Selling Geek 014-Dell Inspiron Mini 9 [21:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The tech blog Engadget recently pronounced: “The age of the netbook has indeed, arrived.” According to an Amazon.com list of the best-selling computers, nine of the top ten systems sold in September 2008 were ultra-portable devices. Popular netbooks like the ASUS EeePC 900, HP 2133 Mini-Note PC, Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind and Lenovo IdeaPad S10 are all designed principally for accessing the Internet, managing email, browsing websites, instant messaging, running hosted applications and other connected tasks. Designed to be lightweight, compact, easy to carry and simple to operate, netbooks have emerged as an affordable option for Internet-connected professionals, which of course include most salespeople.

Recognizing this accelerating trend, Dell has released their Inspiron Mini 9 netbook at comparatively low prices: US$349 for a model with 4 gigabytes (GB) of solid-state storage, $399 for 8GB and $449 for 16GB. Customers may select either the Ubunu Linux or Windows XP Home operating system to run on the Mini 9’s Intel Atom processor. The compact, lightweight unit weighs just less than 2.3 pounds, and features an 8.9-inch screen, all in a relatively tiny package approximately 1 by 9 by 7-inches - about the size and weight of a moderate-length hardback novel.

Dell describes the Mini 9 as a “communication device,” rather than as a computer, as this box is tailor-made for Internet-centric tasks. To supplement the relatively small amount of on-board storage, Dell bundles 2GB of free Internet-based storage from Box.net, providing users with an online resource to keep and retrieve files. The Mini 9 also includes wi-fi access with a wireless 802.11g adapter installed, and also offers optional Bluetooth connectivity for an additional $20. The Mini 9 supports video chatting with a built-in microphone and webcam.

Some people have experimented with using a netbook as their sole computing device, with decidedly mixed results. Ultra-portable computers are designed to be carried around and connected to the ‘net - and for these tasks, they are very well suited. But as a rule, they lack the processor power, storage capacity and ergonomic niceties needed for content creation tasks including graphics, audio, video, and intensive text editing.

I wondered if the Mini 9 would be suitable as a second computer, to be used for sales trips on the road. After lugging around a full-featured laptop for many years, which weighs 12 pounds, I dreamed of leaving that heavy-duty computer (in every sense of the phrase) at home, transferring only those files I needed for sales calls to a lighter unit. I’ve found that I rarely use all the storage and content creation power of my laptop when traveling - most of that work is usually done in the office. On the road, I typically use my computer for email, web browsing, light document editing, and to show PowerPoint presentations. Could the Mini 9 fill the bill as my traveling machine, and save my aching back?

Girls like netbooks!

I tested a 16GB Mini 9 with Windows XP, with Bluetooth and the higher-resolution 1.3 megapixel camera options. The first thing you notice about this machine when you take it out of the box is that it is indeed tiny, compared to its laptop cousins. My charming spouse, after seeing the Mini 9, remarked, “I like your little toy computer - it’s cute.” If you have insecure feelings about your masculinity, the Mini 9 won’t do much for your image, apparently.

At the risk of sounding a bit sexist, I’ve found that, in general, women seem to love the Mini 9. After seeing my new Dell netbook, one of my female co-workers commented, “Hey, I could put that in my purse – it’d be great for browsing at Starbucks,” and then she pressed me for details about how to order one. On my last plane flight, three attractive flight attendants descended upon me, literally cooing at my Mini 9 like it was some sort of cute electronic newborn – which, in a way, I guess it is. Just yesterday, a young lady stopped when she saw me working on my Mini 9 during lunch in a nearby deli – she was fascinated with my little netbook and practically begged for an on-the-spot demo.

Folks, I’m your average-looking, middle aged sales geek, and I long ago gave up trying to share my enthusiasm for gadgets with the fairer sex, realizing that they found such discourse boring in the extreme. So, I find this sudden female fascination with reduced-size technology a bit baffling. I leave it to you to think of your own clever innuendo regarding how size doesn’t matter – but clearly in this case it does, and in favor of the diminutive. Could the compact design of netbooks like the Mini 9 make them into items of fashion, attractive to women buyers? I wonder.

Small is beautiful - mostly…

Practically speaking, the Mini 9’s small size is both its greatest asset and its worst flaw. It is indeed easy to carry. My laptop bag strap no longer cuts into my shoulder like a scythe. The Mini 9 fits neatly in your hand, too - it really does feel like you are carrying a book, not a computing device. On a plane, the Mini 9 is so compact that it can share a seat-back tray table with a drink and peanuts, with room to spare.

But its small size does make the Mini 9 feel like a compromise in use. The 1024 x 600 resolution screen, although bright, crisp and very clear, doesn’t provide a lot of real estate for displaying information – so be prepared to scroll up and down a lot when web browsing.

