Thank you Black Isle team for letting me speak with some of you this morning to get you introduced to the Black Isle Cloud. There are 7 products that Black Isle has access too and so far Google Apps and Highrise are the 2 being adopted so far.
Training Notes
1. Please login and get acquainted to Google Apps. I sent the details on Google Apps to your personal email address. Watch these "Your First Days" videos to get acquainted with Google Apps for more details on specific features you may have not seen before in Gmail or Google Docs. According to the video "Google Sync" is what you use to do airplane work offline. Or you can use your smartphone — let's experiment to see what works best.
2. You will find your Highrise invitation in your @black-isle.com mailbox.
3. Configuring Google Apps to integrate with your existing email software for contacts, calendars and tasks should you choose to do so is easy. Just follow these steps for any computer or smartphone. PC, Mac and many other devices are supported!
Syncing Google Apps with a PC or smartphone email application, Outlook calendars and contacts is easy with Google Sync. Download the appropriate software for your device and software, authenticate to your black-isle.com account. Under each "platform" button you will find instructions on how to configure Gmail for your particular software.
Suggestions and Follow Ups
1. Outlook integration with Highrise – would be nice to link the two. Turns out there are 3 extra products NewPath Consulting does not support yet that can do this. You may have to buy them on your own outside of the Black Isle license, but if they work we will add them for everyone and offer it as part of the regular service. Check the Highrise Extras page for CompanionLink, SyncAce and RedCritter 3rd party add-ons for highrise.
By the way Google does publish a "HOW TO TRANSITION" page for Outlook users. And describes what features Outlook has that Gmail still does not have.
2. A suggestion was made for Highrise: "Get Highrise to allow sharing of information between Highrise customers for a particular company or person at company — kind of a private Facebook for Highrise users." Talk about breaking down silos! Some security issues here for sure, but we follow up with 37signals.com, the makers of Highrise, and see what they think.
3. ROI reports for Deals and leads won/lost. There is very little analytics reporting in Highrise. There are 2 3rd party solutions we can try: Easy Insight and EazyBI. I will work with John and Barry to identify how reporting should be run for Black Isle – this will be a major initiative tied to the approach to sales pipeline management. No 2 companies are alike in this respect and that's why I think Highrise doesn't have traditional reporting.
4. There is a group mailing list for all Black Isle North America employees. If you send an email FROM your @black-isle.com email address to
You will hit everyone on the team with the same email. This is how this email is getting to you now. Please email sales@newpathconsulting.com with your support questions or call (888) 781 2539.
