Following from my earlier Post, Salesforce IDs and the 15-18 digit problem, here’s some Visual Basic code that can be installed as a User Defined Function (UDF) in Microsoft Excel (or, Microsoft Access) to easily convert Salesforce 15 character IDs to the “unique”, required by Microsoft applications, form of 18 characters … and a YouTube video to get you started.   Enjoy!

If you have any queries concerning this code, or installing it in MS Excel or MS Access, don’t hesitate to contact me.

One of the unavoidable complications with your email marketing newsletter is that you cannot fully control the font in which it is displayed. The email reader, or the browser, that your customer uses is not guaranteed to use the font you have so diligently selected for your newsletter. This is just as true for your carefully crafted HTML email, or your web site – i.e. the font may not be available (loaded) on your customers PC. Obviously, the alternative for your newsletter is to send it as a PDF document attached to a covering email; but that’s one extra click required of your time-starved customer …

So what’s available to ensure that your extensively researched look&feel, your brand, is consistent between your website, your newsletters, your HTML emails, and your ‘paper’ publications? You could depend on the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) font-family property (see font family, or w3school.com, or for a more general introduction: sitepoint), alternatively you might consider Google Fonts!

I’m currently mentoring a charity that require a non-standard layout for their new information newsletter. We’ve reviewed Litmus: Email client market share, and have compromised, for their first issue, on a standard font. They are non-profit Salesforce user, using Vertical Response as their email marketing App. (incidentally you don’t need to be a Salesforce user to use Vertical Response, you can use it as a standalone application … this is well worth considering if you’re a charity). However, for subsequent newsletters we’ll be using Google Fonts.

So what are Google Fonts? Google Fonts are “… high-quality web fonts that you can include in your pages …” With simple code (the Google Fonts API) in the HTML of your newsletter you’ll have significantly more control over the fonts your customer will view your newsletter in. Essentially, Google Fonts are downloaded from the Google Font Server when the newsletter is first read (technically: the fonts are saved in the email/browser cache so subsequent newsletters will be quicker … ).

Some example Google Fonts and their effects (Yes! Google Fonts work in WordPress!):

This is Cardo!

This is Tangerine!

This is Tangerine, with shadow!

To preview the currently available Google Fonts try here … So, no excuse now; move your Fonts to the Cloud!

Need more information? Do contact me.

Salesforce.com has a philanthropic 1:1:1 model.

In his book “Behind the Cloud“, Marc Benioff’s (co-founder 1999, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com), Part 6: The Corporate Philanthropy Playbook, starts with Play#64: “The Business of Business is more than Business” – a quote widely attributed to the American economist, statistician, and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics; Milton Friedman (and here).  In the book Marc states that the co-founders of salesforce.com shared his philosophy that “the value of a corporation should be distributed not only to its leadership but also to the communities in which it operates and to the world.”  Suzanne DiBianca (Executive Director and co-founder of the Salesforce.com Foundation) officially joined salesforce.com in 2000 to establish the Foundation – now a decade ago!  So what is the 1:1:1 model?

1% time, 1% product, 1% equity

• 1% time: salesforce.com employees spend six paid volunteer days per year responding to community needs around the globe – employees have, so far, donated 178,000 hours
• 1% product: Salesforce donate CRM licenses to non-profits organisations – to 8,000 non-profits, in some 70 countries.  The Foundation offer 10 subscriptions for free, and the rest at 80 percent discounts
• 1% equity: Founding stock from salesforce.com provides funds for grants, with a specific focus on  supporting youth, technology innovation and employee-inspired volunteer projects – including some $20 million in grants to non-profit organisations

The case presented by Marc for Corporate Philanthropy (Play #68:  Share the Model) is:

1. It’s the right thing to do – for the community and the company
2. It builds your brand
3. It attracts and retains employees – a competitive advantage
4. It’s fun – honest

The model has also been adopted by many of salesforce.com’s third-party suppliers.  Most of the suppliers listed in salesforce.com’s AppExchange (the marketplace of 1000+ applications and services that extend Salesforce’s CRM) offer free, or significantly discount applications, or services to non-profit organisations.

I acknowledge that I have an interest in salesforce.com – I am a qualified salesforce.com administrator, and I have supported a number of charities, some pro bono, with their implementation and configuration of the non-profit instance of saleforce.com (Brian Green Consultancy CIC).

Twitter is now the third most popular social network, behind Facebook and MySpace (Compete, 2009). For Twitter, in 2008 (TechCrunch), there were:

• 1+ million users
• 200,000 active users per week
• 3 million/day twitter messages

So Twitter needs to be included in your Social Media toolbox!  You’ve connected your blog, and other social media profiles, to your Twitter page! So, what’s next?

This post will focus on two aspects of using Twitter: 1) getting followers, and 2) building relationships

Download the free crib sheet for this Post here

1) Getting Followers – the key terms:

• Tweet/Tweep/Tweeting/…

Tweet: Individual message are called tweets. It can also be used as a verb, as in “I tweeted you last week about the meeting”

Tweep: A conjunction of Twitter and Peeps resulting in tweeps – commonly used to refer to the Twitter followers of someone

Tweeting: The act of sending and receiving Tweets

Twitterer: (noun) One who “Tweets”

Twitterverse: The cyberspace of Twitter – i.e.  anywhere you can Twitter including mobile phones

• Following

For somebody to receive your messages via Twitter they have to have selected to follow you, or your company

However, there are a couple of ways to advise people directly to follow you.  You can, for example, send them an email from your Twitter home page, invite them (see below), or @reply to them (see below)

• @username message

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