And, as on all small netbooks, the keyboard is a challenge. The Mini 9’s letter keys are larger than on other netbooks, such as the ASUS EeePC 900, although certainly not full-sized. And less-used keys, such as Shift, Tab, Caps Lock, Escape, Page Up/Down and others, have been shrunk to half-sized mini-keys. Further, the function keys require simultaneous pressing of the “Fn” key with another key on the middle row of letters. Similarly, engaging other features, such as turning wi-fi on or off, muting the speaker, or switching display output to the VGA port, requires some finger-twisting concurrent pressing of Fn, Alt and number keys. Sometimes you feel like you’re playing a miniature version of Twister on the Mini 9’s keyboard.

You might not think that a 10 percent reduction from normal key size would make that much of a difference on the Mini 9’s letter keys, but if you are a touch typist, it’s just enough to slow you down significantly. My fat fingers have a hard time with the smaller shift keys, which means I have to stop, look, engage shift, then proceed. The same goes for the period key, too. And the key for apostrophe and quotation marks is wedged in at the bottom right, which is guaranteed to interrupt your creative flow if you use a lot of possessive contractions or write dialogue. Unless I ever think I deserve to pay a heavy penance for past sins, I will never write a novel on the Mini 9.

The integrated touchpad and mouse buttons, however, are very easy to use, and configurable to individual tastes. I usually attach an external mouse on my laptop, but I never felt the need to do that on the Mini 9.

Under the hood

Despite my spouse’s initial impression, the Mini 9 is no toy. I installed Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word 2007 (using a third-party USB attached DVD/CD drive), and the Atom processor cranks through these applications quite easily. The lean XP Home OS runs multiple applications simultaneously, and it’s a breeze to switch from one task to the other with just a quick tap of the touchpad control. I did experience some degradation of processor responsiveness after I had a half-dozen application windows open, so don’t count on the Mini 9 for more than moderate multitasking. The on-board 1.6-GHz Intel Atom processor isn’t going to win any super-computing awards, but it’s more than enough horsepower for the kind of work that most sales pros need to do.

I also found file retrieval and storage on the solid-state drive to be very snappy and simple, although I found myself wishing for a 32GB or larger option. If you run any moderately hefty applications on the Mini 9 with only 4GB of storage, or even with 8GB, I‘m sure you‘ll bump your head on a disk drive ceiling in a hurry. Unless you plan to use your netbook only for web browsing, bite the bullet and pay the extra $50 for the largest 16GB drive.

With 3 USB ports, extending storage on the Mini 9 with connecting devices is easy to do. I tested several third-party USB 2.0 flash drives and they all worked flawlessly, as did a USB portable hard drive and the aforementioned DVD/CD drive. With all the extra room in my computer bag that the Mini 9 frees up, carrying a portable hard disk unit and a couple thumb drives isn’t a problem. The unit also includes standard headphone and microphone jacks, a VGA-out port, a 3-in-1 media card slot (supporting SD, MS/MS Pro, and MMC formats), and an Ethernet jack. I tested all of these by conducting Skype voice-over-IP calls, connecting to a projector and driving a PowerPoint presentation, transferring images from my digital camera, and hooking up to a hotel Internet service, respectively, and the Mini 9 performed perfectly on all of these tasks. Dell provides a video-conferencing client with the Mini 9, but I tested the built-in webcam using the latest Skype 4.0 beta, and had no problems at all.

Is the Mini 9 a cloud computer?

On his blog, tech pundit Om Malik outlined ten criteria for a perfect “cloud computer.” The Mini 9 comes close to meeting these qualifications, but not quite. Let’s run through each of these criteria, and see how the Mini 9 stacks up:

1. Instant On - I was disappointed that the Mini 9 did not include a Linux-on-a-chip “instant on” feature that Dell provides in some of its new Latitude E-series laptops. This feature enables you to do simple tasks immediately after switching your computer on, by loading a basic Linux operating system from firmware, rather than a full-featured OS from the hard drive. Instead, the Mini 9 loads its OS conventionally from storage. I timed the Mini 9’s boot-up time for XP, after powering on, at just over 30 seconds. Wondering if I might improve that, I uncompressed the hard drive, and that reduced the boot up time to just over 20 seconds, albeit by sacrificing a couple gigabytes of storage. It’s not “instant on,” but it’s pretty darned close.
2. Doesn’t generate too much heat - even after running for three hours, the bottom of the Mini 9 gets only slightly warm. You won’t find your thighs sweating after working with the Mini 9 for a while.
3. Minimum 5 hours of battery life - the Mini 9 gets close to this mark, but not quite. I timed battery life while doing word processing and spreadsheet work at just under four hours. Not bad.
4. At least four communications options - again, the Mini 9 comes close, as it includes WiFi, Ethernet, and Bluetooth. However, when you open the bottom of the device, you will find an empty slot that is clearly marked “WWAN”, and Dell has hinted that it is in discussion with several wireless service carriers for a Wireless Wide Area Network connection to an EVDO or HSPA network option, so perhaps we can expect a fourth connection option for the Mini 9 soon.
5. Less than three pounds (batteries included) – here, the Mini 9 shines, weighing only 2.3 pounds, even with a 4-cell 32WHr Lithium-Ion battery on board.
6. Screen size of 3.5-8 inches (wide-screen proportioned) – The Mini 9 is slightly larger than Om’s ideal criteria, at 8.9 inches, but I like it that way, and in fact, wish it was even a little bigger.
7. Cloud-based activity focused – Dell recognizes that netbooks are oriented for Internet-centric work by bundling in Box.net storage, which I found a snap to set up and easy to use. The 802.11g wireless adapter is also one of the most sensitive I’ve ever seen – I was able to pick up wi-fi hotspots from more than 300 feet away and make reliable connections. This box is clearly designed for connecting to the ‘net.
8. Cost no more than $300 – ah, here the Mini 9 stumbles. Even in its least expensive configuration, the Mini 9 is $350 – and my fully tricked-out version will cost you just over $500, not including any externally connected drives, if you need them. Compared to other competitive netbooks in the market, such as HP’s Mini-Note or the MSI Wind, the Dell is similarly priced, and still about half of what you’d expect to pay for a good fully-functional laptop. But make no mistake, it’s still not what I’d call cheap.
9. Ports and connections geared for Internet-based activities — as I’ve said before, the Mini 9 handles external peripherals with aplomb, and it supports ‘net-centric tasks, like Skype calls, very easily.
10. Touchscreen interface - not keyboard, touchpad focused – sorry, the Mini 9 is no iPhone.

