Tag Archives: Arkovi

FPPad Tech Tour: Advisor fintech veteran Blane Warrene

We left Charlotte, North Carolina behind and hit the road for Raleigh Durham, where we connected with Blane Warrene at the American Tobacco Campus. Blane’s involvement in financial services technology came quite by accident, so I asked him to tell me more about that over a cold glass of lemonade.

(Watch FPPad Tech Tour Season 1 Episode 3 with Blane Warrene on YouTube)

FPPad Tech Tour is brought to you by the following Back Stage Sponsors:
Envestnet|Tamarac: http://www.tamaracinc.com
Orion Advisor Services: http://www.orionadvisor.com
Redtail Technology: http://corporate.redtailtechnology.com

CHAPTER MARKERS:
0:08 FPPad Tech Tour Intro
0:44 What’s your back story?
3:10 Why are you an advocate for financial advisors?
4:30 Was Arkovi created intentionally, or was it a happy accident?
6:16 What happened after RegEd acquired Arkovi?
7:03 Why do you focus on cybersecurity issues for advisors?
8:34 What are you looking to do in your future?
9:58 Tell me something advisors don’t know about you.
11:04 AWESOME FLASHBACK PHOTOS!!!
11:57 Support for the Foundation for Financial Planning
13:29 Could I interest you in a music throwdown?

 

The 5 Best Podcasts of 2013 for Financial Advisers

Subscribe and listen to the five best podcasts for financial advisers

Subscribe and listen to the five best podcasts for financial advisers

Note for September 2014: Like technology, podcasts change and get updated. Look for a new article covering the Best Podcasts of 2014 for Financial Advisers!

Here are the five best podcasts of 2013 featuring content specific for financial advisers

Few will argue that the amount of content online for financial advisers is exploding.

There are dozens of websites from traditional print publications that run digital editions of their magazines as well as online-only content.

Then there are several dozen more blogs and niche sites covering a wide range of topics relevant to financial advisers (with the top site being Michael Kitces’ Nerd’s Eye View blog*)

Podcasts for Financial Advisers are Rare

But one media format with just a handful of “publishers” is the podcast.

Sure, there are many podcasts with consumer-oriented content, featuring personal finance advice on how to pay down debt, reduce fees on investments, diversify a portfolio, and more. Many of these podcasts are excellent, but they don’t include content that addresses the issues concerning financial advisers and operating an advisory business.

The number of podcasts being created with content exclusive for the financial adviser audience is extremely small. Like less than ten.

Five Best Podcasts for Financial Advisers

With so few podcasts being created for financial advisers, how will you discover those with content applicable to your needs?

The answer is in my list of the five best podcasts for financial advisers!

But wait, why just five? Because that is exactly the number of active podcasts (with activity over the past year) to which I subscribe that I know produce content specifically for the financial adviser audience.

So here is my personally curated list of the five best podcasts for financial advisers, free and clear of irritating pageview-increasing slideshow gimmicks! (You can thank me by sharing this list with your friends.)

Pre-List Bonus: FPPad Technology Podcast

FPPad Podcast

First, let me first start off with a pre-list bonus, because I have a horse in this race, too. If you don’t already know, audio and video content from FPPad is available as a podcast on iTunes.

So if you’re not yet subscribed, subscribe now!

But why subscribe on iTunes if you can get the content on FPPad.com?

Because in the Podcasts app on your iOS device, you can download content for listening or viewing when you’re offline or away from a strong broadband connection. Also, the Podcasts app lets you increase the playback speed of content, so you can get your five-minute weekly technology update finished in just over three-and-a-half minutes! Now that’s an instant productivity boost of 33%!

1. Social Media Minute Podcast by RegEd

Social Media Minute by RegEd podcast

The Social Media Minute Podcast by RegEd is the best podcast for advisers seeking information on all things related to social media. Blane Warrene is host and producer of the Social Media Minute Podcast and does an excellent job addressing the timely issues surrounding the social media landscape.

As Senior Vice President of Customer Communications at RegEd, Warrene knows his stuff on social media. Sure, the content helps build awareness of RegEd’s social media compliance and content products, and that’s partly the point. But know that this podcast is all about deepening the conversation around financial advisers and social media and is NOT a blatant product promotion.

