Last week, I posted about our recent flurry of updates to BatchBook. After a weekend to play with some of the new changes, there’s one I really love. It’s the List widget on the Dashboard.
And we love to give props where props are due. So, yet again, that was a recommendation that came from the forums. In this case, forum user Barbara Ballard asked:
Inspired by the Marketing dashboard widget … I created “Barbara’s list”. It’s all current clients, alumni, leads, projects assigned to me. It’s who I should be thinking about this week, who I should pay attention to. … Now I want it on my dashboard.
We had been talking about doing a saved search widget. But when Barbara recommended putting Lists on the Dashboard, an bell went off in my head. First of all, Lists are already part of BatchBook. This would put something on the Dashboard that just about everybody is already using in their account. Nothing new to learn. Instant gratification. Secondly, a saved search is best handled as a list anyway. That way it will always update, always be accessible, always be exportable, etc.
It was the perfect solution.
Thank you, Barbara, for your excellent recommendation!
Last year, for quite a while, it seem as though we were churning out feature updates for BatchBook at a dizzying pace. These weren’t enormous new features, but just smaller updates that simply made the lives of our users easier. Since the start of 2009, however, we’ve been busy on a few rather major updates. Some have launched (like our integrations with FreshBooks and Shoeboxed), some are in beta (like Google Contacts sync), and some haven’t been released yet (I’m not telling!).
The month of June has been a welcome return to the “flurry of updates” release schedule. Over at the BatchBook forums, Keri postsdetailednotes about product releases. Today, I wanted to tell you about the “Greatest Hits” from these updates.
Batch Updating of SuperTags
Ever want to update the SuperTag field on dozens of contacts at once? Use the checkboxes on the Browse Contacts page to select a whole bunch of contacts (tip: filter by tag first!) and choose the “edit SuperTag field” batch action. With a couple quick clicks, you can update hundreds of contacts at a time!
We known your contact list can grow quite large. Ours sure has! That’s why we’ve added a whole bunch of new ways to filter and search your contacts. Many of these were very popular requests on the forums.
New Browse Contacts filter: Not contacted in past month: Will filter your contacts to show only those you have logged a communication with in the past month.
New Browse Contacts filter: Not contacted: Will filter your contacts to show only those you have never logged a communication with.
Advanced Search: Contact Type: In addition to “Individuals” and “Companies”, we now have an option for “Individuals & Companies”. Why? Because we also have one just for “Communications”!
Advanced Search: Record Created: Search for records by date they were created. You can search for an exact date or for records created before or after a certain date. (Tip: Use multiple search criteria to search before a certain date and after another date to get a specific window of time).
Advanced Search: Record Last Updated: Search for records based on the last time they were updated.
Advanced Search: Record Last Communicated With: Search for contacts based on the last time you logged a communication with them (including an option for “never”.
Twitter and Google Search Widgets for all!
The live-updating Twitter Search and Google Search Dashboard widgets are now available for free accounts as well. Monitor your personal brand, your company brand, your competitors or your industry at large right on your BatchBook Dashboard!
New Dashboard widget: Lists View
This brand new widget gives you a dropdown menu of all Lists in your BatchBook account. Pick a list and see the contacts. There’s also one-click access to the List Report.
Last but not least, this is another popular one from the forums. Affectionately code-named “sticky tags” by forumgoers, you can now choose a tag or tags to be automatically applied to all contacts (or all individuals or all companies).
We hope you’ve enjoyed the recent updates. We promise more will come soon!
One of my favorite BatchBook features is the Social Media SuperTag. This week, we enhanced it by adding support for LinkedIn profiles. All you have to is enter address to a public LinkedIn profile. When you save it, we’ll replace the link with a widget that looks a lot like this:
Out of the box, the Social Media SuperTag allows you to enter a contacts usernames on Twitter, Flickr, or Delicious and we’ll show the last three tweets, photos, or bookmarks. You can also enter a Blog feed and see excerpts of the last three posts. This will actually work for any RSS feed. In the screencast below, I add a Slideshare presentations, Last.fm recent tracks, and BatchBook forum feeds to a contact record.
We think this is a great way to see what’s on the mind of your most valuable contacts right before you pick up the phone or start that email. Watch below to see the Social Media SuperTag in action!
Screencast: Social media integration with the Social Media SuperTag
Last month, I celebrated my two year anniversary with BatchBlue. I can’t believe it’s been two years already. I can’t believe it’s only been two years.
I also had a birthday right around that time, so the oh-so-thoughtful Sean figured that made it a perfect time to upgrade my laptop. So, I went from the older white MacBook to the shiny new aluminum one. While I love the new computer, it is with some hesitance I let the white one go. The thing has been essentially an extension of my body for the last couple of years. And let’s just say, it’s been well loved:
This was the first laptop I ever stickered up. Each sticker has a story and now is as good a time as any to share them.
Belle: Before we had our lovely Providence office, we were a completely virtual company. Living rooms became conference rooms. One day, I got up from sitting on the floor at Pam’s house. I had a Belle sticker stuck to my butt. Pam has three kids, so this isn’t very surprising. The laptop was already well-stickered at this point, so on it went.
BatchBook: Well, that’s us silly!
Twitter: When Saul Colt sent me an autographed FreshBooks sticker (see #8), he also tossed in an extra Twitter sticker. While there may not be many things I like more than Twitter, Saul Colt is one of them.