So, in total, the Mini 9 meets five of the ten cloud computer criteria perfectly, with near-misses on another four. In short, if computing in the cloud is your goal, you’re going to be pretty happy with the Mini 9.

Although Dell is entering the crowded ultraportable market relatively late, the Mini 9’s release is a significant event. Dell is one of the last major computer manufacturers to embrace netbooks, and this should help to accelerate the acceptance of Internet-based cloud computing using lightweight, portable devices.

Sales Pro Value Score

In summary, the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 has indeed become my favorite road trip machine. Although it’s a bit more expensive than I hoped, the keyboard is more cramped than I’d like, and the memory options are limited, it fulfills all of my most important expectations for a traveling sales professional’s portable computing device. It’s easy to overlook the Mini 9’s few flaws after you’ve carried it to some sales calls – especially when you realize that your back doesn’t hurt anymore from lugging around a comparatively behemoth laptop. So, for its solid, lightweight design and good performance, though not without a few compromises, Selling Geek awards the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 a Sales Pro Value Score of 4.0 out of a possible 5.

Tags: Dell Inspiron Mini 9, Podcast, Review, selling geek, Timothy Sullivan

 

 Selling Geek 005-LinkedIn [24:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

One of the essential principles of good selling is: people buy from people. No matter how much we might like to live in a world where buyers make purchase decisions without human involvement – or on second thought, perhaps not – the fact of the matter is that person-to-person interaction is a requirement for most kinds of sales.

And as a result, for many sales professionals, success depends as much on who you know as it does on what you know. The best salespeople are expert social networkers – they develop relationships with customers and prospects, with suppliers and business partners, with anyone that might help them find new buyers. In the past, this was all done at industry conferences, trade shows, and business meetings, and also in civic organizations, social events, or on the golf course or tennis court.

But today, we live in a web-enabled world, and this provides sales pros with whole new ways to connect with people – ways that reach far beyond the physical limitations of the old network building standards. And one of the key web-based tools that has emerged to help foster interpersonal business connections is LinkedIn.

Today, more than 23 million registered users in more than 150 countries have joined the LinkedIn site. LinkedIn is arguably becoming the standard social network hub for business professionals all over the globe.

Why has LinkedIn become so popular with business people? And, more importantly, what value does this facility provide, if any, to sales professionals?

What is LinkedIn?

Basically, LinkedIn is an online facility for recording your connections with other people. It records those with whom you have developed trusted business relationships, and enables you to leverage the relationships with those to whom you are connected, thereby extending your network. Over time, through LinkedIn, you can develop an automated network of business contacts that enables you to reach out and interact with literally millions of people, all in a secure, well organized system.

This is a potential gold mine of interpersonal contacts for salespeople – but we’ll say more about that later.

Registering on LinkedIn is free, and after doing so, you can create a profile. Your profile is similar in structure to a typical business resume. Here you can put all of your professional credentials, background and experience. In fact, most LinkedIn profiles read exactly like their resume – my own included. Your profile is searchable, both to those in the LinkedIn network, and to those who aren’t members, too. This enables your profile to be found by current and former business colleagues, fellow employees, customers, and other industry contacts.

LinkedIn, in a word, is where you can build connections with other people. After establishing your profile, you can send invitations to record a connection on LinkedIn with other people. If the recipient of your invitation is a LinkedIn member, they just have to accept your invitation, and the system lists each of you on your respective profile as connected. If they are not a LinkedIn member, they are invited to register, and if they do, then your connection is forged. As people find your LinkedIn profile, they can likewise send you invitations to connect to their network.

