I found it intersesting that Designers and Developers were more comfortable using Podio than they were using Basecamp. I also agree that Podio can be daunting for inexperienced users. And that is exactly one of the reasons that we created The Academy. We have short 20 minute videos with pdfs that help people learn Podio quickly. Learn more about The Academy here.

Let me give you an example. This isn’t a company I have worked with but just a blog post I read this morning that made me want to blow stuff up.

This doctor was talking about how he attends a lot of meetings, takes notes and then makes action items. He was sharing with us  how he uses 3 different apps to take notes (Draft, Notesy, NvALT), he uses TextExpander with markdown code and hashes to get some structure to this notes and then syncs them with DropBox.

Then he uses Omnifocus, Omni Sync Server, MailDrop Service and a customized email action to manage his tasks.

I read it and I was exhausted by the complexity of it all. But you know what, I see this kind of stuff all day every day. People with good intentions but jumping through hoop after hoop to get their work done.

I shook my head as I was thinking why doesn’t this guy just use Podio? He could do it with two apps in Podio that link to each other and would be so much more seamless. Podio is free for companies less than 5 users who don’t need to have outside users. If he needs outside users, the worst he is looking at is $ 9/month.

First the People app. 2 fields

• Full name
• Contact block (name, company, job title, address, phones, emails)

Next the meeting app. Dead simple with 5 fields.

• The name of the meeting
• The date of the meeting
• A link to the people app to link the people who were at the meeting.
• Background /Reference
• Notes

Here’s the workflow

He goes to the meeting, takes his notes on either his iPad, iPhone, Mac or Android phone in his meeting app in Podio. He adds his tasks as he thinks of them and assigns them to the people he needs to assign them to right from within that item in Podio. Links the meeting up to the people in the people app.

End of story. No syncing stuff up, using different apps and all that Jazz. He can actually just do work instead of futzing around with technology. Imagine that!

But here’s where it get’s interesting. In Podio, because he linked that meeting up to that person, he’ll always have that meeting there and can see every meeting he’s ever had with that person. Also he can assign tasks to people and when people mark them as done, he get’s notified. Whether or not those people work for his company is irrelevant. He can, if he even wants to get more fancy, invite those people into that object on Podio and they can all comment on it. Further if things really heat up, he could create a project app and link it to this meeting and off we go actually getting real work done. Think of the possibilities…I could create if I got inside his company and helped all his staff be that productive. Click here to get a free 45 minute consultation to discuss what we could do for your company. 

Funny, it was actually a Tweet that AJ saw about a conversation on Postbox that instigated the whole thing. Funny how things can me misinterpreted, but end up being a good thing in the end. 

@residualreach doesn't work with @marketcircle Daylite (as far as I know)

— MacJunky (@MacJunky) April 13, 2013

So AJ went over to our site and had a look around. He wanted me to change our website to be more favorable to Daylite again. He had noticed the change in our tone and also noticed that it made it unclear what we offered.

However, I could not do it with a good conscious when I feel that now there are other products out there that give my clients a better competitive advantage in the marketplace, at a better price with less downtime, and it is that bottom line that ruled my decision not to make those changes. I also was holding my tongue for a long time, this hasn't been a hasty (It's taken me 6 months) or easy decision to stand up for what I feel is right, but my integrity is everything I have. I wished that Marketcircle had made different decisions with Daylite 4, but there is nothing I can do except what I am doing right here, just walking away. I know they will be OK without us. And I wish them nothing but the best for their future.

What does that mean to you if you are one of our Daylite customers?

• We will be supporting our existing Daylite customers until December 31st, 2013 so nothing changes there.
• At the present time we are not accepting any new Daylite customers.

What does that mean to you if you are an Academy Member?

• You can still propose Daylite lessons in the Academy Community and we will produce them if enough people vote those lessons up. We made the Academy for you and you, our clients, are still our #1 priority.
• The existing Daylite content will remain for the foreseeable future.
• We will be producing lessons in the Academy to help you make the transition to Podio and do just the same things you did with Daylite and more - much much more!

Embracing the Future

What 6 significant advantages does Podio have over Daylite right now?

• Daylite gave you access to People, Companies, Appointments, Tasks, Opportunities, Projects, Notes and Forms. Podio is endless in what you can build with it.
• Podio lets you access ALL apps from mobile devices, including Android). (While Daylite's forms were not accessible from Touch devices)
• Podio takes care of the infrastructure so there is no server to deal with, no upgrades to do and no backups to maintain. The truly mobile office is here!
• With Podio, you can share your workflow with outside contractors and clients without paying for another license.
• Podio works on Macs, PC, and Linux.
• You can link emails to Podio from your mobile devices. (There is no mail integration on mobile for Daylite.)

We switched from Daylite 6 months ago to Podio and have never been so productive and responsive with our clients. You can watch a 36 minute video on why and how we use Podio here. Podio is a breath of fresh air for us. For those of you who wish to make the transition with us, there will be two ways of doing so. By watching the lessons in the Academy, (this is a good option if you want to do it yourself with minimal expense.) Or if you really want to take your business to the next level quickly and do more than you were ever doing with Daylite, we can assist you directly. Just fill out this form for a FREE 45 minute consultation to see if Podio will be a good fit for you and your budget.

Based on Part 1, I adjusted the app we use for meetings in Podio to have a preparation field and a desired outcome field.

