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FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 11

Posted on March 11, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

Bill’s recovery from last week’s illness has been slow, so progress on projects at FPPad headquarters has been incremental this week. Nevertheless, we’ve made sure to scour the industry’s top sources of technology related articles for the financial planning community.

Here are this week’s top stories:

Socialware Joins with LinkedIn to Unlock Social Media for Financial Services from Socialware.com

Socialware, the leader in social media compliance and engagement, today announced an exciting relationship with LinkedIn that will enable financial services organizations and professionals to access the extensive networking, marketing and research capabilities available on LinkedIn while remaining compliant with SEC, FINRA, IROC, FSA and state regulations on electronic communication.

Eavesdropping on the FPA Business Solutions conference: Mobile apps, web-based marketing — and how you can make the most of the connected world from RIABiz.com

Fittingly located near MIT, the FPA Business Solutions 2011 conference had a technology bent in an agenda jam-packed with business and practice management content.

Best Minds Converge in Boston from ByrnesConsulting.com

Mike Byrnes of Byrnes Consulting published six articles and photo reviews of last week’s FPA Business Solutions 2011 Conference. Our favorites are Six Technology Tips From The FPA Conference and Social Media Compliance Is A Gray Area

Giant of the broker-dealer tech world takes aim at Advent at RIABiz.com

(Bill’s note: If you’re a big (>$500m AUM) firm that seeks an elite portfolio management platform, here’s one worth considering.) Vestmark, which provides the technology behind big name companies like LPL Financial and UBS, is taking its time-tested platform directly to RIAs.

And finally, this month’s technology column from Morningstar Advisor, New Trends in Tech at T3.

 

 

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FamilyOfficeNetwork, David Lawrence Form New Practice Network

Posted on March 7, 2011 by in General

We received an email message this morning announcing a new partnership between FamilyOfficeNetwork, a client document vault provider and David Lawrence, owner of the Efficient Practice consulting firm, both based in San Diego, Calif.

Both entities have now formed a new company called Global Practice Network.

Here’s a brief description of the new network’s objectives from their email message:

Together we are providing a resource-rich platform to increase the efficiency and profitability of your firm. Backed by a team of experts, we can enhance your operational efficiency, your support systems, and your people, helping you fit the pieces of your practice together seamlessly.

For more information on the new company, you can visit either website linked above.

We want to congratulate Peter Wheeler, Aaron Pickett, David Lawrence, and the rest of the GPN team on their new endeavor and look forward to seeing them soon at upcoming events!

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FPPad Bits and Bytes for March 4

Posted on March 4, 2011 by 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.

 

 

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Slide Deck: Best Practices When Using Social Media for FPA Business Solutions 2011

Posted on March 3, 2011 by in Practice Management

Due to illness, Bill was not able to travel to FPA Business Solutions 2011 this week. He prepared a short slide deck for today’s panel session titled Best Practices When Using Social Media.

We’re posting the slide deck below so you can enjoy a few tips Bill recommends for advisors seeking to gauge the efficacy of their social media efforts (iPad users click here to open on SlideShare.com). Please send us your comments and feedback!

Best Practices When Using Social Media for FPA Business Solutions 2011

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Change of Plans for FPA Business Solutions 2011 Live Blog Updates

Posted on March 2, 2011 by 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.

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FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 25

Posted on February 25, 2011 by 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:

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.

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Google Cloud Connect: Could This Be The End of File Servers?

Posted on February 24, 2011 by in General

We typically don’t publish new posts to FPPad minutes after seeing interesting tweets, but this information is making the rounds quickly today.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/googledocs/status/40846653866901504″]

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Here’s the 2:21 video (embedded below) describing how Google Cloud Connect works. This will be the way we’ll all work in a few short years.

Why buy expensive, costly, and vulnerable file servers when cloud storage exists? Yes, yes, we hear you crying out

But is it secure?!? Is it bad (and potentially a compliance violation) to put clients’ personally identifiable information into the Google Cloud?

I trust those questions will be answered in time.

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What to Expect at FPA Business Solutions 2011

Posted on February 23, 2011 by 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″]

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Download the Transformative Technology Presentation Slide Deck from T3 2011

Posted on February 20, 2011 by 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.

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T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Fidelity Integration Panel

Posted on February 18, 2011 by 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.

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