You also have the option to upload your contacts from your personal information management system, if you wish – LinkedIn supports import of contacts from Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail and AOL. Or you can import contacts from Outlook, ACT!, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, or the Mac OS X Address Book, or from any contact file in the correct comma-separated or tab-separated format. LinkedIn will analyze these contacts and establish invitations for each.

You can also register to join Groups on LinkedIn, which gives you access to “networks within the network.” For example, I joined a couple Notre Dame fan groups (Go Irish!) and a few sales profession industry groups. Further, LinkedIn makes it easy to search for former colleagues or classmates, or for specific people inside the network, and you can then invite them to your list of connections. By importing my contact list, doing a few searches, and joining some relevant Groups, I expanded my immediate network to more than 500 people – through them, I have over 100,000 “friends of friends”– and through them, I can reach nearly 5 million professionals in LinkedIn.

Here is where the power of LinkedIn can be brought to useful purpose. Let’s say I want to make a sales call on… Xerox, for example. I may not know anyone that works there right now, but by going to the “Companies” tab in LinkedIn, I can search Xerox, and discover that 29 people who work there know someone that is in my direct network. I can then issue a request for an introduction to the appropriate contacts in my network, and they can forward my request to the person I want to reach. This is a great way to generate “warm” leads, instead of just cold calling.

Paying the LinkedIn Piper

Here is where we discover how LinkedIn makes money. In addition to some advertising displays in the LinkedIn system, which are presented in a fairly unobtrusive way, LinkedIn also charges for advanced access to their network. A free personal account allows only five network introductions at a time, and you can’t take advantage of some LinkedIn features, such as the ability to send mail messages directly to people in your network. A Business account costs US$19.95 per month or US $199.50 a year, and allows up to 15 introductions, and more in-network communication options. A Business Plus account costs $50 per month or $500 per year, and allows up to 25 introductions. And there is a variably priced Enterprise subscription as well, for large organizations. LinkedIn also charges other fees for services targeted mostly at corporate clients such as US$195 for a 30-day job posting.

Are these premium subscriptions worth the money? Well, that depends on the value of your network. As you add more connections, the ability to reach more business contacts grows geometrically. I had a free account for several years, before I discovered that I was hitting the introduction limits consistently, and then I decided to upgrade. If you use the LinkedIn network a lot, you won’t mind paying the small fees required. If you don’t, there’s always the free option.

The Answer is… 42!

If you get a premium LinkedIn subscription, you can use the Answers feature, which I have found interesting, and sometimes very useful. You can post a question to your network, and collect responses. For example, I asked a selected group from my network if anyone was using LinkedIn as a sales prospecting tool. Within one day I received over 40 responses, including these:

I did have a LinkedIn connection contact me recently asking for a referral to a company on my list. I didn’t even realize I had a connection with the company. I was able to make an email introduction and the two of them are now doing business. It was as simple as this guy searching his LinkedIn connections to see if anyone had a connection to his targeted prospect.

You have to be careful about using LinkedIn as a sales tool. Someone that prospects blatantly will quickly ruin their reputation and destroy their own efforts. There was a group on LinkedIn that went into hard-core sales mode and they quickly got squashed with complaints.

I use Linkedin to look for specific people to see if they are connected to anyone within my network. Linkedin provides the ability to become connected to a potential prospect through a “warm call.”

I use LinkedIn for qualifying sales opportunity, but not to identify them. When I have a qualified lead, I will usually see who else is at the company. If I happen to know somebody in the account, I reach out to them for information and guidance. I get “inside” information on how the company runs, and the potential issues, etc. This way I am usually much more informed than my competitors.

If you have a question, LinkedIn Answers capability is an interesting way to get some diverse perspectives quickly. But you have to be careful – if you use it for questions like, “Hey, anyone wanna buy something?”, you can get in trouble quickly. People don’t like being harassed in any medium.

A Little Trouble in Network Paradise

Although LinkedIn can be very valuable to aspiring salespeople, it is not a perfect solution for all sales problems. There are a few blemishes on LinkedIn that take away from the beauty of the system.

First, building a good network on LinkedIn takes time and effort. And the more connections you add, the more work it takes to maintain. I must admit that after reviewing some of my 500+ connections recently, I had no recollection who some of these people were. I had to view their profile to remind myself why I had added them – and for a few of them, I decided to disconnect them because we no longer had a real relationship. I now mark my calendar to review my LinkedIn contacts, import new ones, and cull out some of the old, stale connections, every quarter. It takes a few hours, but I think it’s worth the investment to keep the network current.

Second, as a LinkedIn user, you will discover that there are two types of network builders: I call them conservatives and liberals. Conservatives, like me, keep their networks limited only to those people with whom they have a real relationship. This is important to me as a sales professional, because I use my network for introductions, and I want those introductions to be of high quality, for both me and for the person I want to meet. On the other end of the spectrum are the liberals, who want to be “friends” with everyone – or, more precisely, they think everybody should be connected to everyone. These people drive me insane, as they care nothing about the quality of connections. Rather, they think only about the number of people with whom they can connect.

