Our effort recently has focused on making it easier to manage permissions on a discrete level. We have created an interface that allows a user to set permissions for access to any client or project that they own. This powerful functionality makes it easier to bring freelancers or contractors in to a project or client. 2.1.1:

• Adds new Permissions screens
• Creates new Activity Report in the People tab
• Moves “Add Action(s)” to Plan tab.
• Renames Billing tab as Money tab
• Enables configuration for executive coaches to manage multiple clients easily
• Ensures that users will receive notifications on actions below clients or projects to which they are subscribed

As I rehabilitate a Dell C600 laptop with a new hard drive and some additional RAM, I am taking the opportunity to try out the Linux-based OS Ubuntu. More to follow.

Development wanted to punch out a quick release prior to losing key staff to vacation. With this release we tried to make modest improvements to the application that may have been driving you crazy. 2.1.2:

• Adds “Create Many Tasks/Projects” to enable multiple copies of the same task or project,
• Increases number of copies to 10,
• Allows user to create list of bills by month or client in the Billing Manager,
• Fixes a couple of undocumented features.

No release notes - this release is self-explanatory.

Twice in the last couple of days I have had conversations with business owners helping them work through the challenge of the moment. In both cases they felt like I helped, and in both cases all I did was behave like a kind Cocker Spaniel. By doing nothing more then listening they talked their way through the problem and found their own solution.

Amazingly, they were very grateful for the help and thought I had really made a difference for them.

So this begs the question for you - Who is your Cocker Spaniel? Who will you turn to when you need to talk through a problem.

In case you can’t think of anything, a few ideas come to mind. One is a CEO forum sponsored by a trade group, chamber of commerce, or similar. A second is a business coach or executive coach. A third is something like EO, Strategic Coach, or any other opportunity to meet and develop relationships with peers.

When I explain to people what PositiveWare does, they automatically assume that my primary market should be lawyers. Lawyers are (in)famous for tracking their time in 6 minute intervals, and should naturally be PositiveWare users.

But up to this moment we haven’t pursued the legal market because in my experience attorneys don’t do a lot of project planning or budgeting. This has always been contrary to how firms are run, where the goal is billable hours, not client outcomes. In other words, the meaning of legal work comes to be dominated by the billable hour.

A recent article in the Denver Post has made me rethink this assumption. The article notes that there has been a significant backlash against aggressive hourly billing by legal firms. More corporations are looking for fixed price billing from legal firms, either on a retainer basis or a project basis.

The recent addition of budgeting to PositiveWare makes it the perfect tool for managing legal work. Lawyers can track time, which is nice, but more importantly set client expectations with budgets and understand how they are doing against those budgets.

I have good friends at one of the firms mentioned in the article, Holme Roberts Owen.