An important milestone – and it’s only the beginning!

This week’s relaunch of Plaxo and introduction of Plaxo Personal Assistant marks an important milestone for our company, and I hope a key signal to you that we’re focused on building always accurate, up to date contact list – accessible wherever and whenever you need it.

Our CEO Justin Miller has said, “Plaxo is back and we’ve got a relentless focus on the address book,” and we are determined to solve the two customer pain points Plaxo was founded in 2002 to address:

1. Contacts scattered across multiple devices, services
2. Maintaining up-to-date address book info

The Plaxo Personal Assistant goes after that second problem with updates sourced by publicly available information and for our Plaxo Basic users we’ve also recently added contact card sharing. As for problem #1 we’ve reinvested in Plaxo Platinum Sync and made our mobile sync apps all free.

For a glimpse into our mission here at Plaxo check out this 60 second video.

To give you a sense of the scale of our efforts, we’ve reviewed 3 billion contacts in Plaxo’s Cassandra database, compared them with publicly available data sources, and identified approximately 600 million unique people with contact info—as a comparison the White Pages, which powers the Hiya contact management system, claims 200 million. It’s this massive scale that enables us to make suggestions that our customer’s report is correct about 92% of the time.

While this week’s news marks a big step forward in solving the problems above we’re far from done and you should expect a regular cadence of additional improvements as we continue to listen to your feedback.

The smart address book category is finally starting to see some focus, maturity, and a healthy dose of competition, which has sparked an unprecedented era of innovation. We expect to play a leadership role as this space continues to grow and evolve.

Here are the slides. I plan on adding the audio slidecast soon.
UPDATE 6/15: Slidecast now available.

I’m joining an old friend of mine, Justin Miller, who’s now CEO at Plaxo, to head up the Product Management team as it’s Senior Director. I’m looking forward to joining the leadership team to focus on the renewed vision of building a truly smart, socially-aware, and pervasive address book.

UPDATE 4/30: I’m hiring a Product Manager to head up Plaxo’s growth areas (Position filled) and there is also an opening for a lead designer. If you or anyone you know is interested in hearing more, let me know.

Recent April Techcrunch interview on the future of Plaxo:

What is it: Dropbox is a service that syncs your files online and across your computers. It keeps copies of files synced across my Mac and PC as well as making them available in the cloud which I can access via the web or my iPhone. See their 2 minute overview video (great prod. marketing example)

Why I like its design:
I like that I can use the standard file system built into the OS on my Mac and PC without worrying about how it’s getting synced or stored—in other words the primary way I interact with Dropbox is actually not thru their UI at all. No matter where I open the file, I know it’s always the latest version—but I don’t have to wait on the sometimes slow speeds of working directly off the cloud since it’s synced locally. They have designed their product to fit my workflow rather than ask of me that I change my workflow to fit their product—true user-centered design.

They have added a subtle addition to the OS iconography which shows if the file is properly synced with my other computers and the cloud. This helps reinforce to me that the service is working and that my files are safe and synced. This UI also enables me to go back in time and view older versions of the file (their website even features a DeLorean for us Back to the Future fans) when I need to.

Finally, their iPhone app enables me to access read-only versions of my files wherever I’m at. Here they’ve smartly optimized for storage keeping all the files in the cloud. However they have offered an easy wait to tag a handful of files I’d like to keep locally on my iPhone.

ABSTRACT:

As we evolve interaction design as a field, one approach we should consider is to open up the facilitation and ownership to people that don’t have the word “design” on their business card (e.g. product managers, development leads). We’ve recently tried a number of techniques that does just this at eBay and would like to discuss with you the following topics:

• Giving up “ownership” of design (how to do it, pros and cons)
• Impacts this shift has on the role within the company and our field
• How language and terminology can help or hinder you
• How to build on initial successes and institutionalize the methodology

In this discussion you’ll hear real world examples from companies such as Facebook, Intuit, Yahoo! and eBay. We hope to create some healthy debate so come with your strong point of views to share.

IxD10 Topic Submission

It got me to thinking about some great end-to-end “services” that I use to manage my finances and yet what’s still missing.

Bill Management

I hate getting bills in the mail and my wife hates how they clutter up our house. So when we were first married I didn’t want to look at the bills and she’d stuff them away out of site–not a good combo for our FICO score.

