After the successful event in Israel, The Salesforce.com dream force event is coming to London next week (May 7-8).
We at Prolify are going to attend the event to meet with salesforce users and show how prolify enables updating salesforce right from email or blackberry. 
Stay tuned for the after event post…

If you want to meet us at the event, to learn more about the benefits prolify provides, contact us at: info@prolify.com

The Salesforce.com Success On Demand Tour reached Tel-Aviv today. Fortunately for us and through the persuasion skills and persistency of Ilan Oulu from Ticomsoft we were able to get a presentation booth (it was actually more like a table) at the very last moment – just a day before the event.  But not a determened group like us would let such a short notice discourge us. We armed ourselves with our new Salesforce.com connector brochure, two flat screens, a real live demo and a polished presentation and we were ready to go.
There was much interest around our booth, the value we are providing by enabling sales representatives to update Salesforce.com right from their inbox was clear to everybody who came by. We were happy to see that both potential customers and partners were excited by our solution. Interesting conversation were sprang around the solution we offer, and conecctions were made with variouse people.
You can see from the pictures that five people, two screens and a very good idea can create alot of interest.

When the day ended our smiling faces (Arie our CTO is giving his best smile inside) were proof for the interesting and successful event.

Some books give you inspiration, some make you think, some help you organize your thoughts - good books do all of the above.

We recently started a pilot at the CTO’s office of one of the largest technology companies in the world. As it turns out, our application and ideas were in line with the thoughts and concepts going through the CTOs mind. Seeing at what we aim to achieve, he recommended we look at a book which presents and discusses relevant theories. Once said, getting the book and reading it became a company mission.

We were all eager to put our hands it. As it was written in 1986 it was practically impossible to get it in Israel and the only way we could get it was through Amazon. A few copies were purchased and sent to our US office, the word of the book started spreading, summaries were distributed and it became the talk of the day. In Israel we anxiously waited for the actual book to arrive, the Amazon order we placed was stuck somewhere around the globe and the book that was on its way to Israel with our CEO was stolen. Finally after two week the actual book was available in the Israel office.

It is not an easy read but it is a fascinating book which touches the heart of our offering. It explores how computers influence the way we communicate and interact with each other, and how these interactions can be improved. What make it so interesting is that it builds on basic and fundamental theories of human interaction and communication, drawing from the rationalistic tradition, exploring the work of different philosophers. It then takes these theories into the computerized world and discusses optional ways to alleviate breakdowns in communications and provide people with the tools and procedures to cope with communication misinterpretations.

Apart from it being an interesting book, it provided us with the philosophical and theoretical foundation for our intuitions and what we see from the Market. This book gives us with yet another proof that we are on the right track. It also puts a spot light on some crucial points going forward. No doubt this book deserves a place of honor in the Prolify Chronicle.

The book : Understanding computers and cognition – a new foundation for design. By: Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores can be purchased online.

Ask anyone who ever worked at a startup company and they will tell you – starting up is not easy. But who ever said changing the world is?
I’d like to use this space to provide a glimpse into the behind the scenes of Prolify, the ups and downs, our thoughts, ideas, feedback we get and directions we are taking.Our startup journey begins with the understanding that although email has become one of the most common communication mediums it does suite most of the things we try to use it for. We use email at home to stay in touch with our friends and family. At work we use email to collaborate with our colleagues and communicate tasks and ideas. Heck, I even have a friend that sends herself emails as reminds for things she needs to do.  

When you think about it, in today’s connected world we bring many of the applications we use at home to the office. While most evolve during the transition making them more suited to the business needs, for example: Web Portals evolving into Enterprise Portals, Web 2.0 evolving into Enterprise 2.0. Email has not changed.  We might use different email addresses but the functionality we use is basically the same.  

While email might be just what we need for informal communication, at the office it creates silos of information, misunderstandings and breakdowns in communication. Email at work needs to be intention driven, it needs to allow us to collaborate freely but at the same time know what is expected of us and what we expect of others.

We at Prolify aim to enhance your email, help it evolve into the next generation of business mail. How? Stay with me and find out.

I’m Ido Hacohen-Bornstein, Prolify’s Product Marketing and I invite you to join me and share your comments and thoughts.

Until next time.

Welcome to Prolify’s blog. I am Kim Donlan, VP of Sales and Marketing. When the CEO of Prolify, Ariela Avni, asked me to take on the sales role in addition to my marketing responsibilities, my first thought…  “Wow, now I really have to put my money where my mouth is.”

As the VP of marketing, I understood our market strategy, product positioning, and carefully researched and validated the people who would need our application first. But nothing prepared me for the overwhelming response I would get from customers.  Everyone who sees it says, ‘I need it’. The marketing side of me says… this is unbelievable. But the sales side of me says, man, this can’t be real.
 
So what is it that has everyone so excited? Sure, the ability to easily collaborate – to truly work with anyone or any application – without ever leaving email and Blackberry is compelling but we seem to be hitting a universal nerve. The very core to what we do is to turn a messaging application into conversational space. Early customers say that we elicit conversations and to see where those conversations breakdown. And we provide visibility into where breakdowns can be bridged. Traditional email, messaging, blogs, conferencing, and wiki have distinctive qualities that make them appealing. But each is limited. - they allow for communication but not full conversations. 

Without intending, our CTO, Arie Kogan, has taken the essence of many disparate messaging applications and made a complete communication environment.  Complete is defined by the ability to communicate with anyone or any application. And complete is also defined as the all of us will converse with one another.  To share knowledge, context, experience and potential resolutions.

What we have set out to do – and based on the overwhelming response we get – is to deliver a new way of having conversations — communicating options, opinions, and sharing possible alternatives. We set out to not only change how you communicate but give you an environment that fundamentally changes what you communicate about. Be sure to stay tuned.