2. AdvisorToday.com’s Building a More Successful Practice by NAIFA

advisor today podcast

NAIFA, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, publishes a new podcast once every two months with a variety of content centered around practice management and business building ideas.

Occasionally the content addresses issues in the insurance marketplace, such as disability income policy sales and long-term-care insurance updates, but many of the podcasts feature interviews with advisers and insurance agents discussing strategies they have implemented to grow their business and enhance client service.

Subscribe to the AdvisorToday.com podcast now as six episodes per year will not fill up your “to-be-listened-to” playlist, and your odds of learning a good business-building idea are pretty good.

3. Journal of Financial Planning Podcasts

Journal of Financial Planning podcasts

The award-winning Journal of Financial Planning has been in print for over 30 years, and just over three years ago the publication started creating podcast content around many of its featured articles and authors.

The Journal of Financial Planning Podcast Page is somewhat of a best-kept-secret, since there is one simple icon on the navigation menu of the website home page, but each print article featuring additional podcast content directs readers to the website to listen to more information.

Journal of Financial Planning Podcasts are centered around the “10 Questions” interview features, giving readers a chance to hear from authors, financial planners, and thought leaders in the industry (self-promotion warning: I was interviewed in February 2013).

While not directly available as an iTunes podcast, you can still manually download and then drag and drop audio files to your media player of choice to listen offline, at the gym, or during your commute.

4. AdvisorPod Practice Builders by Securities America, Inc.

Advisorpod podcasts

Securities America, Inc. is a broker-dealer that walks-the-walk on practice management advice. Not only does the company urge its reps to be more active with client outreach and marketing initiatives, Securities America publishes these podcasts for advisers to back up what they say.

Led by Kirk Hulett, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Practice Management, AdvisorPod releases monthly updates on a wide range of practice management tips, including outreach to CPAs and other COI individuals, retaining relationships through family transitions, mobile app reviews and more.

5. Build Online Influence with Stephanie Sammons
Build Online Influence podcasts

Build Online Influence is a podcast from Stephanie Sammons, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor. Wired Advisor is a professional blogging platform for financial advisers and business professionals.

In Build Online Influence, Sammons reviews techniques financial advisers can use to increase their profile and brand recognition through the use of social media. Several of her podcasts include interviews with financial advisers who have created a large audience of people interested in financial planning (i.e. prospective clients) through their social media activity. Build Online Influence attempts to reveal what strategies work (and those that don’t) to help advisers compete in a social marketplace that is getting more crowded each day.

While Build Online Influence hasn’t been updated since January 2013, I know that Sammons is still active in her work with advisers, so I trust that a listing here in my top five podcasts for financial advisers will be enough motivation for her to pick up where she left off! Perhaps a tweet or two to Sammons wouldn’t hurt, either!

Who Would You Include?

There you have it! My top five podcasts of content created just for you, the successful financial adviser.

Inevitably, I likely missed a handful of other podcasts out there publishing outstanding content for the financial adviser audience. Tell me which ones I missed in the comments below, and hopefully with enough submissions, I can double the list to include the ten best podcasts for financial advisers.

But first, I want podcasts with business building ideas, technology coverage, practice management ideas and so on. Podcasts with economic commentary, stock picking ideas, or investment-centric content can be curated by someone else!

So tell me what podcasts I missed in the comments below, send me a tweet, or email me offline.

Audience Additions

Here are some of the podcasts recommended by readers since this article was posted on November 25, 2013.

*2013 top blogs according to the Zywave 2013 Top News and Blog Sites for Advisors Survey.

FPPad Bits and Bytes June 7

No more planes, trains, and automobiles! No I'm back to give you the best in tech from the past three weeks.

No more planes, trains, and automobiles! Now I’m back to give you the best in tech from the past three weeks.

First, don’t forget to register for Tuesday’s free webinar on adviser technology. Head on over to InvestmentNews.com now.

Now this is an extended Bits and Bytes, covering the past three weeks of news and making up for my business/vacation trip out to the West Coast.

For your convenience and efficiency, I split this week’s updates among their respective categories, so you can use the links below to jump to areas of interest.