Then I discovered Paytrust which goes far beyond the other bill payment services available in that they actually receive your bills. When you sign up Paytrust, they give you a personal PO Box in Sioux Falls which you use as your mailing address meaning for example my PG&E (power & gas) bill gets mails to them and not my home. They scan, OCR, and post the bill online as a PDF with all the appropriate metadata (amount due, due date, etc). Bill payment is easy either by EFT or by having Paytrust mail a check on your behalf (meaning I can even pay my gardener and dentist).

There are several benefits to having Paytrust handle your bills this way:

• It’s safer as you don’t have to worry about someone stealing bills out of your mailbox (and you don’t have to worry about organizing and storing them).
• It’s a great papertrail. I can’t tell you how many arguments I’ve won with Customer Service agents over the years since I know exactly when I paid each bill and for how much.
• They mail you a DVD at the end of each year with all your bills PDF’d for your tax records.
• Whether I’m at work or at home or my wife wants to view the bills–we can do it from anywhere.

You can tell that this service was thought thru E2E from bill receipt, to payment, to auditing later–which sets it apart from the competition. The only drawbacks is that the service costs $12.95/mth (vs. many banks offer pure payment services for free) and Intuit (who bought Paytrust about 5 years ago) hasn’t made any major improvements in a few years–but at least they haven’t messed it up.

Daily Account Monitoring

As a big Scott Cook fan, I always wanted to love Quicken over the years but just never did. It always felt like work to keep it’s register in sync with all my accounts and payments. It also didn’t help me during the week when I wanted to know just how much money I had at any given moment and what was coming in and going out.

Then a few years ago a board member for Mint visited a class of mine at Berkeley as a guest speaker. I tried the service out the next day and have really been pleased with it ever since. Since it’s a web service, it’s always up-to-date, synced with my accounts and I can access it from anywhere. It alerts you if you have any irregular behavior such as large deposits or withdrawls. It leverages crowd sourcing to learn how to better categorize transactions. However my favorite feature is how it learns over time what you usually spent in a given category and establishes a “budget” for that amount (letting you know if you’re over or under it later).

Finally the Mint iPhone App connects me to this rich set of data on a daily basis in a simple way. Of course it could be improved such as I’d like to be able to dig into changes in my 401K (chart of how it’s trending, which holdings are up/down), be able to re-categorize transactions, and “predict” my cash flow out a couple months based on past data and budgets.

Quarterly Lookbacks

I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad around 2001 and quickly understood the value of regularly assessing our income/expenses and balance sheet. Yet nothing at the time met my needs (Quicken, MS Money, etc) so I looked to Excel to do the work for me in the way that I found most intuitive. It puts all of our monthly income and expenses, assets and liabilities onto one sheet of paper. Simple, visual, straightforward. We update it every 3 months and graph our progress over time.

Download Financial Statement Template
[MS Excel XLS - 194KB]

I imagine that perhaps someday, Mint could replace this manual aspect of my E2E experience but just not yet–however it does make filling out the statement way easier.

In summary I have incredible brand loyalty to both Paytrust and Mint due to their well thought out service design (I’m a NPS promoter) and see how powerful a differentiator it can be in what is a crowded field.

What services do you find most useful and why?

Update 9/14: With Intuit acquiring Mint they now own two of the services I mentioned above. I hope they do a better job continuing development of Mint than they have done with Paytrust and would love an integration of the two services. If anyone on those teams would like to chat I’ve got a number of ideas…

Napkin Set #1 – How we are stuck in the middle between doctors and insurance companies. I love how Dan bends the scale in the drawing.

Napkin Set #2 – Explains how this is really all about insurance reform (not health care) and that it’s us that will pay for it. It also drives home the point that insurance companies (and I’d add oil companies) are two industries that have done well thru the recession. Hmm…

Napkin #3 – An overview of the actual proposals (with names) being discussed in Congress. I love how slide 7 shows with size, visuals, and color the types of plans being discussed.

Napkin #4 - Explains how each of us will be affected by the proposals. I guess in the end, it’s gonna cost more and it’s just a matter of how we want to pay for it and what forces should be at work to improve quality/economics.

