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Nov. 24, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran : The Atheists' unintended gift
JWisdom.com: You are a Philanthropist with Aliza Bulow (5 minutes)
Nov. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com: Actually, it really is all about you with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 5, 2008 / 5 Elul 5768

PlanPlus Online Now Phone-happy

By Mark Kellner

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Like Diogenes looking for an honest man, I keep searching for organizational tools. Some exciting ones are in the offing, but one deserves a revisit: PlanPlus Online (www.planplusonline.com), which is the digital embodiment of the Franklin Planner made famous a number of years back, now supports mobile devices, and quite nicely.


The Franklin Planner, now published by Franklin Covey Corp., is one of those things you either "get" or you don't. In its paper-based version, the planner will present you with space to map out and record your day: appointments, to-do items, expenses, notes, and so on. By encouraging you to prioritize your "daily task list," based on your own values and goals, the idea is to organize your work into ways that advance your life, not just your list-completion skills.


Many large companies -- Sprint and DuPont are two names that come to mind -- adopted the paper planner in the 1990s, and the volumes remain somewhat popular today. But so much is shifting to digital formats, and the FranklinCovey folks have moved right along with that, just in case you're not into dead trees all that much.


Online, from a desktop computer using a standard Web browser, your screen layout is similar to the printed planner page. There's a place for everything to be inserted; the key difference being that, since we're talking keyboards here, you can probably read what you've written more easily.


On a handheld device (my choice was the Apple iPhone 3G) the format is tailored for the smaller screen. You don't lose much in the way of functionality here, and it's nice to have the convenience of entering items while on the go.


Two nice differences are worth noting. Now, you can set up PlanPlus Online to text message and/or e-mail your daily task list and appointments every day at a pre-set time. Mine is at 7 a.m. The cost is built into the monthly service fee of $25, and it's a nice option, a digital kick-in-the-pants if you will.


The other feature of PlanPlus Online works better, I believe with a desktop or portable computer - not a handheld - and some training. You can customize the back-end of the system to track and monitor just about any business process you might have. Since the company that developed PlanPlus Online with Franklin Covey is into the "CRM," or customer relationship management, space, there's an emphasis on sales processes. You can use these to track prospects, assign them to a team, make sure everyone is doing their part.


But what if your business isn't straight commercial sales, but rather a service or "influencing" business such as public relations or lobbying, let's say. Those are two occupations with plenty of followers in this area, and it would be nice, I'm guessing, to have a way to organize all this.


That's where the customization comes in: with a little training, you can turn that sales form into a lobbying contact tracking system. The data can be exported to a spreadsheet or database for tracking. Records can contain attachments including Microsoft Word documents, photos and other files.


Suddenly, we're not just looking at a time-tracker. Instead, PlanPlus Online is a task manager-cum-content management system, one that could probably work very nicely in a small enterprise. (Multinational firms probably have their own systems in place already.) And, the price seems right.


There really is a sweet spot here: software as a service, or SaaS, with that extra soupcon of customization that brings great value to the end user. In a demo, the process worked flawlessly, and even a non-programmer such as your columnist could get the hang of it with a day or two of instruction.


I'll confess to a 16-year love affair with what is now the FranklinCovey system. This new iteration extends the franchise and might well snag your interest.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.

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