Here are the best stories of interest from the last three weeks:

Compliance

Smarsh Survey Reveals New Phase in Evolution of Communications Oversight from Smarsh.com

[Smarsh, the provider of email and social media archiving solutions, recently released its annual Electronic Communications Compliance Survey that has all sorts of nuggets around compliance. If you offer your contact information, you can download the report for free. Inside you’ll find insights like the gap between social media use and actually archiving messages and details on mobile device security (or lack thereof).]  Smarsh, the leading provider of hosted archiving and compliance solutions for email and electronic communications, today released its third annual Electronic Communications Compliance Survey Report at FINRA’s 2013 Annual Conference. While challenges surrounding the oversight and retention of electronic communications remain widespread, this year’s study reveals that compliance professionals in financial services are more comfortable with the “new normal” of greater regulatory scrutiny, evolving communications tools and more complexity in the demands around email surveillance.

CRM

Live Junxure Cloud Demos Now Available from Junxure.com

[Curious what Junxure Cloud looks like? Demos are now available through Junxure, with five live demo sessions offered through June. Click over to their announcement and the link to join the demo sessions is at the bottom of the announcement.] Just announced! This June, Junxure will begin offering a series of live demonstrations of Junxure Cloud™, its highly anticipated cloud-based CRM solution for financial advisors.

Redtail and goalgamiPro make a data connection from InvestmentNews.com

[You should know both Redtail and goalgamiPro well from past FPPad coverage (see Yes, you can create financial plans in eight minutes). Now the two companies have integrated their products, saving you time when logging in and passing data from Redtail to goalgamiPro.] The latest example, and one that might end up being a good fit for a large number of advisers, at least those that do financial planning, is the integration of goalgamiPro with the popular customer relationship management application from Redtail Technologies.

Social Media

BloombergBlack Review: This Is Not The Disruptor You’re Looking For from I heart Wall Street

[Here is a VERY comprehensive look at BloombergBlack, the latest attempt at a “robo-adviser” online advice platform. Bottom line: behind the mystery and mystique of a premium brand, BloombergBlack lacks the real power and potential of big data and proactive alerts of online platforms. Read the full review for all of the insight.] When I first shared the news with Josh Brown about BloombergBlack (behind the scenes) it created a much bigger stir than I ever anticipated, especially inside of the wealth management industry.

Twitter Offers Bigger Opportunities with Lists Update from Arkovi.com

[If you are starting to get overwhelmed by the number of people you follow on Twitter, lists are an ideal way to organize people on a variety of filters. Lists allow you to sort the people you follow by whatever label or criteria you wish, saving you from the firehose of tweets found on your main timeline.] For active Twitter users, building lists is an easy way to organize friends, colleagues, brands and influencers online.

Practice Management

Pershing Launches Online Practice Management Center for Advisors from Pershing.com

[This is the next wave in value-add resources that custodians are beginning to deliver to their advisers. I would expect similar offerings from the other major custodians if they don’t already do this today (I just can’t keep all of their value-add resources straight in my head!). But what is really offered at Pershing’s site? This is essentially an aggregated website of about 100 of Pershing’s research and white papers published to date. So if you are looking for tips on using your tablet or getting proactive follow up reminders from your CRM, you will need to look elsewhere (aka FPPad!).] Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, today unveiled its new Practice Management Center, a comprehensive resource that offers Pershing’s clients practice management-related content in one user-friendly, central location. In response to client demand, advisors will now have quick access to all of Pershing’s family of practice management materials, including more than 100 pieces of thought leadership, whitepapers, guidebooks and interactive tools on-demand.

3 Great Apps That Will Change Your Life from Financial-Planning.com

[Shortcut: the apps are Penultimate, Evernote, and Nozbe. What are my three “life-changing” apps? 1. PlainText: I don’t write notes with a stylus. Handwritten notes aren’t searchable. So instead I type, and this freemium app syncs all my entries with my Dropbox account. 2. Dropbox: While it’s not the gold standard in cloud file storage (see: Dropbox for Financial Advisers: Is it Safe? Secure?), it’s one of the best integrated services out there, including support for my PlainText notes. 3. Workflowy: Like PlainText, this is a super simple app I use to organize lists and todos. Expand and contract lists at will to see the entire universe or just one specific topic. It, too, syncs with Dropbox for backup.] To increase this understanding and to communicate your insights effectively, you need get yourself, your information and your insights organized. Here are three great app’s to help you get your tech stuff together like never before.