Here is where LinkedIn users discover the positive and negative aspects of recruiters, who use LinkedIn extensively, and who are all ultra-liberal connectors. There isn’t a week that goes by before someone I’ve never heard of invites me to connect to their LinkedIn network. Invariably, they are recruiters. When I first joined LinkedIn, I thought, “What the heck? Why not?” What a mistake. I was immediately deluged with repeated requests to pass on introductions through my network. Total time consumed: considerable. Total value to me: zero. I’m in sales – time wasted is money lost. So, goodbye connections to recruiters. (snip) Ahhhh, welcome back, peaceful, productive network.

I must admit, however, that my ultra-conservative stance on network purity made things a little too quiet. I found that without a few liberal connectors in my network, it was difficult to get introductions to some prospects without having to go through several degrees of people, and that made for some awkward introductions. So, I carefully reviewed some of the super-liberal recruiter connectors, and invited two of them to connect – they both immediately accepted, of course. Those two connections increased my network size by almost one-third, so I actively cultivate those relationships, helping them with their occasional recruiting requests, in exchange for introductions to key people. Indeed, I’ve learned that a little diversity goes a long way, when it comes to LinkedIn: a couple liberal friends I can tolerate – but more than that, and I start to get a headache. I leave it to your own sensibilities to determine how open you choose to be with your own LinkedIn connections. For me, a moderate conservative model works best.

I also discovered one of the problems with having a substantial network: poachers. You can, if you wish, leave your list of connections open on your public profile. This allows anyone that finds you to review all of your connections at their leisure. I figured that was the right thing to do, since the purpose of LinkedIn is to help grow business networks. But I didn’t take into consideration that some of my competitors are also LinkedIn users, and one of the brighter ones found my list of connections to be very, very interesting indeed. I suddenly found that my clients were getting calls from one of the “bad guys.” It took me a while to see the pattern, before I realized that he was trolling through my LinkedIn connections. I toyed with the idea of setting up a dummy connection and creating my own “sting” operation, but that seemed like too much work for dubious results – and besides, that is a violation of the LinkedIn user agreement, and I’ve found LinkedIn too useful to risk getting banned. Instead, I simply turned the visibility of my network off. People can still request introductions through my network, but they can’t browse it on my profile. That stopped the bad guys cold. So, learn two lessons from my experience, please: first, if you are a sales professional, guard your network, and second, if you know who your competitors are, check out their profile – you never know what you might find there, if you know what I’m saying. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Sales Pro Value Score

Earlier, I asked why LinkedIn is so popular. The answer is clear – it’s darned useful, especially for sales pros who want to develop their network of valuable business connections. Is it the perfect social network for salespeople? No – it takes time and effort to become truly useful, and it has a few non-fatal but potentially annoying flaws. But if you are willing to make the effort, and if you are aware of the possible trouble spots, LinkedIn is fertile ground for development into an invaluable sales tool.

So, for it’s widespread user base, invaluable potential as a sales research and prospecting tool, a fair value-based pricing model, and interesting group networking features, despite a few minor flaws, Selling Geek gives LinkedIn a Sales Pro Value Score of 4 out of a possible 5.

UPDATE: LinkedIn starts new targeted advertising program.

UPDATE: LinkedIn and Moo form alliance to print business cards.

UPDATE: LinkedIn updates groups features, and breaks them

Some useful resources about LinkedIn and business networking

• Dave Stein gives a good example of what business networking is really all about on his blog…
  
• …and Dave also makes a good point about what salespeople should have on their LinkedIn profile
• Jill Konrath wrote a great post and a white paper on how LinkedIn can be used to sell better
• Jason Alba wrote a terrific  book on how to use LinkedIn, and has a very good related blog
• Sales Team Tools blog asks: “What does your LinkedIn profile tell others about you?”
• Blogger extraordinaire Chris Brogan advises: “Write your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future“

Tags: business network, LinkedIn, LinkedIn as a sales tool, Podcast, Review, selling geek, social networks

 

 Selling Geek 003-Jott [13:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Have you ever been driving to your next sales appointment, when suddenly you hear something on the radio? Realizing that this means a potential sales opportunity, you search frantically for a pen and a scrap of paper. One hand on the wheel, and the other fumbling around in the glove compartment, you take your eyes off the road for only a second… and are surprised when you look back, seeing yourself en route to an impending collision.

Clearly, this is not the best time to be jotting down your ideas.

Jott to the rescue of lost ideas

When do you get your best ideas? For me, it’s usually not when I’m sitting in my office, in front of my trusty computer, or with a pad of paper and writing implement in hand. No, usually it’s when I’m doing something else – driving, walking, eating, showering – it never fails. That’s when inspiration seems to strike me.

And what happens to most of those ideas? If I don’t jot them down, they evaporate away, lost forever. I shudder to think how many of my “million dollar ideas” have wafted away into the ether, never to return.

