14 Apr

by April 14, 2018

As best-of-breed, software as a service solutions mature, and business users become more reliant in their features and capabilities, supporting the integration of cloud stacks from different providers has become riskier and more challenging than ever to assemble and support.

Trading off the breadth and depth of disparate point solutions in exchange for an integrated, all-in-one stack was the message Zoho CEO and Founder Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) shared in his keynote at the Zoholics 2018 user conference this week in Austin, Texas.

It was their largest event to date, with nearly 200 partners and 800 users registered.  Zoho, a business software provider that grew from a CRM company into an end-to-end, business software solution is currently in use by roughly 33 million users worldwide.

If you've never heard of Zoho, here's what CRM and SCRM author, consultant, speaker Paul Greenberg, who was also in attendance, says about them:

23 Feb

by February 23, 2018

If you're thinking about integrating Slack with a project management tool like ProWorkFlow using middleware like Zapier, read on.

I'm going to save you time and money.

It's easy to see why people get excited about simplifying the software they use at work by integrating different tools.

For employees, getting different tools to talk to each other means less cutting and pasting, and ultimately, doing more with less.

For small business owners, it means more revenue on per employee.

For me, the promise of successful cloud software integration -- of getting products like Slack and ProWorkFlow to work together -- is better automation and greater productivity.

But inevitably, that excitement becomes disappointed when you learn that the different solutions don't integrated quite as seamlessly as you'd hoped.

30 May

by May 30, 2017
Computer image by Karla Vanessa Redor Follow, Graffitti by Newton Graffitti and remixed by me.

What’s the difference between online dating and hiring online? Other than profit motives, not much. Both start with a short list built online and -- with the exception of short term hires -- a micro-conversion that leads to an interview. But the actual conversation still happens in the...

28 Jul

by July 28, 2015

In this episode of the FIR B2B Podcast, Paul Gillin and I discuss the critical role online advertising plays in building demand for products and services with Greg Johns, SVP, Senior Director Digital Strategy at Initiative and new research by Joseph Turow (@joeprof) and Michael Hennessey from Annenberg (@APCCPenn) and Nora Draper (@NoraADraper) the University of New Hampshire that finds most Americans do not believe ‘data for discounts’ is a square deal.

“It’s a misnomer that people don’t trust the media,” says Greg Johns. “The truth is that people rely on paid media quite a bit to make decisions, and they rely on brands to help guide them.”