of stealing from their clients.

As I checked in for my flight from Denver to DFW, I thought I would be environmentally conscious and use an electronic boarding pass on my iPad. I checked in online with my carrier and easily saved the boarding pass image to my iPad.

When I arrived at the airport, I waited in the security line for about 20 minutes only to find out that TSA was having no success reading electronic boarding passes from my carrier. TSA said I had to get a paper boarding pass and go back through security. Only at 6:30pm on a Sunday evening, the check in counter was closed and the kiosk wouldn’t reprint paper passes for flights departing in 45 minutes or less!

I ended up running down to baggage claim, found an employee, and received a paper boarding pass. I ran back to security, ran to my gate, all the while hearing my name over the airport paging system with the dreaded words “final boarding call…” I made my flight with just 2 minutes to spare.

The Paperless Lesson

It’s not guaranteed that a paperless solution is without its own problems. The lesson is to ensure that all processes along the workflow have been carefully examined for critical disruptions (like TSA not being able to scan electronic passes).

For financial advisers, it’s one thing to have an effective capture process by scanning all documents you receive and filing the electronic documents you create. But the system may not be effective if you’re not able to successfully retrieve your electronic documents quickly and efficiently (Gee, I know that insurance statement is here somewhere…).

So evaluate your processes from beginning to end to make sure that you have identified potential pitfalls that may prevent your capture, filing, retrieval, and securing of your electronic documents.

And learn from me; might as well print out a backup boarding pass if you’re thinking about using the electronic version on your mobile device. So much for saving the planet one pass at a time.

Significant portions of this post were dictated using Dragon Dictation for iPad.

I’m flying to Colorado tomorrow morning to connect with the FPA® NexGen community in Estes Park. This will be my third NexGen conference out of the last five (I seem to attend in every even-numbered year).

I look forward to reconnecting with many of my peers and making new friendships with other young advocates of the financial planning profession.

I don’t expect to have widespread Wifi coverage, so there won’t be much live-tweeting from the conference. Still I hope to return and present some of the important discussion topics and takeaways from the meeting of young and motivated advisers in the profession.

[Image credit: elgringospain]

Click here to read my debut column, An Alternate Spin on Account Aggregation.

The success of the column depends on you, so if you find the information of value, please share it with your colleagues. Also, leave a comment (if permitted by your compliance department!) to let me know how relevant the information is to your practice or if I’m completely nuts about a particular piece of technology.

Finally, some of my best contributions come from conversations and tips from advisors like you. So if you have a technology you’d like reviewed or best practices that need highlighting, contact me.

Email bill [at] fppad [dot] com or send me a @reply message on Twitter.

Thank you for your support, and thank you to MorningstarAdvisor for the wonderful opportunity!

Another custodian has formed a partnership to increase its technology offerings to affiliated advisers.

Shareholders Service Group (SSG) of San Diego, Calif. announced today that it is partnering with Black Diamond Performance Reporting of Jacksonville, Fla. to deliver its industry leading, web-based portfolio management and reporting system through the SSG platform.

Click here to view the press release for the Black Diamond and SSG partnership (Yahoo! News).

With the addition of Black Diamond’s technology, SSG continues to fill the service gap between itself and the three major custodians, Schwab Institutional, Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services, and TD AMERITRADE Institutional.

One of the differences SSG features is its lack of a minimum asset requirement for advisers seeking custody services for client accounts. New advisers can begin to custody client accounts with SSG from day one, whereas a minimum asset level between $10 and $25 million is required to affiliate with the major custodians.

Revenue Architects is an expert network of independent marketing, sales, and technology professionals aligned to support the diverse needs for adviser revenue performance. All the details of Revenue Architects can be viewed on their website, http://www.revenuearchitects.com/

I’m presenting the Guide to Going Digital webcast with John Stone, CEO of Revenue Architects, on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 from 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (ET). The webcast details can be viewed here: http://www.revenuearchitects.com/events-and-webcasts/

FPPad readers are eligible for a 10% discount off the webcast registration. Enter the code FPPadDigital to receive your discount. The code is valid for all four of the events in the Financial Adviser Webcast series.

