A few weeks ago we (Model Metrics) entered a competition in Washington DC sponsored by Adobe.  Specifically, this event was  a partner solution showcase specifically for Adobe’s LiveCycle product.  We haven’t done a lot LiveCycle development, but if you follow us you know we have done tons and tons of Cloud Computing implementations, including Amazon Web Services, salesforce.com, and Google.  As a result, our approach was to focus on using LiveCycle in the Cloud. We focused on two cloud platforms – Amazon Web Services and salesforce.com.

Ironically, this showcase took place a few days after the first Apple iPad’s came out.  More ironically, the solution we intended to demo was an integration between LiveCycle and our Pharma2GO solution, which takes salesforce.com offline for Life Sciences companies using Adobe Flex and AIR.  Naturally, we decided we’d take advantage of the timing and show Pharma2GO and the LiveCycle integration on the new iPad.  

In just a few days we able to export our offline app in a build specifically for the iPad using the new CS5 suite.  Simple to do and looks fantastic:

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re aware this approach is now a questionable practice according to Apple.  Of course you can build in Objective C.  That is doable and we’ve done it countless times for the iPhone, but that is not a build once deploy anywhere methodology.   We were looking forward to that.

Obviously, look out for an Android version of Pharma2GO shortly.

Full release below that we posted this morning:

• A pharmaceutical sales representative runs Pharma2GO on his laptop or mobile computing device to access and modify records in Salesforce CRM online or offline. 2GO uses Adobe Flex and AIR technology to extend offline access to Salesforce CRM on various mobile devices.
• The sales rep meets with a physician, drops off drug samples, electronically captures the doctor’s signature and enters the results of the sales call in Pharma2GO, which updates his Salesforce CRM record.
• With the signature capture, an Adobe LiveCycle workflow process is invoked. It automatically sends an acknowledgement email to the doctor, who clicks to confirm that he met with the sales rep and received the pharmaceutical samples.
• The acknowledgement is captured in the sales representative’s Salesforce CRM.

Hundreds, or even thousands, of companies claim they have created Cloud Computing-based applications.  I don’t doubt that in the least.  However, almost all of these applications either a) use the company’s own platform or b) leverage one or two infrastructures, such as Force.com, Amazon Web Services or Google.  Very few applications leverage more than two Cloud Computing applications.

Here at Model Metrics we have created an application that utilizes not one or two platforms, but an application that leverages four platforms.  The application is called CardLasso (www.cardlasso.com), which is a solution that enables users to take a picture of a business card, have that image transcribed into usable data, and then made available for download to a csv file, a vcard, or for upload into the users Salesforce CRM org.

Here’s how it works.  Taking a picture of the business card is not difficult.  CardLasso lets the user use a mobile phone camera such as the iPhone or the webcam most folks have on their PC’s.  The picture is then sent to a service provided by Amazon Web Services called Mechanical Turk.  Think of Mechanical Turk as a cloud-based workforce.  The "Turkers’ transcribe the image of the business card into usable data and then submit that information back to the users’ CardLasso account.  At this point, the user can choose to receive the contact’s information as a vcard, in a csv file, or have the information sent directly to a specified Salesforce CRM org.

The uniqueness of the application is the number of web services it uses.  Here’s a quick summary:

1. iPhone – use the iPhone camera to capture the business card images
2. Adobe Flex – alternatively, take a picture of the business card with your webcam using an Adobe Flex interface that controls the webcam on your PC
3. Adobe AIR – or, if you don’t have an internet connection, Adobe AIR takes the webcam photo capture module offline
4. Force.com Sites – from salesforce.com, Force.com Sites runs to entire process.  A user’s account information is stored on Force.com and integrates with all other components of the application
5. Finally, Amazon Web Services drives all of the image processing.  Amazon S3 assists with storing the images, EC2 helps to process and store the image, Dev Pay enables payment for the monthly transcription servces, and finally Mechanical Turk physically enables the transcription of the business cards.

You may be saying that this is a complicated way of getting something done, but its actually the new reality.  All of these tools have extremely accessible API’s that make integration easy, enabling it to take the best technologies in Cloud Computing to create an application that bests the others in its market.  

If your interested in checking it out, just take a look at www.cardlasso.com.

This has obviously been a hot topic since last fall.  Many have written about it, from Forbes and The Industry Standard on down.  While most seem to be casting their vote for Cloud Computing success through this recession, there are others who are non-believers.  Those who believe in the cloud computing model believe that this mechanism for delivering IT solutions will prosper in a down economy because it is typically booked as an operating expense (vs. a capital expense), you have the ability to reduce your usage and therefore expense, and maintenance and infrastructure/support costs are significantly reduced.

The non-believers are typically the ones that think that either a) IT spending is going to be cut deeply enough so that there are no shining stars or b) Cloud Computing reduces the reliance on IT staffing resources, giving companies a way to reduce employee costs.  While I personally believe that “b” is an absolutely dour way of looking at a solution that could potentially reduce cost and free up resources to focus on higher value add task, that’s a topic for another day. 