I got far more out of these handful of sketches than I did out of the White House Reality Check, HealthReform.gov, Time Mag Cover Story, or even the many stories on NPR combined. All of them seem to cover more the nature of the debate than the actual proposals themselves. While I can’t fault the radio coverage for being more visual… the mainstream media, the Whitehouse, and Congress would be wise to enlist visual thinking on this health care debate. Otherwise the status quo (skyrocketing health care costs AND < 100% coverage) is likely all we’ll end up with as Congress won’t be able to act.

UPDATE: Dan compiled all four sets into on presentation of napkins.

1. Facebook App - I find the user experience better than the web version as it seems to get at the essence of enabling me to keep up with what’s going on in my friends lives. It avoids all apps, advertising, and modes that plague the web version.
   What’s missing: Enabling me to phone my friends, sync with my phone contacts, and the ability to leverage my location to find my friends. 5/11 Update: All there now.
2. New York Times App - First, I’m a NYT junkie and I love that I can get my fix while on the go. They’ve done a great job extending the NYT brand into the app and formating the stories for the form factor.
   What’s missing: After several updates it’s still far too unstable. With OS 3.0 I hope they enable the day’s stories to be pushed down to my phone everyday at 5AM–it’s charging and on wi-fi, why not? Finally, I’d like to be able to tweet stories directly from the app.
3. Mint.com App – As we all tighten out belts, I find it extraordinarily useful to have the pulse of my balance sheet and cash flow on a regular basis. As a mobile extension of the web service, it does a good job summarizing where my money’s coming and going as well as showing me “alerts” when irregular events occur such as a large purchase.
   What’s missing: I’d like to be able to dig into changes in my 401K (chart of how it’s trending, which holdings are up/down), be able to re-categorize transactions, and “predict” my cash flow out a couple months based on past data and budgets. 5/11 Update: Many added.
   12/09 Update: The latest app adds re categorization.
4. eBay App – I’m glad that with the 1.2 version of the app we’ve finally got a stable version of the buyer experience. I can check on items I’m watching, bid or buy items, as well as do quick price check searches.
   What’s missing: Disclosure: the design for this app is on my team so you’ll have to settle for… “stay tuned” 5/11 Update: While I’m no longer at eBay, the addition of mobile selling and RedLaser is great!
5. Google App – Enables me to search the web and my contacts quickly–even allowing voice search.
   What’s missing: It needs to search more things on my phone, especially my email. I’d also like the app to expand on results from certain sources (e.g. wikipedia entries) similar to Yahoo Search Monkey so that I don’t have to goto the page. Safari browsing should be built into the app so that it doesn’t need to be separately launched.
6. Dropbox App (added 02/10) – Syncs my files across both my Mac and PC as well as making them available in the cloud which I can access via the web or thru this iPhone app. Now no matter where I am I can access my key files.
   What’s missing: Search 5/11 Update: Now added.
7. Twitter App (added 05/11) – Follow the latest news from influencers in my industry. I also use the search feature to stay up-to-date on what people are saying about Plaxo and jump in on the conversation.
   What’s missing: Ability to integrate with my bit.ly account and rank the “search” feature by the influence level of the tweeter.
8. HipChat App (added 05/11) — An instant messaging client based in the cloud used at Plaxo. It allows you to stay in touch with your co-workers easily and quickly. I receive a push alert any time a message is sent to me.
   What’s missing: I’d like to be able to look back further in time and be signed in on both my phone and my desktop client.
9. Skyfire App (added 05/11) – A better web browser (than Safari) for your phone. About 70% of the time I have a page not work in Safari it works here.
   What’s missing: Ability to make it the default browser for the phone (Apple’s problem) and making it work with more websites.
10. Plaxo App (added 05/11) – Okay, I’m biased. But seriously it syncs your contacts over-the-air with the Plaxo cloud which in my case is connected to my Mac, Gmail, and my iPad.
    What’s missing: You’ll just have to wait and see…

What apps would I like to put on my home page but just aren’t available?

LinkedIn App – The current 1.0 app misses the point and tries to copy Facebook with a news feed approach. What I want is an app that replaces my built-in Contacts app with rich information about everyone I talk with everyday (role, history of previous calls/sms/emails, names for their spouse and kids). When I’m networking with new people, I want to be able to exchange business cards wirelessly (leverage OS 3.0 bonjour). I should be able to look up LinkedIn profiles using just a name and phone number. Finally, I’d like the app to remind me to follow up with key contacts I want to stay in touch with when it’s been too long.
12/09 Update: The 3.0 version of this app shows the LinkedIn Product team is commited to building a solid app. They added the biz card exchange feature and many key features from the website.