I hope you consider joining the webcast if you’re serious about growing your presence in the rapidly evolving digital world.

Today, Smarsh, Inc. the leading email archive solution provider to financial advisers, and Socialware, a provider of social media archive and policy enforcement tools, announced a partnership to combine their respective technologies to provide one solution for messaging and social media governance and compliance.

Click here to view the press release on Smarsh’s website.

I’ve written about both Smarsh and Socialware before, and while each company’s products could help advisers comply with regulatory requirements when using social media, neither offered an all-in-one solution. Smarsh dominates the archiving market, but lacks coverage in the social media space. Socialware commands the social media space, but doesn’t specialize in compliant archiving.

So I view the partnership as a very promising relationship in support of an all-in-one social media compliance solution to satisfy FINRA and SEC regulatory requirements.

I hope to be able to check out the offering in the future and report back on its capabilities (either here or in my other media outlets).

For my first column, I described many of the best tools and techniques planners and advisers can use to roll out a successful social media strategy.

Click here to read Tools and Techniques to Leverage Social Media (link is good only for the month of May).

I always appreciate comments and feedback, so please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

So for those of us watching from the sidelines, follow the Twitter backchannel for the event using the #fparetreat hashtag. Mary Corbin, Managing Editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, bless her heart, is live tweeting from the event.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think Mary, Rick Kahler, and Marion Asnes might be the only individuals tweeting from the event. No doubt Retreat attracts a more experienced crowd, plus many advisors choose not to send messages out through social networking sites due to compliance concerns, so don’t expect a flood of insight from the event.

I mentioned three apps that can be used to circumvent this drawback (GoodReader, Dropbox, and SugarSync), each with its own pros and cons.

Today, the folks at SugarSync released an update to its iPad app to enable users to perform basic file editing and synchronization with its SugarSync cloud document storage service.

Unfortunately, I still find document synchronization on the iPad, even with the SugarSync update, to be a convoluted process.

Below is an excerpt from the SugarSync press release describing how their updated app works:

1. Via the SugarSync for iPad app, browse and view files from all computers already synced to the SugarSync cloud.
2. To edit a document (for example), click “Open in Pages” at the top of the screen (an appropriate document editor, e.g., Pages, Numbers or Keynote, must be installed).
3. In Pages (or other document editor), edit as desired and save the file to the iPad’s local storage.
4. Sync the file directly back to a SugarSync cloud account and remote computers via SugarSync’s Upload by Email. (Updated files are found in a dedicated SugarSync folder).

I followed these steps to edit a simple text file I created in my SugarSync folder. Sadly, these steps end up producing three separate files in an effort to support simple editing.

Naturally, the first version of the file is the one stored in the SugarSync folder. In step 3 above, a second version of the file is created by the document editor (e.g. Pages) once it is saved to the iPad. Then in step 4, the second version is emailed back to SugarSync (using a special email address provided by SugarSync) and is routed to a special folder in the Magic Briefcase labeled Uploaded by Email, thus creating a third version of the file.

So after editing one file, three versions of it now exist, spread across SugarSync and the iPad! Long time readers of FPPad know how I hate multiple versions of files and the plague of “versionitis.”

One the one hand, SugarSync does make it possible to edit documents on an iPad and send the updated file back to the SugarSync cloud. That is a good thing.

But on the other hand, the iPad’s lack of a basic file explorer makes the process of editing documents stored in the cloud unnecessarily complex.

So for now, I continue to use my iPad primarily to consume information (audio, video, Internet browsing, reading PDF files, etc.) rather than to edit existing documents. If I’m going to simply edit text files, I might as well save an email draft in GMail to avoid all the back-and-forth synchronization with SugarSync.

That said, I long for the day when basic editing of files stored in Google Documents is possible on an iPad. Before that happens, I bet a tablet PC running some variant of the Windows OS will be available.