General Technology

Leaving Behind the Digital Keys to Financial Lives from NYTimes.com

[This article scratches the surface of what is becoming a much more significant issue as so much of our financial lives move to online services. I even struggle with this issue personally, as I maintain all of the online accounts for our household, and my wife isn’t all too familiar with the “system” I use. As a planner, you clearly have an opportunity to help clients not only organize their online finances, but also ensure that access to online information is available for all those who need it.] Bob Gingberg, a retired production manager for an educational publisher, is worried that he does not know any of the logins and passwords for online accounts belonging to his partner or brother and they do not know his.

Bill Winterberg: The 2013 IA 25 Extended Profile from AdvisorOne.com

[Once again, it was quite a surprise to receive a phone call from Joyce Hanson of Investment Advisor magazine calling to inform me that I had been selected into the IA 25 list of influential people in the financial services industry. I am honored and humbled, and will continue to deliver as much premium information about technology in this industry to you, my loyal readers and subscribers!] Bill Winterberg, a certified financial planner with a bullish view on the future of technology in the advisor space, describes himself as squarely positioned in the Gen X/Gen Y demographic.

Personal Capital Closes $25 Million In Series C Funding For Online Wealth Management Platform from TechCrunch

[After raising another $25 million, Personal Capital has attracted $52.3 million in funding to support a team of 70 employees managing a collective asset base just shy of $200 million across 700 clients. That’s roughly $285,000 for the average client. So with $52 million raised, I get a raw cost of client acquisition of $74,174, not including any spending derived from Personal Capital’s revenue earned to date. BUT, as Harris mentions, it may still be very early to evaluate the company’s growth soak critically, as this trend toward online advice platforms may have another 10 or 15 years ahead of it. Still, that is a long time to wait for any return on investment for many of the early investors.] When many people hear “wealth management,” they think of elite advisors meeting old money clients at the country club, or decades-old firms with big names such as Fidelity or Schwab. But in the years ahead, one Silicon Valley startup is aiming to shake up that establishment — and just has raised a nice chunk of new funding to help.

Ex-PayPal CEO to hire 100 in Denver for latest venture from BizJournals.com

[So what’s Personal Capital going to do with its new $25 million? Open up an office in Denver, CO and hire 100 financial advisers.] Bill Harris, the former CEO of PayPal and Intuit, tells the Silicon Valley Business Journal he intends to establish a Denver office for his latest company and hire 100 financial advisers.

Pershing Previews Its Next-Generation Mobile Application at INSITE™ 2013 from Pershing.com

[Pershing gets another update this week due to their conference-related announcements. The company previewed changes coming to its NetX360 mobile apps designed to run on iOS, Windows, and Android platforms. Nope, no Blackberry app for the 30 of you who have visited FPPad since the beginning of 2013!] Pershing LLC, a BNY Mellon company, is previewing its next generation mobile solution for investment professionals today at the INSITE™ 2013 conference in Hollywood, Florida. The new version features a fully redesigned, sleek user interface and a variety of features aimed at making advisors more efficient and productive in their everyday activities.

Pershing unveils next NetX360 from InvestmentNews.com

[Alright, I’ll stop at three updates related to Pershing, but despite its dry title, InvestmentNews tech reporter Davis Janowski does a good job describing some of the adviser-of-the-future technology on display at INSITE 2013. He highlights voice recognition inside NetX360 that can respond to a variety of report commands. Now controlling NetX360 by voice while driving is a bit of a stretch for me, but it at least gets the point home. But here’s my hangup; I have trouble using Siri to send texts to family while driving, what makes me think I’ll be successful at performing data queries in NetX360? So, there’s obviously wow factor here, but true utility? I’m on the fence. So can custodians start with truly paperless account application and approval processes first, for example, which will translate to actual efficiency gains in your office? Thanks.] Ram Nagappan, Pershing LLC’s chief information officer, is something of a visionary. Not only does he love technology for technology’s sake — he gets positively giddy showing off new things — he loves applying it to improve business processes.

How Do I Know If My VPN Is Trustworthy? from Lifehacker.com

[I talk about VPN services to help keep passwords and login credentials safe from prying hackers (see How to secure mobile devices against “WiFi honeypots”). But when your credentials pass through a VPN, how safe are they? This Lifehacker update gives some good rules of thumb when evaluating the security of your VPN provider.] You do have to trust that your VPN service provider has your best interests at heart, because you’re relying on them to secure your connection, keep everything encrypted, and to protect your activity from prying eyes.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 15

Before I kick off this week’s top stories, here’s a quick and easy resource to use to see how strong your password is against a brute-force attack. Click the image to visit http://howsecureismypassword.net/

Note: You should probably avoid typing your real password into this program. Instead, use a close approximation!