I didn't have to do anything for part 2 because Podio fixes a lot of that. 

How does Podio do that? Well it is shared with all of the attendees (both internal & external) so we can continue the discussion there, have the files there and the meeting minutes. No one has to hunt around for the emails or the most current version of files, it's all there in Podio. Zero emails. Also we can assign tasks to people attached to the meeting so that we know what everyone needs to do with regards to next actions. It revolutionized the way we meet with people and we set it up for all of our clients when we do Podio implementations. (It also connects to GoToMeeting for when we have remote meetings)

I am really excited about the addition of the preparation field because that was such a common question when working with my clients.

I also encourage people to do a sensor meeting which I learned about in our third week on the Agents of Conscious Business course. I do this with all of my clients when I start working with them. I have a meeting with all of the key staff and I get a sense of what they all see so that I can design things from their perspective into the system that we build for them. You see a receptionist doesn't need nor want to see the same info that a CEO does and visa versa, but I still need to build their respective workflows into the system. 

Here's a video on that idea of perspectives in a meeting.  

In 2010 world leading Daylite implementor, Marni Melrose launched The MacAngel Academy to help small businesses to learn Daylite. That has been very successful, but ResidualReach wanted to reach not only businesses that used Apple Computers and devices but any sort of computer or device. They went on a hunt to find a product that worked on any platform so that they could help impact more business people. In 2012 they found Podio and fell in love, just like they had fallen in love with Daylite 10 years ago. ResdiualReach is pleased to announce the first of their Podio lessons.

The lesson is free but you must first register at http://www.residualreach.com to get access the entire lesson.

Visit http://www.macangel.com/lesson/PodioIntro to view this lesson after registering.

Lesson Details

12-17 Why and how we use Podio

In this lesson we will go over the reason that we use Podio now and show you one of our workflows.    

In this workflow:  

• We take an estimate from our website into Podio.
• Link the estimate to a person in Podio.
• Share the estimate with that person so that we can discuss it inside of Podio instead of inside of email.
• Create an opportunity in Podio and link the estimate inside of it, so we have full access to the information there.
• We use Quoteroller to produce beautiful quotes and then link the status back in to Podio.
• We link the sale to the person and the opportunity which then gives us a calculated value of the contact over time and on that particular opportunity.
• We then link the Person to a Client Workspace where we manage their project collaboratively with them.
• We talk a bit about the apps that we have created in the client workspaces to help us manage our work together. For instance, we created an app to help manage the client pre-payments.
• We link every appointment up to the Implementation project back in the CRM.
• When the customer fills out feedback, we then link that feed back to the project in the CRM.
• How we use the conversations app to pull conversations in to Podio or to email from Podio. We also are able to link emails while out of the office on our iPads, iPhones, or Androids.
• We show you how to send outbound email using Podiotools.
• We show you how we use Podio to interact with our members to have them propose and also vote on lessons.

 You will learn:  

• Why we use Podio
• How the estimate request form got onto our site
• How to set up some tasks to do when you receive a new item
• What the activity stream does and how information gets into it
• What a workspace is
• How to share an item in Podio
• How to email an item to an app

Britt Van Slyck, User Engagement at Podio said " We firmly believe Podio is more than technology, it should be a means of becoming more productive by changing the way you work for the better."

"I firmly agree with Britt and I am out to make an impact on small and medium sized businesses by  helping them to collaborate more effectively externally as well as internally. The future of work is right here. Like Apple was the computer for the rest of us, Podio is the enterprise social network for the rest of us.", says Chief Technology Evangelist, Marni Melrose, author and Founder of the Academy.

Podio recently announced it's 18 Preferred Podio Partners. Marni Melrose was selected as one of those partners because of the Academy that she built to help users with Marketcircle's Daylite small business productivity application. She plans to bring the same level of high quality training on Podio that she did with Daylite.

About ResidualReach, LLC

ResidualReach, LLC, formerly MacAngel, LLC is the world leading Daylite implementor and one of the first of the 18 Preferred Podio Partners in the world. Founded in 2002 in La Jolla, CA. They architect business workflows for small to medium sized businesses. They help companies collaborate more effectively externally as well as internally. Learn more at http://www.residualreach.com

About Podio

Podio is an online platform with a new take on work and how it gets done. For the first time ever you can create your own work tools and shape the way you work. No technical skills required. No dependency on IT. Podio gives people more power than they've ever had before to do everyday work better, smarter and in their own way. http://www.podio.com

About Citrix
Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) transforms how businesses and IT work and people collaborate in the cloud era. With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile work styles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 organizations. Citrix products touch 75 percent of Internet users each day and it partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion. Learn more at http://www.citrix.com http:.//www.citrix.com

The review writing competition runs today through September 9th, 2012

Who:

Open to anyone who has purchased one of our iBooks.

How:

Leave a kick butt review in iTunes AND then cut and paste the review to our Facebook page.

BUT only if you mean it. We don't want any insincerity here;-)

When:

On September 10th, we will read all of the wonderful reviews and the one we like best, will be announced as the winner on our Facebook Page.

So make sure to like us there.

What:

The winner will receive 3 months of FREE access to the MacAngel Academy. - No credit card required.

Also:

IF the winner chooses they may continue on monthly basis for $ 39.95 without paying the $ 150 startup fee.