First, you can subscribe to the FPPad RSS feed by clicking here.

Don’t use an RSS reader? We recommend Google Reader. It’s free and easy to use.

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So here’s a glimpse at what many visitors to FPPad find useful:

• The iPad for Financial Advisers and Wealth Managers
• How Good is Ken Zahn’s CFP® Certification Exam Live Review?
• Adviser Use of LinkedIn Recommendations May Violate SEC Rules
• Yes, Twitter Can Help Financial Planners
• Book Bill to Speak at Your Financial Adviser Conference

Thanks again for visiting and thank you to Wealth Management Marketing for featuring FPPad this month!

Moulton Strategic Partners was one of the first companies to customize Salesforce, the popular SaaS CRM tool, and offer it to advisors under the XLR8 label.

I haven’t yet found a website for Concenter Services, LLC, but its CEO, Mary Ferguson, maintains a profile on LinkedIn. Click here to view it.

Below is the full text of the announcement from Concenter:

Concenter Services has purchased assets of Moulton Strategic Partners including XLR8, a dynamic, customizable CRM designed for Financial Advisors and Wealth Management professionals.  The team at Concenter Services is dedicated to providing unparalleled service to ensure that you can provide even more value to your clients.

XLR8 was introduced more than 4 years ago and is a successful and well-respected CRM.  Concenter Services is committed to making XLR8 the most effective and cutting edge CRM tool on the market, while strengthening our affiliation with Salesforce.com, as well as our current and prospective Business Partners.

Look at our recent XLR8 integrations as well as some exciting upcoming enhancements:

NEW INTEGRATIONS

• Now fully integrated with Finance Logix
• Now fully integrated with Advisor Products’ Personal Clients Portal®
• Plans for even more Financial Planning and Portfolio Management Softwareintegrations!

UPCOMING 2010 ENHANCEMENTS

• XLR8 2010.1 release (2nd quarter) – Numerous enhancements include: new Custom Tabs (Insurance Coverage, Security Records, Suggestions), Entity/Contact and Asset/Liability improvements, new Report Library and Dashboard, and integrated Work Flow
• Improved Pricing structure
• Additional third-party integrations
• Document Management consulting services
• Even more Customizable Features
• More Consulting solutions

Your XLR8 team is here to support you and will strive to deliver products and services that keep you focused on delivering value to your clients.

Mary Ferguson
CEO

The Executive Summary

• What: Apple iPad Wifi 16GB
• Pros: Elegant design, sleek & attractive, easy touch interface with nearly no learning curve, 10+ hour battery life
• Cons: (Besides the 13 referenced below) No native file explorer, editing existing documents is a convoluted process.
• Takeaway: The iPad can compliment a paperless office, enhance meetings with clients, and provide a single source to access print and online media if you’re willing to work within the limitations of existing apps.

The Review for Financial Advisers & Wealth Managers

What you won’t find in this review are the general statements about the iPad’s cool features (like iBooks, pinch-zooming, etc.)  and the drawbacks (no multitasking, no USB ports, etc.) of the device. Instead, you’ll find my take on how I believe advisers and wealth managers can use the new tablet computer to enhance their daily lives.

If you still feel like you need the basic pros and cons overview of the device, here are two links, one in favor of the iPad’s potential to change computing, and one painstakingly detailed on the drawbacks of the device.

• The 10 Most Surprising Things About the iPad
• 13 Glaring iPad Shortcomings

With that out of the way, let’s explore the ways I see advisers using the iPad.

Access Your Documents, Anywhere, Anytime

Some advisers have implemented a paperless office, and many others are considering operating in a paperless environment for a variety of reasons. The iPad can be used in a paperless environment as a new conduit to access all the information stored electronically.

The most direct way to access electronic documents with an iPad is to use an iPad (or iPhone) app. However, apps are non-existent from the major document management companies that serve financial advisers (e.g. Laserfiche, Worldox, CabinetNG, or DocuXplorer).

