Announcing Cogniviews Excel-to-PDF-Converter (and a bribe)

I am very proud to announce that we have released the beta version of Cogniview’s Excel to PDF converter.

The ‘Excel to PDF Converter’ is the first out of several open source projects we will be releasing in the coming months and it is the only free Excel-to-PDF converter that supports hyper-links.

here is the official Excel to PDF Converter product page.

Plus… we need your help to make ‘Excel to PDF Converter’ better. That is why we are offering the following ‘bribe’:

We will be giving away 10 Amazon Gift-Cards, worth $15 each, to people that will download ‘Excel to PDF Converter’, play around with it and post their feedback as comments on this blog post.

The gift cards will be given to 10 most helpful commenters.

I know that you’ll find Cogniview’s Excel to PDF Converter useful and I hope our little bribe can convince you to get involved with this project.

Has WordPress Come of Age as a CMS?

This week I have been building a membership site using WordPress as part of a challenge I set myself for the Authority Blogger Course members. I have until 3pm today my time to finish it and get it on sale. I might actually succeed, even despite the power being off in my area all morning :)

The project is for me to create a course on setting up WordPress based websites, and it got me thinking about how WordPress is not just a blog package for many of us any longer. I have written about this a little before but I think the idea has gone from being a geeky curiosity to an established fact. Course members added lots of ideas to my already growing list of ways this application can be used.

In the last year I have set up dozens of customer’s corporate websites using the software. This is not unusual, even the Number 10 Downing Street (home to our country “leadership”) runs on WordPress.

Here is a list of types of WordPress site I managed to come up with. I am sure you will agree, it can do more than just blog …

1) Blog (text, podcast, video) - OK, this one is obvious and goes without saying, but I think it is important to note how WordPress has given content creators an easy platform that does not require being tied into gated communities and paying through the nose for the privelage.

2) Static site / company website - As mentioned above, this is so common place now that I can’t imagine using anything else.

3) Lead capture site / Squeeze page - Lately I have been using WordPress for gathering contact details through free offers (send someone to a site where they can get something cool in return for putting in their contact details). Where before I would have used a static HTML site, using WordPress allows me to rapidly test, tweak and optimize the conversion rate. Plus there are other pages like privacy page and so on that need to be set up using a similar look and feel.

4) Single product sales site – Where before I might have used a download service, one of those download protector software packages, or some other system to deliver my digitial products like ebooks and videos, now I can use WordPress plus Wishlist member plugin to protect my download products. Not only does it provide a convenient and secure download area, but it reduces customer support through having built in password recovery, and also allows me to “drip out” bonuses.

5) Multi-product ecommerce site – Once you start selling from your WordPress site, it doesn’t take a leap of imagination to start thinking about selling multiple products from the same site.

6) Reviews site – Think back to when you last booked a hotel or vacation. You probably visited at least one review site. Affiliate marketers often like to set up a site where you review products in return for a sale commission on anything that is purchased. WordPress makes building one of these sites so much easier.

7) Photo gallery – It’s not just Facebook, Flickr and Picassa that can be used to display your photography, and WordPress is ideal if you don’t just want to show off but to sell your work.

8) Twitter-style site – Automattic released a special theme just for creating an internal or group Twitter type site where you can interact with short “tweet” type posts. This is great for project management, group notifications and discussion.

9) Membership site – If you want to create a password protected client area, online course, or monthly “continuity”, as mentioned earlier, WordPress is now ideal when used with Wishlist, but also much easier and cheaper to work with than the alternatives.

10) Resume – The resume is dead. Long live the resume blog! Much like company sites, if you are not filling Google with positive references then you don’t exist when it comes to certain jobs, and it is only going to increase in liklihood that your HR rep looks first to Google before checking any of your paper credentials.

I have a couple of hours to finish this WordPress based online course. Wish me luck!

Any more ideas for how WordPress is being used over and above blogging? Please share in the comments …

When Productivity Goes Wrong

I am all for productivity, but not when your productivity impacts your customers, friends and prospects negatively.

Perhaps when productivity systems go bad it needs a new definition, is it still productivity when you get negative results rather than a positive impact?

Either way, I am increasingly seeing people implement systems that are designed to make them more productive, that are putting a distance, poor customer experience, and critical word of mouth between them and their customers.