WordPress: I’m a big WordPress fan, and Matt Mullenweg gave this sticker to me at SXSW 2007 after I said something nice to him. I saved the sticker until I finally had something worthy to stick it to.
HubSpot: As the developer of a marketing website, I love HubSpot. So many things that were previously trial and error have become well oiled machines (SEO keyword selection, inbound link monitoring, etc.). HubSpot even interviewed Michelle and I for a case study (and released a portion of the interview for their inbound marketing blog). The fact that I just linked to them with their favorite SEO keyword shows you what I learned from HubSpot!)
SimpleBits: Similar to the WordPress sticker, I had this one for a while (since 2006) before applying it to something. SimpleBits is the design shop run by Dan Cederholm in Salem, MA. I got the sticker (and my trademark SimpleBits shirt that I always seem to be photographed in) at a Carson Systems workshop with Dan. Dan’sbooks and his blog heavily inspired the approach I take to design. And he’s a swell guy to boot.
Creative Commons: Michelle gave this one to me, and Creative Commons is a wonderful thing. Personally, I often pretend it’s a CC Chapman sticker.
FreshBooks: As mentioned in #3, this was given to me Saul Colt (that’s his autograph!). At the time, he was the Head of Magic for FreshBooks. Now he holds the same title for Zoocasa.com.
iStockPhoto: Like HubSpot, iStockPhoto just makes my life so much easier. Specifically, I’ve written before about how Kemie (an iStockPhoto contributor) is essentially an honorary member of the BatchBook design team. I got this sticker from the nice iStock team at SXSW in 2008.
bata: When Stephanie went to Japan, she had a little sticker set to help her learn the language. One of her favorite words in Japanese was bata (butter). It kind of became an inside joke and the sticker found it’s way on my laptop.
Firefox: Along with the WordPress sticker, I got this one at SXSW in 2007 and saved it. While I use Safari for browsing, Firefox simply can’t be beat as a development browser.
Kidoinfo:Kidoinfo is a Rhode Island-based site for parents run by our friend Anisa. Anisa has built an amazing resource for local parents. It’s so handy to quickly find something to do on a rainy day!
Barcamp Austin III: Michelle and I made it for the very end of Barcamp during SXSW in 2008. Barcamp is an “unconference” (meaning it is essentially a “user-generated” conference put on by the attendees themsevles). We missed out on the sessions, but we did get to hang out for the incredible live karaoke band Karaoke Apocalypse. That was the night my respect for Chris Brogan and Laura Fitton shot throught he roof.
DEMOfall07: The very last one is the very first sticker to grace the MacBook. When we launched our public beta at DEMOfall07 in San Diego, this laptop was the demo unit. It’s just a simple inkjet label with the company name, station number, and date & time we presented (which actually changed, so it’s not totally accurate). But it might be my favorite of all the stickers.
I’ve been using Macs exclusively since my dad got us an Apple IIGS in 1986. I’ve had quite a few Macs over the years. This white MacBook was definitely my favorite since my beloved PowerBook G3 Pismo. It was powerful. It was dependable.
Michelle and I recently spoke at the 22nd Annual Maine Telecommunications Users Group (MTUG) conference up in Portland, Maine. Our presentation, called “Social Media for Business”, provided an overview of the types of social media sites out there, how you can get yourself or your business involved, and how we at BatchBlue have found success using social media.
In slides 3–31, we cover the types of social media sites, who the big players are, and some usage and demographic statistics. In slides 32–35, Michelle talked about some examples of how we’re using social media.
In slides 36–41, Michelle shared some stories of people we originally met on Twitter who have become and important part of our business. In the presentation, those slides merely show photos of these wonderful people, so I wanted to take a moment to call them out here.
Slide 37: Saul Colt (@saulcolt on Twitter), now with Zoocasa.com, was with FreshBooks when we met him down at SXSW in 2008. We happened to walk up to a pancake breakfast held by the FreshBooks folks and mentioned we’re customers. FreshBooks then took BatchBook out to dinner and surprise, surprise—FreshBooks and BatchBook hooked up.
Slide 38: TJ Sondermann (@sondernagle) is the closest thing BatchBlue has to a mascot. Not only is he a great friend and full of great ideas, he actually came up with the concept of our wildly popular Twitter tee shirt (shown on Slide 39).
Slide 40: Michelle Wolverton (@chelpixie) is another great friend that was met quite a long time ago on Twitter. She’s now our virtual project manager for a whole bunch of things.
Slide 41: Adam Tucker (@adamjt) is our brand new Systems Administrator here at BatchBlue. And we first met him on Twitter. In fact, I vividly remember “meeting” him—Michelle and I were meeting at The Coffee Depot in Warren, RI. Suddenly, I got a new follower notification from someone in Warren, RI (it was Adam—he lived in Warren at the time). I remember standing up and looking around the place, thinking someone was looking over our shoulders.
We closed with (Slide 42) a list of things the attendees could do to get started in social media.
The crowd was very new to social media (just one person had a Twitter account). My favorite question was “Can I legally require all new employees to become friends with our HR person on Facebook?”. I liked that for a few reasons—not only does it show how social media is permeating the workplace, it also shows the sense of fear from employers combined with the knee-jerk reaction to (try to) control usage. Our favorite answer to these types of questions is that you simply need to hire responsible people and everything will take care of itself (and perhaps provide some simple and clear guidelines).
Thanks to Steve Hand and Norman Houle of MTUG for asking us to talk. We had a lot of fun!
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