But now, as long as I have my faithful mobile phone nearby, I never have to worry about losing a good idea. For the last few months, I’ve been using the well-named Jott, the incredibly simple but supremely elegant voice to text service. With Jott, I simply call a toll-free number and dictate a message up to 30 seconds long. The resulting audio file is received by a dedicated call center, transcribed into text, and sent back to me in an e-mail or text message. It’s a very cool thing.

Jott CEO and co-founder John Pollard realized that people have some of their greatest ideas when they’re away from their PCs, and that the only real appliance they have with them almost all the time is their mobile phone. And he’s built a simple but useful system that takes this fact into account.

Jott: more than an idea recorder

Since its inception at the end of 2006, Jott has expanded and enhanced their original concept into a wide variety of links with other popular services, such as a Jott to Twitter link, where short messages are transcribed into a Twitter feed. (Twitter is a microblogging service that is rapidly growing in popularity… but that’s another show.)

Jott has become very popular with professionals on the go – this is especially true for salepeople, who seem to be in transit far more than most.

The best way to illustrate the elegant usefulness of Jott is simply to experience it… (Click on the player button at the top of this article, and you’ll see what I mean.)

You can also send Jott messages to groups of people, provided that you’ve entered them into your account on the Jott.com website. Imagine being able to send a text message about your latest deal to your entire sales team, just by calling Jott, dictating a message, and sending it to “Team” – all without touching a keyboard.

Or, you can Jott a message to yourself, then stand by – Jott will ask you if you want to send that message to yourself as a reminder at a future date and time. Jott will send an email or SMS text message to your phone at that time – it’s almost like having your own personal secretary.

Other Jott links include integration with:

· Internet-based calendars, including Google Calendar and 30 Boxes

· A wide variety of online task management and “to do” lists, including Tumblr, Remember the Milk, IWantSandy, FortyThree Actions, KeepUp, Kwiry, Mentat, Nozbe, Smartsheet, Toodledo, and Vitalist

· Blogging services, including the aforementioned Twitter, Jaiku, WordPress, TypePad, LiveJournal and Blogger

Jott is also becoming a mobile phone gateway for all sorts of other niche applications, including the ability to:

· Get price quotes and information about items on Amazon.com

· Get real estate cost estimates on specific property addresses from Zillow.com

· Leave questions for investigation and response from Mosio’s people-powered research service

· Poll the Recommendr consumer community about favorite products and stores

·Leave alerts about speed traps and get updates on highway police monitoring in your area through the Trapster.com service

· Record business expenses through the Xpenser service

… all this, just using your voice, your mobile phone, and Jott.

As I said, it’s a very cool thing.

Is Jott too good to be true?

So, what’s the catch?

So far, there really isn’t one. Jott’s service is free, at least for now. But Jott’s management team has hinted that eventually, they will probably introduce advertising in some form in it’s free service, or charge fees for access to premium features, or both. For example, Jott recently announced a new service called Jott Feeds, where users can request Jott to read text from syndicated weblog or news sites. Jott intends to insert ads into this text to spoken word service, and share revenues with the publishers.

But today, Jott is no cost and a no-brainer addition to my sales toolkit. It doesn’t require any special software. It’s practically brain-dead simple to operate. And it’s free. What’s not to like?

My only complaint after using the service for a few weeks is that it is not perfect. About one in every ten messages seems to have a mis-spelling of some sort. This usually seems to happen whenever I’m recording the name of a new product or Internet website – and let’s face it, some of those are hard to spell anyway. Now I’ve gotten into the habit of spelling out proper names – bingo, no more mis-spells in my Jott text messages. Having real human beings doing the transcription seems to work exceptionally well. I shudder to think what Jott would be like if its transcription engine was generally automated – that technology has a long way to go before it’s ready for prime time… but that’s another show. I also wonder if the Jott team can keep up with the workload as the application’s popularity rises. And finally, when and how will Jott figure out how to make money – and how intrusive will that become on what is currently a delightfully simple, straightforward service? These questions give me pause, and make me wonder about the future of Jott.

But today, as the summer of 2008 dawns, Jott is just plain cool. And darned useful, too, if you are a busy sales professional. And did I mention that it’s free?

Sales Pro Value Score

So, because of its ease of use, high utility, and (so far) zero cost, Selling Geek gives the Jott service a Sales Pro Value Score of 4.5, out of a possible 5.

UPDATE: Here are some great ideas for using Jott from the Sales 2.0 blog

UPDATE: Jott introduces tiered pricing plans

Tags: Jott, Jott to Twitter, Podcast, Review, sales tool, selling geek, voice to text

 

 Selling Geek 002-YouSendIt [9:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last fall, I was working on a sales improvement project for a client in the UK. They asked me to develop several short videos for their team. This was a rush project – with a very short deadline. They couldn’t wait for me to burn the videos to a DVD disk, and ship the disk overseas – they wanted the files right now.

“No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just email these 150 megabyte files to them.” Ah, not so fast, grasshopper. Did you know that most corporate networks reject media attachments to emails, or at least block emails with attachments over 10 megabytes in size? For some reason, my usually geeky brain had forgotten that even Google mail and Yahoo mail have file attachment size limits. (Duh!)

