Tag Archives: edocr.com

Planning tools – removing duplication – plan for 2010

Posted on by
4

As I am in the thinking mode, one thing I am not good at is sticking to one tool for planning instead of using multiple tools. Just to get my head straighten, I thought it would be better to write it down, so here goes.

1. iGTD (1.4.5.6) from fasticon/James Wondrack – great little GTD tool for Mac. It synchronises with iPhone app Todo (1.6.1) through Appigo Sync (0.9.6 Beta) and Mac’s own to do items displayed through iCal and also on iMail. iGTD2, the replacement to iGTD caused problems in the past with synchronising. With my intention of keeping all things simple, I took the decision to stay with iGTD as it met all my needs at the time, and continue to do so.

2. Mindjet MindManager for Mac is not as extensive as the version for PCs. But nevertheless a great tool that I have been using since 2005 (Mac version since 2008). I have a template for monthly, weekly and daily planning that I built. But I do not use this on regular basis, which is not excusable.

3. Salesforce.com – this is my latest tool, which also provides a calendar with tasks.

As they say, three is a crowd. Here is how I plan to use these tools in 2010.

a. All tasks except sales related will go on iGTD.

b. Monthly and weekly planning with daily monitoring will be through Mindjet. The relevant tasks need to be manually added from iGTD to Mindjet, duplication of effort nevertheless. I am at ease with how Mindjet display information, which I find easy to absorb than typical to do list reports, which iGTD produces.

c. All sales related tasks will be on salesforce.com for edocr.com. Need to make a decision about how I will manage Northern Startup 2.0 commercial activities. On one hand, salesforce.com may provide the solution (low cost contact manager and familiarity from edocr.com use case). On the other hand, supporting local startups such as Manchester based JavelinCRM (more expensive but with mailchimp integration) is vital for my conscious. But it would have to be a commercial decision at the end.

The key to success in all this is consistency. It’s not about how great the individual or combined tool set is. If you do not consistently use these, the end result will be a mess leading to less effectiveness as an individual and team player.

There is another tool that could perhaps play a role. Tiyga, a product from another local tech startup, which helps you record how you spend time. It has ability to let you plan ahead and then monitor progress with weekly analysis of your performance. Whilst it has been a great product, and I have test driven many variations of it over the last 3 years, the problem I find myself with is lack of consistent usage, which comes from poor self-discipline. And it’s also about micro-planning and monitoring, which require a mindset change. Unfortunately, I am less disciplined than when I had a 9 to 5 job. One thing is for sure, I am going to give it another shot in 2010.

The key objective of all this is to be the most effective you can be, with the fixed time available. I hope I will be more disciplined and effective in 2010 than I have been in 2009 thanks to these tools plus a strong will to make a key difference in 2010. 2009, from both Northern Startup 2.0 and edocr has been a year of commercial trials. 2010 is about making it happen! Wish me luck folks!

Do share your thoughts on what tools you use and their effectiveness.

Update

It looks like iGTD has merged with Things. For the time being, I will continue to use iGTD and consider migration later on.

Options for charging for leads – fixed or per lead basis

Posted on by
3

Since the soft launch of edocr.com in Oct 2007, we have been delivering value to our users and customers. The value delivered right now can be categorised into “exposure” leading to “prospects contacting you”. We are now entering a phase where our customers will have the opportunity to access “leads”, delivering further value.

We now need to figure out the best way to commercialise the new value addition, “leads”. The two options available are:

1. Charge per lead
2. Charge a fixed fee

I am a great believer of simplicity and keeping all things as simple as possible. Charging a fixed fee is easy. You set up a particular subscription and demonstrate value whereby targeted customers subscribe to the additional new service.

Charging per lead becomes harder to manage. Software need to be able to calculate the number of leads after those leads which are considered to be “noise” (e.g. employee of edocr) are removed, use a set fixed or variable price per lead and invoice or charge paypal the due amount. If variable rate is used, then the quality of leads need to be considered. The customer may also object to the quality of the leads resulting in disputes. The whole issue of providing added value becomes complex to manage from edocr.com’ point of view.

I assume you are familiar with the term “catch 22″. There has been numerous occasions where our customers have asked to know the details of who viewed or downloaded their documents. Whilst this information has always been available to edocr employees, the current build will provide various tool kits for our customers to extract this data with consents where needed. I can almost smell the next catch 22, once customers have the leads, they will no doubt be seeking to understand the quality of the leads we provide.

At this stage, we can only provide details of who looked at a document or a company page (with consent). We cannot judge the quality of these leads and it should not be our role to do so. However, I am convinced that third parties might be able to play a role in here by taking our leads and dissecting them on behalf of our customers.