My first experience of this was when a popular productivity guru asked for my help with the blog he was aiming to set up. I replied a couple of times asking what help this person needed … and got no reply. I felt brushed off so quietly asked a couple of close contacts who were familiar with us both what the game might be.

You know the answer already.

“Oh yeah, he does that. He probably sent a bunch of those emails. And you know he doesn’t respond to most of the email he gets. If he needs you he will be in touch, otherwise forget about it.”

So he asked me for help, but didn’t have the curtesy to acknowledge my reply or even tell me my help was no longer needed.

He saved a couple of minutes from his busy day, I am left with a bad feeling about him and even had discussions with my close contacts about it. Even worse, he does it so much that it has become part of what people expect him to do!

If someone asks me about this person or that person’s products, will I feel inclined to recommend them?

Another case recently was I had signed up for a membership site. In this service the owners personal email is supposedly given out. But when you email it, for any reason, you get the person’s VA. With copy and paste style scripted replies.

Fair enough, use assistants. I applaud that when it gives you more time to give care and attention where it is needed.

But not instead of giving care and attention.

If there is a problem with a credit card, an invoice, you need a password recovery, and so on, those are exactly the type of things you would want to either automate or hand off to an assistant.

But when someone buys your information product and they have questions outside of the “first line support flowchart” then you need to step in with quality responses.

At the same time I joined the aforementioned membership, I also signed up to some courses by a couple of individuals who are hyper productive. If I didn’t know better I would think they were some sort of cyborgs sent from the future, or at the very least taking some serious medication ;)

But you know what? They give you personal attention when it is needed and have systems in place where the personal touch is not required.

Bottom line, what is the point of being productive if it damages your brand? Do not sacrifice long term value for some short term time savings.

Have you experienced anything like this? How do you make sure your productivity benefits you, your business and your customers? Please share in the comments …

Facebook Wishlist

Facebook is much loved around the world. It has a “population” the size of a country. They must be doing something right.

But for me it is my least favorite of the big social media tools. I try to like it. I try to use it. It doesn’t work for me because of small irritations, and I find myself just going in to housekeep friend requests and “suggestions”, block applications, that kind of thing.

While I have been looking at different strategies I have seen some small glimmer of usefulness. It has enough potential that I want to persist, no matter how annoying I find it.

I have been thinking about how Facebook could be made more useful for me and other small business users.

  1. Ignore fan page requests forever - After I have ignored a fan page suggestion for the fifth time, sometimes in a week, I yearn for a button that says “No and I never ever will”. This behavior is caused by the fan page owner inviting all their friends repeatedly, this should be either fixable at the recipient end (block forever) or have a restriction on how many times a person can be invited at the senders end.
  2. Block every application suggestion – I want to be able to opt out of every application suggestion, request or invitation. Instead I would explicitly seek out and join the ones that do interest me.
  3. Filter friend requests – If someone has MLM, teeth whitening or the name of my school anywhere in their profile then most likely I do not want to have anything to do with them. The few who I would miss through this system I would seek out or find through connections.
  4. Change “Fan Page” to be named something less sucky – Really, “Fan” page? Who wants to be a “Fan” of someone? Couldn’t they make fan page be something less objectionable like “Contact” page or something? OK, my suggestion isn’t much better but at least it would not feel as ego-ish to have one.
  5. Granular application permissions – Why does a map application need access to all my details? Apparently applications are going to get access to our email addresses too? I want to be able to set how much applications can access as I seriously do not trust any of them with my information.

All of those are irritations and requests to make the experience less of a chore but I have a big suggestion that I think could make Facebook way more useful.

My big suggestion? Be able to hold events on Facebook!

I see it as being a video conference feature. Individuals could talk to friends, family and contacts 1:1 like with Skype (possible to do via simple flash application which would overcome the technophobe aspect of getting relatives to use desktop applications). Webinars and teleconferences could be held directly on Facebook, so you could use the invite and event features but not leave the system.

Picture someone with a huge audience like Gary Vaynerchuk sharing an invite with all their contacts and the recipient just needing to hit one button to be taken directly to the event with no software, accounts or settings to be added or changed? I can see this being a great tool and revenue opportunity.

I’m sure Facebook will not see any of these suggestions, much less act on them, but I enjoyed writing this as social media therapy ;)