Rate your password's strength at howsecureismypassword.net

Rate your password’s strength at howsecureismypassword.net

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

Social Media Minute Podcast by RegEd: LinkedIn Skill Endorsements from RegEd.com

[In this seven-minute podcast, RegEd’s Blane Warrene addresses issues with LinkedIn Recommendations and Endorsements. It’s a good overview for those dipping a toe in LinkedIn and a good refresher for social media pros.] A rapidly trending topic continues to be LinkedIn Skills Endorsements. They are a much more gray area than Recommendations as it pertains to being classified as testimonials under SEC guidelines for the financial services industry.

Microsoft Eyes “Advisor in a Box” Solution for Windows 8 from Financial-Planning.com

[Why am I such a skeptic when it comes to Microsoft products these days? Who knows more about meeting the specific needs and demands of today’s financial planning and wealth management client? You, or Redmond’s Mister Softee? However, I’m more optimistic of a partnership like the ones identified with Envestnet|Tamarac, because they do know a thing or two about what advisers need.] Thomas E. Feher, the financial services industry director for Microsoft’s U.S. Dynamics Industry Team, said Microsoft has already partnered with several “industry partners,” including Envestnet|Tamarac and Salientia to provide CRM solutions to advisors through the Windows 8 platform. But, he said, the next step is a preloaded package of tools and services specifically tailored for each advisor on the Windows 8 platform.

Orion Mail is Live from OrionAdvisor.com

[You heard about Orion Mail from both Eric Clarke (see: Salesforce, powered by Orion Connect, gets phone system integration and smarter email reports) and Jon Reiners (see: TD Ameritrade’s open technology helps push Orion Advisor Services over the $100 billion in platform assets mark). Now the feature is live for Orion’s 300 clients and was being demoed on the floor of T3 this past week. Orion’s blog has a 90-second sneak peek video of the new feature.] Orion Mail enables advisors to create custom email templates that communicate account information to clients quickly and easily.

Bill Winterberg’s Technology Planning Tips for Financial Advisors from AdvisorWebsites.com

[Advisor Websites contacted me a few weeks ago to capture some of my best technology ideas for new gadgets, video content, and software integration.] Recently we were lucky enough to sit down with Bill Winterberg and pick his brain about the changing industry and what he expects will be key, vital factors when it comes to technology for financial professionals in 2013.

How Blueleaf sees itself taming the RIA’s two betes noire — and how it is being challenged on that from RIABiz.com

[You’ve known about Blueleaf since mid-2011, right (see: FPPad and Blueleaf Partner to Deliver Adviser Technology Content)? And plus, I interviewed Blueleaf founder John Prendergast in February 2012 (see: Video Spotlight: John Prendergast of Blueleaf discusses experimentation and challenging assumptions). Here, RIABiz covers the “dead simple” portfolio reporting provider (important distinction: it’s NOT portfolio management!) in a well-balanced article.] Blueleaf founder, John Prendergast, comes by this start-up honestly in the sense that it arose out of a need he heard expressed by friends. He exudes a teflon confidence that is a much a part of this article as anything else.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for January 18

Ethan Eden, founder and CEO of Market76

Ethan Eden, founder and CEO of Market76

This week’s FPPad On Air guest is Ethan Eden, founder and CEO of Market76, and we’ll cover what’s new in CRM software and how his company’s product is different from the traditional systems with which advisers are familiar.

You can view the broadcast on the FPPad On Air page beginning at 4:15pm ET or get the link through my Twitter feed.

Here are this week’s stories of interest:

RegEd Expands Social Media Archiving and Surveillance Solution with a Content Library and Multiple Lexicons Continuing its Leadership in Compliance Technology from Arkovi.com

[Here are two solutions to the age-old question on social media: what should you post, and how do you keep posts compliant? First, RegEd now offers a library of pre-approved content suitable for social media (for those of you who constantly have a broker-dealer staring over your social media shoulder) and a broader range of words and phrases the program uses to scan social medial posts for potential compliance issues. What’s not to like?] RegEd, the leader of compliance technology in the financial services industry, announced today two major features, the social media content library and multiple-lexicons, as part of their Social Media Archiving and Surveillance solution, powered by Arkovi.

