Author: Gary Sherman

Chief Technology Officer, Vice President of Products

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My favorite web apps

May 2, 2008 ReadWriteWeb published the results of their survey on what web apps most excited their readers.Here's my list of the web apps I use frequently:TwitterFlickrGoogle Readerdel.icio.usRemember The MilkGMailGoogle DocsCampfireBasecampA few more that I like, but just use occasionallyStumbleUponLinkedInMintSlackerPandoraSkypeTripItDovetailAgentAnd finally a few I'd like to get to know:FriendFeedTwineSlideRocketWhat about you? What do you use?

Clarify 6 – still running after all these years

April 22, 2008 I'm currently working with a customer who is running Clarify version 6. Not Amdocs CRM6, but Clarify version 6, or as the marketing brainiacs tagged it - CFO98 (Clarify Front Office 98). I'm amazed that they're still running a 10 year old enterprise application, and haven't upgraded at all in 10 years. On the other hand, it speaks to the power of the system that it continues to work and provide value, despite its age. They're now working with us, so that they can upgrade their database to something more current (Oracle 10g), and they're looking into using out toolset (SchemaEditor, ArchiveManager, fcSDK, BOLT, etc.) so that they can continue to reap value out of their system. Pretty cool.

Dovetail knows Clarify as good as, if not better than, Clarify

April 18, 2008 Over on IT toolbox, a recent post was inquiring about people's experience of dealing with Dovetail. One of our customers responded: we were a customer of theirs for about 2 years (purchased Super Email Clerk)...we moved on to a different package at the end of those two years, so we did not need them. I did Clarify work from version 5 through version 12 (from 1997 - 2004) on various projects, so my Clarify experience is pretty decent. Everything I have heard about FC/Dovetail has been solid. Their people know Clarify, the data model, the architecture as good if not better than some of the folks at Clarify/Amdocs. The founders were clarify employees at one point. I think it also speaks a lot that they are small, dependent on this software, and through it all, they are still around -…

My love for Twitter continues

April 14, 2008 My love for Twitter continues. Or, more precisely, my love of what people are doing with Twitter.The CEO of Zappos wants to talk to more customers - so what does he do? - He selects one of his random followers from Twitter for a free trip to Vegas to meet with him! That rocks!DataGrid offers a $350 rebate to its first 100 followers.Sarah, over at the ReadWriteWeb has a good article on Customer Service via Twitter. What else did I see/learn on Twitter today?Scoble comments that Best Buy is doing some awesome things with social media. Looking to hearing more on this. Since he sat next to Michele Azar, Best Buy VP of Internet Growth, I'm sure we will. (Best Buy is one of our customers, hence the interest)Found out about SalesForce for GoogleAppsGot inspired by the Brains on Fire customer…

FreshBooks roadtrip: a great example of getting personal with customers

April 11, 2008 Becky at the Customers Rock! blog recently detailed the FreshBooks roadtrip, which is a great example of how a company can stay connected with its customers. I love this: This was not a product roadshow. This was a listening tour. I also really like how they're using face-to-face conversations, but also expanding their conversations using a company blog, a roadtrip blog, and Twitter. Awesome.

The world's atwitter with Twitter

March 27, 2008 I've been using Twitter a lot lately. For the un-initiated, Twitter is basically micro-blogging. Wikipedia has more details. Or check out a Newbie's guide to Twitter.You can follow me on Twitter.There's many opinions on Twitter, including:"I don't get it""This is brilliant""This seems stupid"Twitter is very new, and all of its usefulness and power is still in its infancy.For me, its super exciting to see how companies are connecting with customers via Twitter - they're Joining the Conversation.What companies? Here's just a few:JetBlueSalesForce.comSouthwestflickrThat rocks!More discussions on companies using TwitterJackie Huba (of Citizens Marketes fame, and also a recent Austin transplant) has a few example of How companies connect using Twitter.Ike Pigott, who specializes in crisis communication, discusses how the American Red Cross is using Twitter as part of their Safe and Well Program.Companies using Twitter as an always available help request…

Give, give, give

March 21, 2008 This is brilliant. Just watch: http://garyvaynerchuk.com/2008/03/20/the-8020-business-ruleheck-life/ In a similar vein, a snippet from Hugh at SXSW: We can only execute on 10 percent of our ideas. We might as well give the other 90 percent away.

A few of my common utilities

March 20, 2008 Whenever I have to do something more than a few times, I like to make a shortcut or a utility for it. I have all of these in my c:\bin directory, and I have my system path set to include c:\bin. These utilities mean that I don't have to think about a lot of heavy syntax most of the time. For example, to import a DAT file into my database, rather than using: c:\bin\diet.exe -license MyDietLicenseKey -user_name sa -password sa -db_server . -db_name dovetail -import file.dat -sqllog sql.log I just have to use: import dovetail file.dat Much easier to remember, and much easier and quicker to type. Most of these are geared towards running on my development system, which is primarily SQL Server running onlocalhost with an sa password of sa. Here's a few common…

Don't force the customer into working how we want them to work

I've run into two scenarios this week where co-workers asked me how they should handle certain requests. How these questions get answered shows how much you're in a customer-centric mindset.Customer requests a new version of a productWithin our SelfService application, we allow customers to request product upgrades. Rather than using this mechanism, a customer simply created a new support case asking to receive the latest version of one of our products that they have licensed. One of my co-workers asked me: Should we tell him to go into SelfService and request the upgrade using the mechanism we've setup?Customer requests SelfService logins for his new co-workersFrom our SelfService login page, we have a link that allows you to register for SelfService. If a customer doesn't already have a login, then can fill out the form in order to get login access.…

Having a voicemail create a case in our Dovetail/Clarify system

March 7, 2008 We recently moved into new offices here at Dovetail, and with our new offices came a new phone system.One of the features of the phone system is that we can get an email whenever we get a voicemail. The email contains a WAV file of the actual voicemail recording. This allows us to easily be notified of, and receive voicemails, even when we're out of the office.The same rule applies to voicemails left on our support mailbox. So, if one of our customers calls our support line and leaves a voicemail message, we can get an email alerting us, along with the WAV file of the message.This is all well and good.But many of us are not on email all the time, and we have other notifications setup using Rulemanager, such as notifications to our mobile devices, and notifications via…

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