Skype App - The current 1.0 app is helpful (especially when traveling to make cheap VoIP calls) but is held back by two key limitations: lack of push events and VoIP only over WiFi. Time will tell if the carriers dial-back on the 3G limitation, but OS 3.0 will enable the Skype app to tell me if someone’s sending me an IM or trying to call me–a huge breakthru.
05/11 Update: Adding VoIP was a big win and I’m now a fan.

TomTom App – My TomTom 300 device is dear friend of mine and navigated me all over Italy. That said, I would part with it if TomTom could provide me with Turn-by-Turn voice directions, rerouting, and offline maps (thus enabling it work anywhere with GPS). It looks like OS 3.0 will enable this now it’s just up to TomTom to come thru with their long rumored app. I’d pay $75 for this one and would sell my device on eBay.
05/11 Update: Love the app and use it EVERYDAY. While it’s pricey ($50 + $20 for traffic) it gets me home 10-15 minutes faster than I would otherwise by finding the best route “right now” based on traffic.

PowerPoint App with Dongle – This one’s simple, I’d like to be able to connect my phone to an LCD projector via a dongle and project a presentation. Why bring a powerful laptop when a simple device like my phone can do the job. This doesn’t have to be built by Microsoft and perhaps the Slideshare or Air Sharing folks might come out with it first–or better yet a micro-projector that does it all.

Fitbit App – I’m on the waiting list for the first fitbit exercise/sleep device now due out early this summer. What would make this experience one better is if I could track what I eat directly on my phone without having to remember later when I get to my computer. It also could show me a summary of key stats (like Mint) which would be interesting to check-in with daily (e.g. how did I sleep last night?).
12/09 Update: I got my FitBit in Nov and after 2 weeks returned it. It didn’t offer much analysis and the sleep tracking feature was not very accurate. Good idea but mediocre execution.

What apps do you use everyday? What apps do you think are missing?

Impact on Internet Companies:

• Investments without a foreseeable ROI will end
  Sequoia’s recently leaked RIP presentation to their portfolio of companies makes this point very clear for privately funded startups. Companies without a business model will not receive subsequent rounds of funding as there is a fixed amount of money left in the funds which invested in startups today–and it must last longer than previously expected as exits will be more difficult. Public companies are already under substantial pressure to reduce expenses inline with reduced top-line revenue growth (e.g. EBAY) and they’re most like to do that with questionable ROI investments and projects.
• Expense reductions impact on overall wages
  These reductions should cause an overall contraction in the job market which will be reflected on all jobs including “product” and “design” jobs as most company’s approach a reduction in force in an across the board manor. This will also cause downward pressure on wages as more and more people will be looking for work perhaps equalizing what’s been an “employee’s market” in the design field for nearly a decade.
• Backlash against outsourcing
  Reduced wages and a devalued dollar will create incentives for companies to hire locally in America. Furthermore, politicians will gain favor thru protectionist measures and may make it more difficult for companies to outsource jobs abroad. This will likely lead to a contraction in the outsourcing practice at least for US-based companies. Also some companies may focus on fewer, higher performing employees than lots of low costs employees (as Mike Spieser suggests).
• Internet companies will begin to operate like “normal” companies
  This means a renewed focus on operational efficiency, profitability, and paying customers. Many firms may prioritize low-beta profitable investments over high-growth but longer-term investments. For startups focused on a long-term growth strategy it’ll be important to find a way to survive smaller and harder to get rounds of funding.

The role of Product Management and Design

The reality is now more than ever, businesses cannot afford to lose a ton of money on failed launches. When things were booming engineers could build solutions in search for problems–and some would stick and succeed.

In this environment the best way to mitigate risk is to rely on seasoned product folks to identify real customer pain points and then design a product that effectively meets those needs. Thru effective portfolio management you’ll also be able to evaluate your investment at several stages in order to mitigate risk. In that way you’ll be much more likely to succeed with the features and products your company launches.

Recommendations to Read:

• Two helpful posts from Brad Feld: Let’s Get Pratical and
  OK Entrepreneurs, Time to Step Up
• Jason Calacanis on The Startup Depression
• Ali Velshi from CNN explains the Economic Crisis on Oprah in simple terms