12 key events of 2012 that rocked the RIA technology landscape, Part 1 from RIABiz.com

[In what essentially represents a top 12 list (Part 1 has 6 items) of tech related RIABiz stories of 2012, contributor Lisa Shidler recaps some of the major and minor trends that will no doubt play a growing role in how advisers manage and grow their business.]  Our identification of big technology events that happened in the past year starts with Salesforce, Junxure, Techfi, NetX360, IAS and MoneyGuidePro. As we move toward number one in our second installment, the names in many cases become less familiar, not more so, which indicates just how fast RIA technology is moving.

Podcasts for Financial Advisers: How to record, publish, and syndicate podcast content

Podcasting isn’t for everyone, but financial advisers who include podcasts in their marketing collateral can score points with prospective clients.

In this FPPad On Air broadcast, I connected with Blane Warrene, senior vice president of client communications for RegEd, to talk about how advisers can record, publish, and syndicate their own podcasts.

In the broadcast, Warrene mentioned tools such as Audacity, Garage Band, and Blubrry advisers can use to get started with podcasting.

Be sure to subscribe to the Social Media Minute podcast on iTunes (and the FPPad podcast as well!)

(click to view on YouTube)

ArchiveSocial delivers authentic social media capture for financial advisers

When you get asked by the SEC, FINRA, or your broker-dealer for the last six months of your social media posts, what are you going to provide? How will your auditor make heads or tails out of your social media posts if they look nothing like the ones posted on public sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter?

Anil Chawla, founder and CEO of ArchiveSocial

One company wants to simplify the way social media messages are captured and displayed, giving advisers peace of mind knowing their archives can be reviewed easily by auditors.

That company is ArchiveSocial, and I recently connected with ArchiveSocial founder and CEO Anil Chawla to learn more about how they capture social media updates in what Chawla calls their “natural, authentic form.”

Click here to learn more about ArchiveSocial’s solutions for financial services.

In the podcast below, hear Chawla discuss the drawbacks of several existing solutions from vendors, the benefits of a “carbon copy” approach to archives, and an overview of ArchiveSocial pricing.

If you decide to purchase a full-year subscription, you can save 10% by using the code FPPAD12 (not an affiliate code).

RegEd announces agreement to acquire Arkovi: What financial advisers need to know

This morning, compliance and risk management solutions provider RegEd announced an agreement to acquire social media archiving vendor Arkovi.

Click here to view the full press release RegEd Announces Agreement to Acquire Arkovi, the Award-Winning Financial Services Provider of Social Media Archiving and Surveillance.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

To get more details on the announcement, I invited RegEd CEO John Schobel and Arkovi CEO Blane Warrene to a Google+ Hangout. Below is the replay of that Hangout so you can hear from each company’s CEO about the acquisition and respective plans for the future.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for June 22

Woah, who turned on the firehose of releases this week? Maybe everyone wants to get all their news out to the world before taking off for summer vacations.

So I don’t interfere with your vacation plans, let’s move right into week’s stories of interest:

Schwab Performance Technologies Announces Development of Hosted Version of PortfolioCenter from MarketWire

[My Twitter followers found out Monday morning of Schwab’s latest plans to offer a hosted version of PortfolioCenter to advisers. Getting portfolio management software off of your local server is one of the last hurdles to cross in transitioning your business into one that can operate completely in the cloud.] Schwab Performance Technologies® (SPT), a subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corporation and a leading provider of technology solutions for independent investment advisors, announced today that the company is building a hosted version of its flagship portfolio management software for independent investment advisors.

Schwab Announces Availability of 28 New Workflows for Independent Investment Advisors from MarketWire

[My vision for workflows is an online exchange advisers can upload and download workflow scripts for specific CRMs. Well, that assumes CRMs can import and export workflow scripts, which most can’t do, not even Salesforce, if I remember correctly. Until then, advisers will have to settle for “pseudo-code,” i.e. a high-level description, of what steps to follow in a workflow, delivered in a PDF or Word document. And that’s exactly what Schwab Intelligent Technologies is delivering.] In order to help advisors gain greater efficiency in their business practices, Charles Schwab announced today that a full library of 28 universal workflows are now available in the Schwab OpenView Workflow Library(TM) (Workflow Library) through Schwab Intelligent Technologies.