With that thought, our hunt for those third parties have just commenced. A clue might be in here!

All thoughts on this subject is very much appreciated.

Payment Solutions beyond paypal and others

Posted on by
5

I have a problem, both as a buyer and seller on payments using credit cards. I am convinced this problem is not unique to me.

As a buyer – mailchimp as an example
My HSBC credit card was recently cancelled due to two fraudulent transactions in the US. While I am waiting for a replacement card, my subscription to mailchimp has been halted. This causes a number of difficulties:

1. I cannot use the service to communicate with edocr user and customer base through monthly newsletter.
2. I could use my personal credit card, but this becomes a menace from accounts points of view.
3. Gives me a chance to review the benefit of using mailchimp – I was thinking of switching to salesforce.com led solution before – but now this has become a serious option to consider.

So what is the outcome:

1. I cannot speak to my user and customer base, so I am unhappy
2. Mailchimp could loose me as a customer, even though the reason for this is not their own making. The credit card cancellation just happened to trigger this.

As a seller – edocr.com as an example
Currently, edocr.com is integrated with paypal. So the only option to subscribe to edocr Essential service is through paypal unless you contact us direct, at which point, we can invoice you.

Some of the problems we have experienced due to paypal:
1. Paypal refusing to accept customer login details
2. Customer’s paypal account need further verifications, etc to satisfy built-in paypal safety rules
3. Customer does not have a paypal account or not keen to use his/her credit card

All of the above reasons can results in:
1. Transaction delays – lost revenue opportunity for edocr
2. Transaction may never take place, as the moment is lost and the process become a problem for the customer instead of solving a problem s/he has.

In one occasion, we lost a customer as paypal has stopped his account and he is pretty much cheesed off with paypal for many reasons. Of course, we are discussing with him about alternative payment options.

Summary
When you look at both cases, the problem lies in the payment mechanism which could lead to lost revenue opportunities for businesses. So the alternative is to offer multiple payment choices, but is this the right option?

Solution
Most online solutions take credit card based payments, either paypal, google checkout etc. They are designed primarily for individuals and small businesses. However, everyone has a bank account. If you are a company, you are not likely to change your bank account, and these do not expire as credit cards do. Whilst the ultimate solution should cater for bank accounts and credit cards, there is a significant business case to introduce a bank account based service by an independent vendor.

The ideal solution – bank account base
Think about OAuth type handshake, but of course highly secure. You login to edocr.com or mailchimp or any other service, click the payment settings, and now the handshake starts to take place with your bank account. You login to the bank account to confirm, the payment is now set. Easy peasy!

Love to hear your thoughts on how you deal with collecting payment for your web based solutions, and what your ultimate solution may look like. Who knows, someone within Northern StartUp 2.0 community of tech entrepreneurs might come up with a product to solve this problem.

edocr Product Update – Messaging related to document processing

Posted on by
Reply

edocr.com provides two ways to upload your document files, these being, single upload and bulkupload. Bulkupload is currently restricted to 25 document files per upload, but you may use bulkupload as many times as you wish to publish your full document inventory to edocr.com.

We also have an internal tool that allows unlimited number of document files to be uploaded. If you wish us to upload your document files either using bulkupload or internal tool, please contact us today for a quote.

edocr is built with three key components, the front-end (edocr.com), the document processing engine and storage. When a document file is uploaded, it goes through a set sequence before the processed document is available for distribution and interactivity.

Once a document file is uploaded, edocr creates a flash document page with its unique URL. Until the document is processed, the flash document page will continue to display the message “The flash page is under processing. Please wait.” as shown below.

Whilst the message is displayed, the document page will continue to attract visitors, which edocr tracks and store for 16 weeks. Once the processing is completed, the message will disappear and flash document will be available for view.

Current bulk upload settings alert edocr team when a document takes more than 60 minutes to process. Depending on our resource availability, we can intervene to resolve any issues. If the document is not processed within 720 minutes, the publisher is informed of failure to process. At this point, the document is automatically purged from the queue.

I hope this explanation makes sense and happy to hear any comments you might have.

Testing out Zemanta

Posted on by
Reply
Image representing edocr as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Just came across Zemanta through Twitter and thought of trying it out quickly. So far I configured Zemanta for flickr and twitter. It failed to initiate the Facebook connectivity. I am writing this from WordPress Editor. As you would expect, I searched for edocr, and found two images through flickr.

Here is a list of articles I could find which might not have relevance to the search term “edocr”

Manoj & edocr
Image by jacurutu via Flickr
Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]