The next best thing to an iPad app is to access electronic documents via the built-in Safari web browser. This works particularly well for the web-based “cloud” service providers. Take NetDocuments as an example.

To access any document stored in NetDocuments with an iPad, use Safari to navigate to the NetDocuments login page, enter user credentials, and the NetDocuments home page is displayed with many of the features that appear on the desktop version of the program.

NetDocuments provides an optimized website tailored for mobile devices, including the iPad. Any document stored in the service can be viewed and the site supports a full-text search of all available documents.

Click the image below to view a 2:30 demo of the NetDocuments mobile website as seen on an iPhone.

If a cloud document management program isn’t used, the option to view files gets a bit tricky. The iPad does not have a native file explorer, so there’s no way to “drag-and-drop,” say, a PDF file from a desktop machine to the iPad.

A word of warning: the following applications mentioned may circumvent security policies for documents with private client data. Proceed with caution!

Several iPad apps exist that support the management of common file types such as .doc, .ppt, .pdf, and .html, the most popular of which is GoodReader ($0.99). Within the GoodReader app, files can be transferred from a desktop computer to the iPad over a shared Wifi network.

An alternative to GoodReader is to use a file synchronization service such as SugarSync. SugarSync creates a folder on a desktop’s hard drive that is synchronized to the SugarSync cloud. Any file saved in the SugarSync folder is automatically uploaded to the cloud and can be accessed through the SugarSync website. In addition, files in the SugarSync folder are synchronized to any other computer with SugarSync installed and used by the same user.

SugarSync supports a free app for the iPad, so any document stored in the SugarSync folder can be accessed directly through the iPad. There is one caveat: viewing PDF files though SugarSync is limited to file sizes up to 20MB.

DropBox is another cloud synchronization service I’ve mentioned before, but as of this writing, only an iPhone app exists which isn’t suitable to viewing documents on the large iPad screen.  However, GoodReader has a very slick feature that allows the app to connect directly to DropBox, so files stored in Dropbox can be downloaded into GoodReader and viewed at full resolution.

Naturally, an iPad with 3G Internet connectivity eliminates much of the need to load documents on the iPad’s internal memory. Still, there are times when the iPad will be used in an area with unreliable AT&T 3G service or no 3G at all (like during a flight), so getting in the habit of downloading important documents to GoodReader goes a long way.

Enhance Client Meetings

Once the iPad is connected to electronic documents, advisers can aim to replace piles of papers typically generated for client meetings with one simple device. Most meeting preparation includes a lot of document printing, including the meeting agenda, past portfolio performance reports, asset allocation chart, and various support documentation.

Instead of printing all of these documents, advisers can load them onto the iPad and access them (if necessary) during the course of the meeting. Adopting this paperless meeting style certainly demonstrates an innovative culture, but the reduction in paper use is cost effective and eco-friendly as well.

Also, during the course of a meeting, advisers may want to access the firm’s CRM system to refer to historical notes from a phone conversation or schedule a future appointment. Instead of deferring these tasks after the meeting, advisers can use the iPad to review these items in the CRM on the spot.

Again, cloud/SaaS CRM programs (think RedTail, Salesforce, AppCrown, ProTracker Advantage Cloud, etc.) make access via an iPad fairly easy, since all that is needed is a web browser. Locally installed CRM programs present more challenges. Some local CRM systems feature support for mobile devices, such as the Junxure Mobile add-on to Junxure.

Single Source for Media

The iPad is purpose built to consume media. Apple iTunes connects to volumes of audio and video content while the iBooks and Amazon Kindle apps enable access to nearly half a million books. In addition, a handful of major financial publications support individual apps to access exclusive content, including The Wall Street Journal (though it’s rated very poorly) and Reuters News Pro.

But what options exist for industry publications like InvestmentNews, Financial Planning, Financial Advisor, Investment Advisor, and the Journal of Financial Planning?

There are at least two ways to view content from industry publications on an iPad. First, PDF files can be generated from content available on the Internet from the various publications. PDFs can be created directly with Safari on an iMac or by purchasing Adobe Acrobat for a PC (several free PDF printing utilities are also available for PC). Move the PDF files to SugarSync, GoodReader, or email them to an email address linked to the iPad’s email program to view the file on the tablet.