Cloud version of Junxure on the way from InvestmentNews

[Junxure Essentials is coming, well, soon, and we don’t yet know how much it will cost. Last year, August 24, 2011 to be exact, I relayed the company’s plans to release a cloud-based version of Junxure in Q4 2012. According to CRM Software’s Greg Friedman, now plans are to launch a beta version in the fall with general availability in 2013. Building this is not easy, and Junxure’s only going to get one chance, in my opinion, to get this right. Oh, and if you made it this far, Junxure posted a sneak peek of Joel Bruckenstein’s review from the Technology Tools for Today newsletter.] Junxure, a CRM application popular among registered investment advisers, is heading to the clouds.

Smarsh Acquires AdvisorSquare from Symantec from MarketWatch

[If you archive websites (see Smarsh releases Web Archiving, an automated solution to archive adviser websites), you might as well support the creation of them in the first place. Here Smarsh announces the acquisition of AdvisorSquare and their website support for “thousands of investment professionals nationwide.” I stopped recommending AdvisorSquare to my clients back in 2009. Will Smarsh’s investment reverse my opinion of their product and service?] Smarsh(R), the managed service leader in secure, innovative and reliable email archiving and compliance solutions, today announced the acquisition of AdvisorSquare from Symantec.

Junxure Launches Blog for Financial Industry from PRNewswire

[Junxure, a top-three CRM in use by advisers, now has a public blog. I contacted Junxure president Greg Friedman and asked that he set up an RSS feed with Feedburner to offer a few more flexible options for visitors to subscribe.] Junxure, an industry-leading CRM practice improvement firm that integrates technology, consulting, and training, has launched its Company blog at www.junxure.com/blog. The new Junxure blog will primarily focus on topics related to the financial industry, from technology trends to industry best practices. In addition, the Junxure blog will report important news and updates about its products and services.

 AssetBook and BlazePortfolio Announce Strategic Partnership to Deliver End-to-End Back Office Solution for Investment Advisors from BlazePortfolio

[Managing portfolios for your clients means more than just downloading and reconciling account positions. You also need a tool that scales your ability to place trades. Here’s a good development between trade order management provider BlazePortfolio and  online portfolio service bureau Assetbook (see AssetBook CEO Rob Major discusses advantages of hiring an outsourced portfolio service bureau.] BlazePortfolio Systems  and AssetBook today announced an integration partnership between software platforms which would provide AssetBook users access to BlazePortfolio’s real-time trade order management system, Atom Align.  The combined offering will provide enhanced flexibility for registered investment advisors who are seeking a best of breed approach to manage their portfolio management systems.

YouTube Integration Reflects Growing Use of Video as Social Tool for Business from Arkovi.com

[You no doubt have noticed the addition of video content here at FPPad. You’re likely considering making videos of your own (if not already) to feature your business. But any video you post is marketing material, and is therefore subject to the same capture and archive requirements in FINRA and SEC regulations. So how do you archive videos you post to popular hosting sites like YouTube? One option is Arkovi’s extended solution.]  Arkovi announced today at the Morningstar Investment Conference a new integration with YouTube, continuing a series of major releases on its social media archiving, compliance and monitoring platform. The YouTube integration includes a number of key features including publishing, compliance and supervision, reporting and search features.

Black Diamond’s Clientele Swells After Advent Merger from WealthManagement.com

[A little more than a year after being acquired by Advent for $73 million, Black Diamond continues its healthy growth. What I’d like to know from you is what has (or has not) changed with respect to the customer service you receive.] Not every advisor was pleased in May 2011 when Advent Software announced it was buying its smaller, younger rival, Black Diamond Performance Reporting.

See, I told you there were a ton of new updates this week!

Kitces: Eleven blogs for all financial advisers to follow from InvestmentNews

[It’s a privilege to have FPPad included among excellent blogs you should follow. I hope you continue to enjoy the Video Spotlight and Bits & Bytes content produced for you.] While there are many lists of blogs out there, financial planning’s own social media “power tweeter” Michael Kitces, partner and director of research for Pinnacle Advisory Group and publisher of The Kitces Report and his own blog, Nerd’s Eye View, maintains a list of blogs specifically relevant for financial advisors.