Every business knows that a web site is a critical component of their marketing efforts, and at the same time agrees that keeping their site current is also critical. But many companies are simply unable to do so. They fear the technology, don’t have the time, or don’t feel they will ever see a return for the investment. Our company was founded on the principal that no business should languish online. To that end we created novo, our content management system. And for businesses in almost any industry novo is just what the marketing doctor ordered.

But many companies still feel that full content management is simply too big, too time consuming, or too expensive. At Dovetail we do our best to combat these misconceptions. And to make it even easier, we’re now offering novo in a new hosted option that’s flexible and affordable. Simply put, time to market can be faster, updates can be easier, and a real ROI can be realized.

So if you are looking at a way to get the most out of your website, partner with the experts at Dovetail and find out how you really can have the power to change the way you think about your website.

For more details and to find out how affordable web CMS can be, check out our novo options for small business today.

-- Mike

follow me on Twitter @mikevilla

We’ve seen an increase lately in customers wishing to implement intranets and extranets to improve their internal communications. In today’s challenging times companies can see real ROI on a solid intranet that not only reduces costs but actually improves employee morale and communication.

Here are some thoughts on why having a corporate intranet can be a real benefit to your company.

• Improved internal communications – store information centrally and know that everyone is accessing up-to-date information. Your intranet provides greater version control than shared folders. It is the location for approved pieces (not all the work-in-progress items).
• Increase communication and sharing – by putting best practices and resources in one place you create a more collaborative working environment – both internally and with your customers, vendors, distributors, strategic partners--everyone.
• Secure communications – instead of sending sensitive information, such as price lists, over email, make everything available in one password protected location.
• Improve customer service – when all employees have easy access to the same information, they can answer customer questions more accurately and quickly. Open up some of this information to your customers, and then they can get answers to their questions even faster.
• Reduce paperwork and email traffic – put all your forms in one central location and allow them to be completed online and you reduce the effort of sending these forms by email and printing them out
• Increase productivity, flexibility, accessibility – an intranet is more accessible than a file system or a virtual private network (VPN). With everything in a single location, employees can easily access what they want, when they want. Do employees work from home? Do they travel? Might they be working at night or on the weekend? Your intranet gives them access to whatever they need, whenever they need it.
• Build an online community - an intranet can provide things to organization members that the corporate office alone couldn’t provide, like an anonymous comment box. It can also help foster and create an online community within the organization. For example, the day after the company picnic, you can post pictures of the event.

-- Mike

I can’t seem to go to a meeting these days without the topic of Twitter coming up. Twitter is one of the pioneers of micro-blogging – sending curt (140 character) posts with the goal of answering the question “What are you doing now?”

I’ve been using Twitter myself for over a year as an off-shoot from my Mind of Men podcast. My twitter ID is currently @mindofmen. And I’ve been very successful at using it to stay in touch with friends, follow interesting items, and meet new people along the way. And as a social tool it is really great. However most of the conversations I’ve had about it during business meetings center around trying to understand what the potential value is to using Twitter as a part of their online marketing efforts.

My normal response is simple. People are using Twitter (and other social media outlets like YouTube or Facebook) to converse – to share their opinions. And somewhere, somebody is probably tweeting (posting an update to Twitter) about your company. Could have been that they were on the way to your bank branch, had a great experience ordering online from you, or even perhaps that they weren’t too happy with an experience with your company. Either way there is a conversation going on out there, and by your company joining in you can change the monologue into a dialog.

Just tonight, I received a tweet from Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief for PC Magazine (I’m a follower of his Twitter account @LanceUlanoff) linking to an online article that talks about some big-name companies that are using Twitter in some pretty effective and exciting ways. So if you are interested in exploring a bit check out 10 Corporate Accounts Worth Following on Twitter.

And if you’d like leave a comment here, or send me a tweet, I’d love to have a dialog with you too!

-- Mike

CyberStore 1.7.288 was released today. This release includes:

• Enhanced the Sales Order Review to allow the visitor to search by either their "Customer PO" or the SYSPRO Sales Order Number.
• Fixed an error that happened when doing an "Exact" search on the dealer search page.
• A new control template that can be used to send an email from user input via a form on a customized ecommerce page.
• Enhance the Dealer Search to show the SYSPRO description (CyberStore Name) and SYSPRO long description (CyberStore LongDescription2) instead of the CyberStore Short Description.
• Add a new variable [customerpo] for use in the email body on order confirmation/receipt.
• Enhanced the Dealer Search results for readability move the dealer information into a separate column from the preferred dealer graphic to allow each to be left aligned separately.
• Enhancement to Distributor Search results to allow an administrator to set the maximum number of miles from the visitors starting zip code to show results for.
• Added access to edit the EnableCustomerIDFill web.config variable via the Console > Setup > Catalog Configuration > Auto Fill Leading Zeros on Customer Number.
• Corrected the display of the State field when you select a different address from the On File Address drop down during Account Registration or Checkout. This only effected B2B On File customers who had multiple ship addresses with different states.
• Enhanced session management to avoid the error message "A problem has occured with your session. Please reauthenticate to continue shopping."
• Added a configuration variable to set the taxable status of Miscellaneous charges. This allows CyberStore web promotions to not be taxed as they are added to the SYSPRO sales order as miscellaneous charges.
• Optimized the Common Util Update Item Description function.

What you need to do
To perform the update you will need to download all build versions greater than your installed version, and apply them in order. Update instructions can be found at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=CYBERSTORE_UPGRADE_PROCEDURE. If you do not already have an account for the CyberStore Center, please create one when asked to login.

