Bill Winterberg, Author at FPPad

FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 4

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

Due to a change in plans, we’re monitoring FPA Business Solutions 2011 from the Twitter back channel (follow the #BizSol11 hashtag) instead of live blogging from the conference.

Despite this setback, we’re still here to provide a high-value Bits and Bytes offering the best in this week’s stories on financial planning technology. Here they are, in no particular order:

Junxure Announces Cloud Strategy from eReleases.com

(Bill’s note: Junxure in the cloud has been a long time coming, but a 2012 release? We were hoping for something this year…) Junxure announced today its strategy for delivering a Web-based CRM product to meet the needs of financial advisors. Junxure will release its cloud product, which has been several years in development, in 2012.

Hitting the Tech Target at Financial-Planning.com

(Bill’s note: While Bruckenstein highlights technology challenges advisors face today [lack of integration, embracing mobile devices, and committing money to technology purchases], I wish FP’s editors had allowed room in this article for some tangible solutions.) What are some of the major technology challenges advisors are facing today? To upgrade their technology, they need to create a budget for that purpose, figure out how to integrate the software they choose and sign on to the power of the mobile revolution to transform their practice.

Solving the Software Compatibility Puzzle from Registered Rep

These days, in addition to the service that reps come to expect, custodians also offer multi-layered technology platforms that can make the difference between a well-honed office and one that is constantly trying to pick up the pieces. But independents are a fiercely self-sufficient crew, and they often like to cherry-pick their own technology applications. So it’s crucial that all these technology tools talk to each other.

2011 Tech Trends at Financial Advisor

Veteran financial technology writer Andrew Gluck posits on six technology trends for 2011.

Seeing Opportunity In Smart Technologies from the Financial Adviser blog by Dow Jones

Next-generation wealth-management clients are miles ahead of the investment industry in their adoption of smart technologies. Wealth firms will have to catch up, fast, or lose ground to nimbler and savvier rivals.

Change of Plans for FPA Business Solutions 2011 Live Blog Updates

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in General

We were hoping to bring you a series of live blog updates from FPA Business Solutions 2011, but Bill fell ill Tuesday night and felt it necessary to cancel his travel plans to the conference (face it; you don’t want that guy with a fever and a monster cough sitting next to you on a three-hour flight, do you?!?).

So be sure to monitor the back channel activity on Twitter by following the #BizSol11 hashtag, and check back with us on Friday for this week’s Bits and Bytes post.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 25

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

This has been a very productive week at FPPad headquarters as a result of many new connections we established while attending the T3 Conference. T3 dominated our news feeds, and as such, dominates this week’s Bits and Bytes.

Here are some of the best reviews we’ve come across for T3:

Eavesdropping on the T3 conference by four bloggers with four missions as attendees at RIABiz.com

Conferences go by in a blur with so many vendors and attendees to meet and debrief. It takes a small army to cover them — even a smaller event like T3. Fortunately, RIABiz had many boots on the ground.

And a collection of blog entries from T3:

T3 Friday Liveblog from Nevin Freeman for RIABiz.com
2011 Technology Tools for Today Conference by Russell Dunkin
T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Fidelity Integration Panel at FPPad
T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Redtail Leapfrog CRM at FPPad
T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Junxure CRM at FPPad

We have more notes from T3 that we’re assembling for a full column to be featured on Morningstar Advisor in March. Look for it on Thursday the 10th.

Lastly, here is this week’s blog post from Bill at Morningstar Advisor, Two Approaches to Technology Integration.

What to Expect at FPA Business Solutions 2011

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in General, Practice Management

We just returned from a terrific T3 Conference, and in just over one week, we’ll be traveling again, this time out to Boston to present at FPA Business Solutions 2011.

Bill will be participating on a panel discussion titled Best Practices When Using Social Media at 3:15PM on Thursday, March 3. Mike Watson of TD AMERITRADE Institutional will moderate and Bill will share the panel with Andrew Gluck of Advisor Products, Inc. and Marie Swift of Impact Communications.

Click here to view the full FPA Business Solutions 2011 schedule. There’s still time to register so you don’t miss the great info at this event!

This year’s Task Force consists of a “who’s who” list of influential consultants, vendors, and practice management experts who have assembled a stellar agenda of topics and speakers.

We’re particulary interested in the preliminary release of the 2011 InvestmentNews Advisor Technology Study. In 2009, InvestmentNews partnered with Moss Adams LLP to continue the biannual benchmarking study on compensation and staffing practices of independent financial advisory firms.

What we feel has been missing in past studies is an analysis of the technologies employed at the top firms, and what specifically contributes to their performance. For example, if 90% of the most profitable firms all use dictation services from Mobile Assistant, wouldn’t you want to embrace dictation from them, too?

Finally, everyone attending FPA Business Soltuions 2011 is invited to participate in the social media back channel using the Twitter hashtag of #BizSol11.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/fpassociation/status/35052439480565760″]

Download the Transformative Technology Presentation Slide Deck from T3 2011

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in General

Update 12/2011: The Transformative Technology slide deck is no longer available for download. Please see my speaking page for upcoming events you can attend to view my latest presentations.