Has anyone else noticed the Facebook explosion over the last 6 weeks?  I’ve been mulling over the reasons why it’s happening now…..right now, and have only a couple very subjective conclusions.  It can only be that the holidays represent a time for people to catch up on the things they’ve been meaning to do for months, but just haven’t had the time.  Or maybe it’s the economy and folks are trying to figure out how to utilize a service that’s essentially free to grow their business.  Nah…that’s a stretch.

Seriously, since the week of Thanksgiving, the number of Facebook invitations I’ve received has increased exponentially.  Many from the high school days (a long time ago….).  It seems that Facebook penetration has gone from level 1 or maybe 2 (early adopters, somewhat early adopters) to mainstream – almost overnight.  Friends in high school I’d never suspect would embrace Facebook have done just that.  I even received an invitation to connect from someone in my church’s Confirmation class over the Christmas break.

Clearly this is a good thing for Facebook.  But it truly does present an opportunity for marketers who are looking for cheap or free marketing to generate a few leads.  I think we’re all still figuring out how best to take advantage of this opportunity, but social marketing is on the top of my list of things to master in 2009.

Just the other day, we (we being the marketing team at Model Metrics) realized that we should make a relatively minor change to our website – the thought being that we could increase conversion or some such metric.  A little thought and literally 5 minutes of work and our change was rolled out onto our public website.  No big deal.

That’s how it works today though, or at least it should.  Not long ago, literally just a few years ago, it wasn’t so simple.  To make a website change, you had to involve a designer, a technical resource, and if you’re with a large company, a ton of approvals to make what should be a simple change.

But those simple changes truly are becoming simple now.  Content management systems have evolved to the point where nearly anyone can manage their own website without coding skills.  Want to change the written content?  It’s just like typing into a document program such as Microsoft Word.  Want to move things around on a page?  Just drag and drop.  Want to change some colors?  No coding, just do it in the wysiwyg editor.  Even a CMO can do this stuff.

Beyond content management for your website, there are a ton of other tools now available that can help a non-technical marketer at least appear have a hidden technical competence, in addition to truly being an effective employee or manager.

Here’s a few of them:

1. Google Sites – a great tool that let’s users quickly and easily create websites that enable just about anything.  We’ve used it to create a marketing asset management tool to allow password protected access to our logos, etc. for vendors.  Among others, we’ve also used it as a project management tool for partners we are co-developing applications with.
2. Content management systems – as mentioned above, check out WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
3. Graphics design programs, such as CS4 by Adobe.  These aren’t cheap, but save you money over the longer term and can significantly decrease the turnaround time on projects if you can establish even marginal proficiency yourself.
4. Salesforce Web to Lead (W2L) functionality – if you use Salesforce CRM and want a lead to automatically flow into your Salesforce application, it can automatically create the html code of your website’s registration form.

There’s literally hundreds of tools available today that can help marketers at all levels get the job done faster and less expensively without giving up quality. Hopefully these few get you started.

It’s just two days away.  No, not Dreamforce, although that’s definitely important to me and to Model Metrics.  What’s two days away is the Presidential election.

Last month I commented on the first big drop in the financial markets.  Since then it’s been a bit of a stock market roller coaster and the Presidential campaigns have both turned to how they are going to fix it.  Whoever wins, I don’t expect the nominee to follow his current prescription precisely.  Right now it’s still a campaign and rhetoric will overrule reality.

When reality does hit the new resident of the Oval Office, I don’t expect the financial markets to be in any better shape, but who knows?  What I am more certain of, which I mentioned last month, is that marketing accountability will once again become a paramount concern for marketers.

Last week a friend of mine, who has a developed a pretty slick yet simple marketing budget management app, sent out an email campaign to a list of prospects.  He does this about every month, gets some leads, and hopes to close a couple deals.  Typical stuff.  Until last week his messaging was rather generic, but with this last campaign he was laser-focused on cost-cutting and the ability to manage those savings in an automated fashion.

Guess what?  Not surprising, highest response rate ever.  His lead creation rate was 15%, versus an average of 2 to 3% in all previous campaigns.  

Marketing accountability is clearly becoming important to all of us.

Interesting times.  Yesterday the House of Representatives failed to pass the $700B bailout bill.  The Dow fell almost 800 points during the afternoon, the largest one day loss in its history.  The last time I remember hearing those words was back in 2001, when the Internet bubble burst.  Of course the NASDAQ took a relatively greater hit at the time, but everyone was affected.  

It remains to be seen what happens next for consumers and businesses.  None of us have a crystal ball.  We do know that 7 years ago corporate spending slowed significantly.  For marketing professionals, that meant budget accountability.  More than ever.  The right-brained marketers were searching for their left-brained muses to establish marketing return on investment accountability.

The events of 2001 changed the way marketers had to act (for the better without a doubt).  At very least, 2008 will probably reinforce those requirements.  It also spawned a new set of marketing tools to facilitate budget management and marketing measurement.  Here are a few of my favorites – Marketo, Omniture Closed Loop Marketing for Salesforce, Vertical Response.