Archive | November, 2009

Get the Financial Planning 2009 Software Survey

Posted on November 24, 2009 by in Technology

It’s that time of year again when Financial Planning magazine publishes its annual survey of technology in use by financial planners and advisers. This is the third year for the survey, and again Joel P. Bruckenstein tallied up the responses (from over 1,500 individuals!) and reviewed the results.

Click here to view Bruckenstein’s review of Financial Planning’s 2009 Software Survey.

Just as I did last year, I’m posting my 30-second summary of the review. I’m listing each comment along side those of 2008 for easy comparison. Read More…

FINRA Delays Webinar on Social Networking Guidelines

Posted on November 23, 2009 by in Compliance

I posted back in October that FINRA scheduled a webinar to discuss guidelines when using social networking websites. The webinar was scheduled for December 16, 2009.

I learned today via AdvisorTweets on Twitter that the webinar has been postponed for three months. It now is scheduled for March 17, 2010. One thing that hasn’t changed is the $50 member/$100 non-member registration fee required to attend the event.

Click the image below to connect to FINRA’s website and get the new details.

FPPad On Google Wave; Now What?

Posted on November 18, 2009 by in Technology

Over the weekend I received an invitation to Google Wave and have finished setting up access with my account.

What’s Google Wave?

My favorite description so far of Google Wave is that it’s the Play Doh of communication: there are no obvious instructions, but you can pretty much do anything with it.

So if you’re on Google Wave, connect with me and let’s see what we can make. (Sorry, I’m out of invitations!)

My address is billwinterberg@googlewave.com.

I also created a public wave specifically for financial planning. Search for with:public “financial planning” to find it.

Whose Behavior Needs to Change: Advisers or Clients?

Posted on November 17, 2009 by in Professional Development

Marion Asnes, editor in Chief of Financial Planning magazine, is tweeting live from this week’s Financial Behavior in Retirement Summit in Philadelphia, PA.

If you’re like me, you had no clue this summit was underway this week. This is a shame, as judging from Marion’s tweets and the agenda for the remainder of the summit, Financial Behavior in Retirement looks to be an outstanding conference. Just take a glance at a short list of who is presenting:

  • David E. Adler
  • Karen Schaeffer, CPA, CFP®
  • Susan Bradley
  • Deena Katz, CFP®
  • Harold Evensky, CFP®

So here’s a quick peek at the tweets sent over the course of Monday’s sessions. Most have been tagged with #FBR2009 (I’ve edited them for legibility):

Read More…

Awesome iPhone Apps As Told to David Pogue

Posted on November 15, 2009 by in Technology

Here’s a quick integration of Twitter and Wordle on how the services can be combined to gain insight on a topic very quickly. I’ve written about Wordle before; it’s a web-based tool to create word clouds from text.

Earlier today, technology columnist David Pogue asked the following question on Twitter:

Lots of replies came in, so it’s difficult to determine which apps are the most recommended among those that replied.

Read More…

Dropbox Featured in Forbes; Tools Should “Just Work”

Posted on November 1, 2009 by in Software, Technology

Last week I wrote about how the Dropbox service prevented minor embarrassment when my presentation slides weren’t loaded on the presentation laptop.

I finally got around to reading the October edition of Forbes magazine and saw Lee Gomes’ Digital Tools column.

Click here to read Forget Disruption. Dive Deep Instead on Forbes.com.

The point of the column is how Dropbox programmers worked extremely hard to tackle some very difficult code, yet the result is a simple and elegant program that just works. Once you “get” the concept of Dropbox and start using it, you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Read More…