“No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just set up a little FTP site on my home server using FileZilla. (A very cool file transfer protocol server program – but that’s another show…) And so I did. But, alas, my client was most displeased. I’d forgotten that my AT&T DSL broadband service provided lightning-fast 6 megabytes per second download transfer speeds, but my upload speed was limited to just 512 kilobytes per second – and so my client was pulling his hair out and cursing my now twice-demonstrated technical naiveté. (Argh!)

So, what was I to do? Enter, my savior… YouSendIt, the slickest file transfer service I’ve ever used, and clearly of immense value to any sales professional that has to send large files to prospects or customers.

YouSendIt enables you to send large electronic files to anyone with an e-mail address. And it’s a breeze to use. You simply use your Internet browser to log in to the YouSendIt.com website and upload your file, which is stored in a secure, private location. YouSendIt sends an email to your intended recipient, and provides them with a web link to your file. They simply click the link and download the file to their computer.

Also, YouSendIt can be used by your customers to send you large files, too. They simply upload their file to your private dropbox location on the YouSendIt website, and you receive a notification e-mail that it’s there, ready for you to transfer to your PC.

Costs

What does YouSendIt cost? Well, that depends. For most sales pros, the totally free Lite subscription will meet the needs of salespeople with occasional large file transfer requirements – the Lite plan allows file transfers up to 100 megabytes in size, with a monthly transfer bandwidth limit of 1 gigabyte, and a maximum number of 100 downloads per file. That means that you can send up to ten files per month if they are the maximum allowed 100 megabyte size.

If that’s not enough capacity for you, the next level subscription, called the Pro plan, costs US$9.99 per month, and allows file transfer sizes of up to 2 gigabytes each, with a monthly download bandwidth limit of 40 gigabytes, and up to 500 file downloads per month – it also gives you 2 gigabytes of online storage space, and more control over your file tracking and distribution.

For sales teams, YouSendIt also provides even more advanced subscription plans – the Business Plus plan at US$29.99 per month, and the variable tier priced Corporate Suite plan with unlimited bandwidth and downloads. These advanced subscriptions also provide the ability to brand your download pages with your company logo and colors, if you wish, or integrate YouSendIt capability into your own website, and other flexible features.

Even if you have the free Lite subscription, YouSendIt provides for exceptions, allowing you to transfer a file larger than 100 megabytes (up to the maximum of 2 gigabytes), for a one-time fee of US$8.99. That’s pretty pricey for a one-time exception fee – but it’s still cheaper than most overnight express shipping charges, and of course, the transfer is instantaneous. And, you can always upgrade your free Lite subscription, if your transfer needs grow beyond what you expected.

Add-Ins and Extensions

While most salespeople will be happy to use the simple-to-use website to transfer individual files, YouSendIt also provides optional software and plug-in extensions for Photoshop, CorelDRAW and Aperture, so you can upload multiple files from directly within those programs on your PC. There’s also an Outlook plug-in that adds a YouSendIt file transfer icon to Outlook’s toolbar. If you do a lot of file transfers, these special YouSendIt applications and extensions can save you time, as they increase transfer speed and do away with the need to access the YouSendIt website with your browser.

Minor Complaints

What’s not to like about YouSendIt? Well, if you need to send files that are larger than 2 gigabytes, this service isn’t for you – that’s the maximum file size allowed, even at the most advanced subscription levels. Also, one missing feature I would like to see is a notification email back to me, telling me that my intended file recipient successfully retrieved my file. There’s no way to do this automatically within the YouSendIt site, so when I send a file, I always tell my recipient to let me know when they got the file by reply email, which is a minor inconvenience for both of us.

Sales Pro Value

These small complaints aside, YouSendIt is a godsend to sales pros that need to transmit large files safely, securely, and with a minimum of fuss and bother, both for themselves and their customers. The next time you need to transmit a large proposal or RFQ response, YouSendIt might give you that small but important professional edge that helps you get ahead of your competitors – and all this at little or no cost.

By the way, using YouSendIt, I was able to transfer my large files to my UK client in just a few minutes, and they loved how easy it was to retrieve them. Their perception of me quickly changed from “blithering idiot” to “good reliable bloke”.

So, because of its ease of use, reliability, scalability (to a point) and low cost, Selling Geek gives the YouSendIt service a Sales Pro Value Score of 4, out of a possible 5.

UPDATE: YouSendIt secures additional venture capital funding

Tags: file transfer, Podcast, Review, sales tool, selling geek, YouSendIt

 

 Selling Geek 001-New Jawbone [9:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve sometimes had to take important calls with customers as I was driving from one sales appointment to another, but I’ve always cringed at the impression I was making – with all the background noise, I’m sure my in-transit calls made less than a completely professional impression. I also remember one teleconference with a hot prospect, which I made from my home office, just when my lawn maintenance guy fired up his mower right outside my office window, turning my call into a “how fast can I hit the mute button?” contest.

