Monday, January 9, 2012

Where was I that day? (Using ifft, that's where)

In my business, we track everything. I mean everything. After 40 years of history, we know how many calls to it takes on average to secure a new client.

Knowing this is step 1, creating a business plan to achieve your goals is step 2, and tracking it, well.. that's a pain in the you know what. Until today.

Enter ifttt, prounounced like "lift" with no "l", it is an acronym for If This Then That.  When you use ifttt you write a "recipe" of tasks that follow: If this, then that.

For example, I read Twitter on the web, my iphone, my ipad, on the go etc.  When I find a tweet interesting I would decide to either email it to myself, save it to instapaper, favorite it on twitter, or bookmark the article.  A hot mess.  Enter ifttt:  I connected it to twitter and wrote this recipe:

If I favorite a tweet
Save it to Evernote
Email me the tweet

I also wrote a recipe to remind me to wear boots to work if it's going to snow tomorrow:

If it's going to snow tomorrow in zip code 18040
Text me to "snow's a comin', wear your boots"

You can write recipes using many services, stocks, weather, phone call, twitter, facebook, foursquare, and a ton more...  but today I'm solving the question:  Where was I that day?

Back to work. We use salesforce.com to track our calls - so at the end of the day or end of the week, each rep needs to go into SFDC and enter them.  Most importantly, they need to actually remember who they saw and when they saw them.  Needless to say - after a crazy day/week, it's not easy to remember.

The reps usually rely on memory, or an entry into their calendar, or... napkins?  This is where iffft can help:  Create a foursquare account and connect it to your google calendar.  When you check in, it is forwarded to your google calendar (viewable on your smartphone or online), and time stamped.  It looks like this:


Are you using ifttt?  I'd love to hear your recipes.

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