How to download CyberStore Builds
To obtain the correct builds, confirm your installed version and download all builds numbered greater than your version, and then install them in order. Build files can be downloaded at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=CYBERSTORE_BUILDS.

For details about this release cycle, please check the online release notes at CyberStore Release Notes.

• 02/04/2009 08:30pm - Full service was restored to 100% capacity after Dovetail's ISP completed repairs on the broken fiber line. Subscribers to Dovetail's AVOID Emergency Page Service have switched sites to a normal state.
• 02/04/2009 05:00pm - Dovetail's ISP has located the issue with the fiber optic cable - a kink due to a downed limb from last night's snowstorm. Current estimates puts the repair at 2 hours or 6+ based on the severity of the kink. ISP has promised to update Dovetail within the hour with more solid estimates.
• 02/04/2009 03:24pm - ISP still attempting to successfully splice Dovetail's fiber optic cable. In an attempt to help stabalize web hosting service and provide more pertinant information, Dovetail has forced A.V.O.I.D. to display the maintenance page for all subscribers.
• 02/04/2009 11:45am - ISP attempting to migrate us to a spare pair of fiber optic cables. ISP discovered a break in their fiber splice. If the migration to the spare pair does not work, it should only be a few hours to resplice the broken fiber cable.
• 02/04/2009 9:45am - Spoke with upstream ISP again. Issue appears to be in the fiber optic cable between their facility in downtown Shrewsbury and our hosting facility.
• 02/04/2009 9:00am - Technician determined issue is not ISP equipment in our hosting facility.
• 02/04/2009 8:00am - Spoke with upstream ISP. Technician has been dispatched.
• 02/04/2009 6:00am - Discovered that primary Internet line is down. Logged call with ISP. Discovered that Dovetail VoIP telephone service also affected

Dovetail's hosting services were seemlessly shifted to use our other Internet lines when the issue was detected.  As such, websites may appear to load slower due to increased traffic.

This outage is also impacting Dovetail's Voice over IP (VoIP) office telephones as well.  Though voice mail is still being delivered and responded to via email.

Our engineers are working feverishly to help resolve the issue, for which information will be posted on the network status page at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=NETWORK_STATUS as it is made available.

Thanks for your patience, and we do apologize for this and any inconvenience you or your users may encounter.

You meet. You greet. You talk. You laugh. You learn.

Last week, Joe and I attended the Winter Conference for the New England Financial Marketing Association (NEFMA) in at the Park Plaza in Boston, MA. NEFMA is a dynamic group whose membership is made up primarily of bank and credit union marketers as well as advertising/marketing firms, and bank service providers. Dovetail has maintained a membership for many years and we’ve been actively showing as vendors during their conferences for the last couple of years.

Conferences are held throughout New England annually in the winter, spring and fall. This conference was themed around “New Year, New You!  How to Drive Your Career/Institution to the Top!”

Divided into four sessions, the conference opened with a morning keynote from Dennis Budinich from FTC Methods entitled “The Power of Integrated Leadership: Outrageous Success in a Turbulent World”. During the session Mr. Budinich challenged attendees to keep themselves open to the possibilities of success. "Mindsight is about possibilities! Eye sight is about how we make judgments" in other words, keep your mind open and  your pre-judgments closed so that you are more able to challenge the status quo and succeed!

Breakout sessions provided the opportunity to address challenges by asking “The Marketing Department: Expense or Investment?” and “At What Cost?  Life Coaching to Manage Risk & Reward.”

The afternoon keynote was presented by Joe Sullivan of Market Insights and focused “The Importance of Relevancy and Growth in Today's Financial Climate.” In it we learned the four ways to keep relevant in this (or any) economy.

All in all, the show itself was a bit light in attendance when compared to previous ones we’ve attended. In particular it seemed as though fewer bankers attended, and service providers made up almost half the attendees. But, it was great to meet up with clients and colleagues as well as make new contacts. In many ways I find the programs helpful to gain insight into the challenges being faced by bank marketers, but I find the most value in the conversations that happen during the formal (and informal) networking events. 

Great time. Great program. Great people.

-- Mike

CyberStore 1.7.180 was released today. This release includes:

• Additional enhancements to support the SYSPRO Long Description field in certain controls.
• Solved a database constraint which effects non-unique category names
• Additional enhancement to automatically fill-in leading zeros for the customer number during B2B customer registration.
• Corrected an issue when calculating secondary discounts
• Corrected an issue with web promotions not being properly displayed

What you need to do
To perform the update you will need to download all build versions greater than your installed version, and apply them in order. Update instructions can be found at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=CYBERSTORE_UPGRADE_PROCEDURE. If you do not already have an account for the CyberStore Center, please create one when asked to login.

How to download CyberStore Builds
To obtain the correct builds, confirm your installed version and download all builds numbered greater than your version, and then install them in order. Build files can be downloaded at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=CYBERSTORE_BUILDS.

For details about this release cycle, please check the online release notes at CyberStore Release Notes.

CyberStore 1.7.169 was released today. This release includes:

• Feature enhancements to the search engine allows for categories to now be searched and displayed on a search results page.
• Issues with incorrect rendering of the Navigation menu under certain circumstances has been resolved.

What you need to do
To perform the update you will need to download all build versions greater than your installed version, and apply them in order. Update instructions can be found at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=CYBERSTORE_UPGRADE_PROCEDURE. If you do not already have an account for the CyberStore Center, please create one when asked to login.

How to download CyberStore Builds
To obtain the correct builds, confirm your installed version and download all builds numbered greater than your version, and then install them in order. Build files can be downloaded at http://www.dovetailinternet.com/default.asp?LINKNAME=CYBERSTORE_BUILDS.

For details about this release cycle, please check the online release notes at CyberStore Release Notes.