Second, a hard copy publication can be physically scanned and saved as a PDF file (a.k.a the brute force method). I experimented with a recent copy of BusinessWeek and cut the binding off of the magazine to feed all 84 pages through my Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. About 3 minutes later I had a PDF file of the full magazine ready to access from my iPad (using SugarSync).

I used Adobe Acrobat 9 to optimize the original PDF and reduce its size to about 7MB from an original size of 42MB. Obviously, smaller file sizes transfer faster over Wifi, but it also gets around SugarSync’s 20MB file size limitation. But again, GoodReader gets the nod when viewing PDF files due to its decent navigation options like a single-tap page advance and “go to page X” selection.

Again, just like adding documents for a client meeting, advisers can aggregate different sources of industry media onto one device for reference and reading at any time.

Sum It Up

I highlighted three main ways I believe advisers can leverage new functionality made possible by the iPad. While the iPad can compliment the tools used in an innovative wealth management practice, I don’t expect the device will take over as the main computing tool in such an environment.

As the platform continues to increase its market share and adoption, I anticipate that new apps will emerge to expand the business applications for advisers beyond those that I can think of today. For example, I think Wifi will be the new USB. USB cables and ports will be rendered obsolete as devices will soon talk to one another via shared Wifi connections instead of USB. Yes, you heard it here first.

So should advisers run out and spend at least $500 to add the iPad to their practice? That depends.

If the uses I described are extremely appealing, one may find the price easy to justify. But in environments without paperless document management or online CRM systems, advisers may not fully realize the potential of how an iPad can change the way they run their business.

Today, Socialware announced several new initiatives to better serve the market of individuals and small and medium businesses (SMBs). The full announcement can be viewed on the Socialware blog.

What do these changes mean to advisers?

For one, the Socialware Sync service is aimed directly at tackling the capture and archive process for social media messages. Record retention is the starting point of any process intended to be compliant with FINRA and SEC regulatory guidelines.

In addition to archiving, Socialware Sync features a robust search function to identify messages containing any keyword of interest. This search feature may provide an answer to the dilemma of how to monitor various social media channels supported by an adviser.

While other sites such as WordPress blogs or YouTube channels aren’t supported, Socialware Sync focuses on the big three in social media; Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

So who else is competing for adviser attention in this space? Social media archive services are currently offered by Smarsh, LiveOffice, Arkovi Backups, and Backupify. I imagine I left a few off my list, so please leave a comment below about other services. Now each provider offers different features and price points, so they can’t all be compared directly with Socialware’s product offering.

What’s clear is that social media websites are not going away, and new technology like Socialware Sync exists to allow advisers in regulated industries to use these communication mediums compliantly.

I’ll be presenting a webinar to the Financial Planning Association of Maryland to address the compliance issues of using social media and networking websites.

I’ll be joined by Adam Schaub, CFP®, Compliance Manager for 1st Global in Dallas, TX. Topics covered will include:

• Documentation of policies and procedures
• Summary of regulatory guidance
• Supervision and record retention
• Overview of compliance tools and utilities

The webinar will be held on Thursday, April 1, 12:00PM EDT. FPA of Maryland members can attend for $20, all others can attend for $30.

Click here for the event PDF brochure. |  Click here to register.

Through this alliance, LIGHT[PORT]’s solution is available to Advent clients using Advent Portfolio Exchange® (APX), Advent’s integrated portfolio and client relationship management solution, or Axys®, its turnkey portfolio accounting and reporting solution. These clients can easily set-up automated, web-based reporting for their clients via their own custom portal. These portals can be added to an existing website or can be built as standalone sites. LIGHT[PORT] supports integration with locally installed APX and Axys®, or with APX through Advent OnDemandSM, which delivers Advent solutions via the Software-as-a-Service model.

Click here to read the entire press release on Advent’s website.

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