Due to overwhelming interest in the T3 2011 Conference presentation by Joanne Day and Bill Winterberg, we are making the raw slide deck available free for download for a limited time to FPPad subscribers.

Subscribing is free! Enter your name and best email address below. Click the link in your confirmation email and you will receive a second message with the link to download the Transformative Technology slide deck from T3 2011.

T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Fidelity Integration Panel

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in General

One of today’s sessions was a panel discussion featuring advisers on Fidelity’s platform follwing the keynote session by Brent Burns of Asset Dedication. Here are our most important takeaways from Fidelity’s panel.

The panelists included Tom Goyne, founder of Shamrock Asset Management in Dallas, TX, Rick Adkins, CEO of the Arkansas Financial Group, and Michael Lee, COO of Lord Capital Management

To start off the discussion, Goyne came right out of the gate stating that if an advisers’s firm manages less than $75 million in AUM, they can’t afford to stay in business with all the impending regulations coming.

On their approach to integration:
Adkins has a saying, “We can’t make that much baklava.” Each December his firm would make client gift baskets that included baklava, but as the number of client grew, they just couldn’t make all the baklava. He used that same analogy with firms running without integrated technology.

Adkins also postured, “We don’t make money clicking keys,” stressing the importance that while technology makes certain things capable, advisers must remember that the success of their business is contingent on maintaining connections with clients and not being buried in technology.

On Custodian Integration:
Lee’s firm is 100% Fidelity, Adkin’s firm is approximately 90% on Fidelity, and Goyne’s firm is all on Fidelity with the exception of bank assets.

On Regulatory Reform:
Adkines: Regulators seem to be more comfortable with advisers using cloud systems, knowing that it improves business continuity and leverages security policies of the hosting providers.

Lee’s firm went through an SEC audit six months ago months ago and easily satisfied the SEC’s data requests with their paperless environment.
Goyne cautioned that if advisers are going to fund the SEC examination budget of ~$1 billion, extrapolated across about 8,000 advisers, each firm’s share will be about $121,000. He predicts it’s going to become very expensive to be an RIA in the future.

That’s it for the Fidelity panel session. Please be sure to check back with us for more updates.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 18

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in Bits & Bytes

We’re attending the T3 Conference as you read this (follow the Twitter backchannel under #T32011), but through the magic of the Internet we’re able to post our week in review of all things tech in financial planning.

This week’s stories of interest start out with the recent request by the SEC to review advisers’ use of social media:

SEC Wants To Follow You On Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube… at Forbes.com

(Bill’s comment: Reporter Halah Touryalai raises the fair point that the SEC might have better issues to tackle than to babysit advisers’ social media profiles. But such is the consequence of the regulatory enviroment to which advisers are subject. All it takes are a few tweets from fraudulent advisers to ruin it for everyone. Can you imagine “RT @bernardmadoff: Just one week left to enroll in our 8% monthly guarantee fund. Accredited investors only please!“)

File this one under: “There Are Better Things The SEC Can Be Doing.” Financial advisors’ online activity on social media websites is being scrutinized by the SEC, according to a compliance consulting firm and a report in Investment News.

FINRA to Look at Social Media–Again at Financial Advisor Magazine

The issue of how to deal with social media isn’t going away for regulators of the securities industry.

CRM systems for the big guys from InvestmentNews.com

For larger advisory firms, choosing the right CRM system is like selecting the right marriage partner.

TradeWarrior and AssetBook Announce Integration Partnership at Marketwire.com

TradeWarrior and AssetBook are pleased to announce an integration between their software programs. The integration partnership between the two companies will provide AssetBook users access to TradeWarrior’s powerful rebalancing and trading capabilities. This integration marks the first 3rd party rebalancing integration available to AssetBook users.

T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Redtail Leapfrog CRM

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Bill Winterberg in General

Next up in the T3 pre-conference sessions featured Redtail Technologies CRM with Tim Minert, Director of Sales and Chris Roberts.

Roberts demonstrated Redtail’s refreshed Leapfrog CRM (Bill’s note: I’m sentimental to the “Leapfrog” name, having spent 8 years in software engineering for the educational toy company) to the standing room only crowd and commented that “most” of what was shown will be included in a release scheduled around March 1.

Redtail has been moving its database over to SQL 2008, which Roberts says increases the overall speed of Redtail CRM, making it “lightning quick.”

For those advisers who use Redtail’s hosted email, the company is migrating to email hosting from Zimbra, further strengthening the reliability and uptime of the hosted email system (Yahoo! Mail uses Zimbra, according to Roberts).

One nice feature of Leapfrog is the new calendar which looks, feels, and functions much like Google Calendar. The company significantly refreshed the CRM’s layout and navigation menus. One enhancement that drew “oohs” from the audience was the ability to use text and/or email reminders for outstanding tasks. Roberts said this alert feature will come later in the year, as the text option requires hardware purchases by the company.

Leapfrog is Internet browser agnostic, and according to Roberts, Leapfrog runs the fastest on Chrome, then Safari, and the slowest on Internet Explorer.

One final captivating announcement is Redtail’s plans for a “Workflow Exchange.” Advisers who design their workflows can publish them to the exchange and share them with other Redtail users and vice-versa.

That’s it for the Redtail session. Please be sure to check back with us for more updates.

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