But for the past year, I never worried about background noise on mobile phone calls. That’s because I’ve been using a Jawbone noise-canceling Bluetooth headset, from Aliph. This amazing device screens out virtually all background noise, allowing only your voice to pass through. With my Jawbone connected, I confidently make calls from my car, from the street, from the airport terminal, wherever, all with perfect clarity – my call recipients all think I’m calling from my nice, quiet office.

And now, the New Jawbone

Now, Aliph has released its second generation of the Jawbone headset, which they appropriately but uninspiredly named the New Jawbone. I wonder what they will call the third generation someday – the New New Jawbone? Regardless of what you call it, the New Jawbone is indeed a significant improvement over the previously impressive original model, and well worth buying, even at its relatively hefty retail price of just under US$130.

The styling of the old model Jawbone was best described as Borg-like – an approximately one inch by two inch metal mesh rectangle hanging from your ear, it reminded me of that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation when Captain Picard was assimilated by an evil cyborg race – “I am Locutus, of Borg. Resistance is futile.”

The New Jawbone is half the size of the original model, and half of the weight at less than half an ounce, which makes it much more comfortable to wear. This lighter weight also gives you the option to wear the Jawbone as a purely in-ear headset, or with a flexible attached leather-covered earloop. I wear glasses, so an in-ear option is important to me – and yet I found the New Jawbone comfortable to wear both with or without the earloop. Aliph gives you four different earloop sizes, and three different earbud sizes, so you can find the perfect fit for your particular pinna.

Make no mistake, though – this headset’s styling is still clearly Jawbone-ish, albeit on a smaller rectangle with a new diamond-patterned metallic finish in black, gold or silver. Even better than the original model, this New Jawbone makes as strong a fashion statement as it does about performance.

Performance

And let’s talk about performance – the New Jawbone’s “NoiseAssassin” technology is even more amazing that the original model’s noise canceling capabilities. The best way to describe it is simply to listen to a demonstration. (Click on the player at the top of this article, and you’ll see what we mean.)

How does the New Jawbone cut out all the background noise? It’s all in the design, which features one important difference from other headsets. At the end closest to your mouth is a small plastic nub, which rests against your face. This nub picks up the vibrations from your voice, and the New Jawbone then compares these vibrations to all the sound waves coming through the microphones, and then filters the unwanted background noise in real-time. Aliph perfected this technology for the military, and it’s very impressive in its performance.

I tested the New Jawbone’s Bluetooth pairing capabilities against three different phones, a Blackberry 8830, Motorola Razr, and a Treo 630, and had no trouble connecting with any of them. Further, I found the range of the headset to be about 20 feet before I noticed any significant signal loss.

Any Downsides?

So, are there any downsides in the New Jawbone? Well, it is fairly pricey compared to other Bluetooth wireless headsets, for sure, but given its incredible performance, I think it’s more than worth the premium. I’ve had trouble with the flexible ear loops, too – they are easily bent, and can break off, making it impossible to fix. I now store my New Jawbone in a rigid eyeglass case, just to be safe. Also, the total talk time is now less than the old Jawbone – four hours compared to the original’s six, which still isn’t bad considering that the battery is now less than half the size of the original. Aliph includes a magnetically attached charging cable, which gives you the flexible option of recharging from an AC power adapter or from your USB port on your PC. I found it takes about an hour to fully recharge the New Jawbone, which is pretty fast.

I also don’t fully appreciate the two hidden buttons on the New Jawbone – one at the back of the unit that turns on the noise cancellation capability, and a second button further forward that answers and ends calls. While aesthetically stylish, these buttons are sometimes hard to find, and although the New Jawbone gives you an aural signal that they’ve been engaged, they still are not very intuitive to use. Fortunately, I simply keep the NoiseAssassin feature on all the time, and use my Blackberry 8830 to answer and end calls, so I never have to use the headset buttons. Also, it would be nice to have a volume button – the New Jawbone adjusts volume automatically based on background noise. A nice feature, but not always perfect, so a volume boost would have been welcome.

Sales Pro Value Score

Still, these are minor quibbles for what otherwise is a perfect addition to any sales professional’s arsenal of technology advantages. There are other Bluetooth noise canceling headsets out there that are very good – the Plantronics Voyager 520 and the strangely named nXZEN nX6000 are both cheaper and worth a close look – but in the end, the New Jawbone simply wins out in style and performance. There’s no doubt about it, the New Jawbone will boost your professional image, both in person or over the phone, and those whom you call will definitely appreciate it.

So, in summary, Selling Geek gives the New Jawbone a Sales Pro Value Score of 4.5 out of a possible five.

UPDATE: Another highly-rated noise-cancelling Bluetooth headset worth a look is the BlueAnt Z9i

Tags: Aliph, Bluetooth headset, bluetooth noise cancelling headset, Jawbone, New Jawbone, noise cancelling, Podcast, Review, selling geek, wireless headset