Originally published on August 24, 2009 in our free SmallLaw newsletter.
I'm back again with five more technology hacks for small law firms. While technology is not necessarily a bastion of hope in these dark economic times, it can give the small firm practitioner a leg up on the competition and level the playing field for client service and communication compared to a larger outfit. If you missed my first five hacks, you can find them on TechnoLawyer Blog.
1. Track Your Time Writing Emails With MonetaMail
MonetaMail is an Outlook add-on that tracks the time you spend on email activities.
MonetaMail is inspired by the following facts:
Email is the most popular communication tool. Much email activity is of short duration (certainly under the 6 minutes for the 0.1 hour minimum time tranche). Many users do not actually know how much time they spend in email and usually grossly underestimate their email activity time. Moreover, users do not want to leave the workflow of reading and replying to email to track their time.
The solution, prior to MonetaMail was to either ignore or forget about billing for email time, make some wild guesses, or sift through your Sent folder and reconstruct what happened.
MonetaMail tags, tracks, and reports your email time by two different user-selected descriptors (you need set up a descriptor only once per email address). The basic idea is to track the time that slips through the cracks by seamlessly integrating into Outlook. The reporting function enables you to evaluate email productivity by client, project or time-period, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The captured time should eclipse the $99 price.
2. Send Video Emails With Eyejot
Even in the hands of a gifted writer, the written word can prove difficult to decipher. Enter video messaging service Eyejot.
Eyejot enables you to send video messages by simply signing up, logging in to your account, uploading or recording your video, and clicking "Send." There is no software to install or download. It works with all major browsers.
A free account enables you to send an unlimited number of 60 second email messages, and provides support for RSS feeds and iTunes, and a visual address book. Upgrading to the Pro version for $29.95 per year extends the video length to 5 minutes and provides an inbox perpetual in duration (the free account stores email for only 30 days).
For $99.95 per year, the Pro Plus version enables you to add your own logo and color scheme to Eyejot's notification elements, receive alerts when recipients view your video messages, and attach documents to your video messages.
3. Tweet From Outlook
Twinbox is a free Microsoft Outlook plugin that seamlessly integrates with Outlook to enable Twitter users to update, reply, archive, search, and receive their friends' tweets.
After download and installation, simply visit the "Options" menu and enter your Twitter username and password. What sets this app apart from stand-alone Adobe Air based Twitter applications such as TweetDeck is the ability to archive, manage, group, and search your tweets the same way you manage your email. You can also upload photos and Outlook attachments and automatically download all tweets matching the keywords you specify, similar to a supercharged Google Alerts for Outlook. Thus, Twinbox enables you to monitor what people are saying about you and your firm.
4. Backup Your Browser Settings With FavBackup
FavBackup is a free portable utility (meaning it does not have to be installed, just executed) that will backup your browser preferences, passwords, extensions, and sessions.
It works with all major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome. Backing up is as simple as running the downloaded file and following the guided prompts.
5. Set Up Advanced Voicemail With YouMail
YouMail is a free voicemail service that will blow the pants off your cell phone carrier's default voicemail package. Think Google Voice without the extra phone number.
YouMail provides visual voicemail, personalized greetings based on the caller, voicemail sharing, caller blocking, and voicemail alerts by email and text. For a fee of $3.99/month, you can have voicemail messages transcribed and emailed to you. Another nifty feature is the ability to make folders to organize your voicemail messages as you would your email. You can also download your voice messages in .mp3 format.
What better way to organize client communications, send notes to yourself, and compartmentalize all communications? Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Written by Will Geer of JDhacker.
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