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Fair warning:  strong language!

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Rocket Matter beat me to the punch - I’ve had this web-based PM system idea for a while now, but didn’t have the time or resources to put it together.

First and foremost - it appears that the Rocket Matter team is off to a great start. I haven’t yet tried it myself but I’ve seen Grant’s review and Aaron’s review Still got a few questions myself that neither has answered and the blog has not yet addressed.

How do we transition to Rocket Matter?

I’m a PCLaw user. I’ve got two license for myself and my assistant. I use the front office AND backoffice features. PCLaw has been annoying at times and it has an ugly interface, but it’s level of detail has been very helpful. (This post will not become a rant on PCLaw - I don’t have the time - I still use it because it’s cheap and reliable).

When I moved from Quickbooks to PCLaw, I thought it would be easy. PCLaw was really trying to “steal” the Quickbooks client base by promoting its automatic transition feature. Problem was, my QB version was too new! So I had to do it manually and it was painful. The thought of transitioning again to a new system just sounds like too much of a pain in the butt. If I was just starting my practice, I would be all over RM, period. But PCLaw has a firm grasp on me for the moment. Does RM have an import/export system?

Will there be a backoffice/accounting system?

My #1 reason for hesitating on Rocket Matter is that it doesn’t appear to have a backoffice/accounting system and alternatively, has not yet boasted about any way to export data for a backoffice system. Pull the Freshbooks API including a 2 way sync and Rocket Matter will turn some serious heads! I don’t use Freshbooks yet, but I’ve been dying to do so… then again, still can’t figure out how to transition just the backoffice portion of PCLaw either.

What about a message and comment system?

I thought I saw a way to add notes to a case, but a conversational messaging and commenting system would get the attention of us Basecamp users. Add the ability to invite clients to view their case progress and you’ll win over the lawyers who use basecamp in a heartbeat.

Document Management OR Document Automation

I say “or” because I haven’t seen a solid web based document management system yet, so I won’t demand the same from Rocket Matter. However, PCLaw’s “Qdocs” document automation feature is good - buggy - but good. Again, this isn’t a must from a web based system, but if you figure this out, you won’t be able to buy extra server space fast enough!

I’m sure they’ve thought of all of these ideas. Maybe they’ve got it under wraps for beta testing. Whatever the case may be… Rocket Matter has the potential to put the “big boy” practice management systems out of business!

Still, I’d like to see a few more features before I’m sold.

Rocket Matter….what say you?

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One of the major missing items was web access which Google made so easy.

But Evernote is working on a new version, currently “Evernote Beta” which is really exciting.

Major advantages include text searching in images and handwritten notes! Imagine taking a snapshot of your airplane ticket, and then searching for it later by entering keywords such as “southwest ticket” or “flight march 15″. It’s essentially OCR without having to actually manually process any OCR.

Check out the video and be blown away! (high def version here)

You can try to get a beta invitation to try Evernote, or just wait till it comes out. (I’m not waiting)

Once I get invited, I’ll post my testing here.

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I haven’t been tracking the stats, but back when I got on board, it seemed to be fruitful, but I find myself ignoring the widgets on other sites.

Ideas?

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Grant over at homeofficewarrior is always talking about how we must join the conversation.  So you might as well make it more beneficial for everyone to join in:

Commentluv is a wordpress plugin that displays blog posts of your readers.

If for example, you were to leave a comment to this post, you would have the option to enter your web address and commentluv would automatically draw your latest blog post for display on my site.

Note:  If you don’t want Google to follow the resulting link to the commenter’s website, you may  not want to add this.  But if you manually approve comments, this shouldn’t be a problem.

There are ways to deactivate the “follow” feature (search: nofollow wordpress), but I don’t see the point in implementing it, unless people are abusing the comments.

Test it out for yourself by commenting on this post! 

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Example:

You prepared a long list or wrote an entire paragraph with the caps lock button ON (lazy!) and now, you need it changed.

MIKE

JOHN

APRIL

SOPHIE

BILL

…now you want it to read like this

mike

john

april

sophie

bill

If it’s not already in MS Word, copy and paste the text to Word and then hit shift+F3. Voila!

If you hit shift+F3 yet again, it will put Initial Caps on each word (first letter of each word is capitalized):

Mike

John

April

Sophie

Bill

Thanks to Lockergnome for the tip!

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This year, I want to see if I can trim down my office “face” time even more:

1. I think I’ll start by taking at least 5 active case files home and working on them there until they are done.  This should give me an idea about how well I really work full time on a case.  My fear has always been that I’ll lose something on the commute!  I suppose that’s what rolling file cabinets are for!
2. I’ll also mix it up with my new clients.  Start meeting them at coffee shops or restaurants (lunch meetings!) instead of in my “presentation” conference room.
3. I still refuse to accept client calls on my cell phone and although my fancy Asterisk phone system can forward them with no problem, it’s still just to much accountability for my taste.
4. I’ll have to figure out a place for my dogs to stay when I’m at home during the day.  I don’t have the coveted in-law suite turned home office to help me with the “separation.”
5. Probably should buy a headset for the house.  Maybe a roaming Skype headset?

Got any other suggestions to help me ease into the transition?

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This evening I thought it was about time I learned more about my blogs (all of which are wordpress).

Google says your supposed to put the tracking code before the </body> tag. But I couldn’t the darn tag in the wordpress templates!

So thanks to Make Money Fast, a blog that came up in my search for the answer, it turns out that you put the code in the footer template of your wordpress blog, again, just before the </body> tag. (This can be found in Presentation > Theme Editor)

To be fair, since it takes a day or two for GA to collect enough data, I’m not 100% sure it took yet. I’ll comment on this blog if it works!

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Turning a profit without a dumpster full of overhead is every business owner’s dream, but every professional service provider seems to believe that you need the 84″ desk, matching credenza, 5 drawer lateral filing cabinets, yellow pages ad, flat screen monitor, windows server, guest chairs, leased copier, full time administrative assistant and sandblasted office sign. I call all of that, “the presentation.”

So, why not lighten the mood on your “serious” website?  I’m not personally very photogenic and stumbled upon a site called Iconize Me! which is run by a few very talented digital caricature artists.

For 50 bucks, Jose, the only active artist will render you in a flattering, eye catching caricature which you can plaster all over your site (or use as an icon!). 

All of those stern law firm group photos could be rendered into a fun, lighthearted caricature! (Though it might cost more if there are multiple faces to render).

In any event, check it out!  I can’t wait to have mine drawn up!

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