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New Features for Fall

Friday, June 14th, 2013

While we have been cranking away, the world still turns and the fall audition season is already almost upon us!

It has been a little since my last blog post — I’ve been to Congo and back (literally) and have focused my time working on Velvet Singer primarily on bringing my loyal crop of customers up to speed on Version 3.0. The early responses have been overwhelmingly positive and supportive… and I myself have found the new interface super slick and fast. Naturally, I have a few other things I’d like to do, but that is what 3.1 is for, right?

Velvet Singer 3.0, seemingly without really “working it” has also gotten tons of tech PR lately. Amazing confirmation to see this types of game changing buzz come in. And I am always encouraged to know I’ve built something that above all serves my customers well. Just like classical singing, you have to love the process as much as you love the result.

FileMaker Inc. featured Velvet Singer prominently in the OPENING pitch at the last developer’s conference, in front of thousands of the world’s best developers! See http://www.filemaker.com/developers/devcon/. It was staggering to think of the honor, and a great treat for me personally. The speaker literally used Velvet Singer as the center piece for demonstrating some of the new features in FileMaker 12.

I also was a guest speaker at the inaugural FileMaker Product Conference, a conference specifically designed to help developers like me who sell products built using FileMaker. Again, I was humbled and delighted to get to share some of the things I’ve learned through this journey, and to learn from and be inspired by some heavy-hitting minds in similar businesses. I gave a seminar on creating business plans for startups, and another on sales generation through four layers of building genuine trust with customers.

Lastly, I was able to use Velvet Singer as a platform to discuss paradigms of user interface design with my colleagues at Soliant Consulting during one of our team “lunch and learns” in Chicago.

More soon!

SafariScreenSnapz001

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Fall 2011 Update — v2.9.4

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Open up Velvet Singer today and you will find a new update which is the result of a few months of exciting work, responding to so many brilliant ideas from you!

Now Even More Repertoire!

Thanks to our fantastic research team, we have added over 200 new operatic works to the aria database, including over 1800 brand new opera roles!

You can immediately pick from these new roles simply by navigating to the Repertoire module and clicking “New Record.”

And more repertoire is on its way!

Trends Email Report After Each Session

New to version 2.4.2, when you close Velvet Singer, the system will ask if you would like to email your trends report.

The report includes a summary of your session (how many records were added in each table as well as showing how your data is trending. For example: are you singing more auditions per month, meeting more people, doing more coachings, making more money?

Calendar Rapid Data Entry Screen

Now you can save time when entering your rehearsal schedules using the new “Add Multiple Events” feature. This form is set to automatically trigger to make data entry as fast as possible.

Repertoire Multi-Picker

Now when you pick repertoire to add, you can select multiple at once. Also, we improved the look of this layout so that you can find what you are looking for even quicker. It will now also highlight repertoire that is already in your list.

Backup Location

Want to backup your most important career data to a remote drive or hosted server? Now it is easier than ever.

In addition to the regular backups to the Velvet Singer/Backups/ folder, you can also automatically set your system to backup to another location. This can include a mapped drive or a Dropbox folder.

In this example, I backup my file to a local Dropbox folder. When Dropbox sees the new file, it automatically begins uploading the file to their servers “quietly” in the background while I go about my day. Pretty slick!

Professional References Quick Report

Upon request from one of our customers, we created a new branded report which is perfect for sending along with your applications.

The top area is triggered by our “branded” settings so you can pick your own font or chose your own logo. The report will automatically include any professional contacts flagged with the new “References” type.

Any other great ideas? Send them along and we will make them come to life.

IMAP Email Folders Now Sync

Another fantastic customer request is the ability to sync multiple email folders using the IMAP Protocol. Done and done!

Now from the Main Menu / Settings / Email Settings you can easily change over to IMAP. Once you do, you can click “Sync Folder List” to bring in your list of Email folders and decide which folders you want to check.

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Your Future: Trending Up

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

“If you build it, they will come” was the mantra in the 1989 baseball classic, Field of Dreams staring the incomparable Kevin Costner. Finest actor of our day, IMHO.

Well, our mantra at Velvet Singer is that “If you can see it, you can improve it.” Say it with me — “If you can SEE it, you can IMPROVE it.” That is the truth.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that one of the barriers between you and success is simply clarity and understanding?

Automatic Trends Email

I am so excited about this new feature that I built earlier this week that I am not even waiting until it is released before announcing it. Because we overhauled the Trends module in the last update (v2.9.2) it is was a simple step to add an automatic email report.

Now whenever you log out of Velvet Singer, you will get a clean and clear snapshot of where you stand and where you are headed:

  • Are you performing more often?
  • Are you making more money?
  • Are you learning new arias?
  • Are you singing more lessons?
  • Are you faithfully journaling?
  • Are you networking more regularly?

And so you will have clarity on where you stand and can spur yourself along to greatness.

Need accountability? No problem! Because the report will be a nicely formatted HTML email, you can forward it along to your teacher, friends, family or supporters to involve them in your journey.

Look for this and much more in the next release!

Here is what the full Email report looks like:


Velvet Singer

www.velvetsinger.com

James Testdata

lyric baritone
 
Session Update

as of 6/1/2011 10:12:28 AM

Summary

During this session, I added records to the following tables:

Journal

673 total

10 new entries

Auditions

274 total

1 new audition

Contacts

274 total

5 new contacts

Repertoire

114 total

1 new record

Finances

283 total

6 new transactions

Email

633 total

No new emails

Projects

61 total

No new projects

Events

739 total

21 new events

 
 
 
Trends Update

Journal

Trending

Average

Journal Line Items

Up ↑

150 journal line items per season.

1346 journal line items in 9 seasons.

16 journal line items per month.

673 journal line items in 42 months.

Journal Forms

Down ↓

31 journal form entries per season.

153 journal form entries in 5 seasons.

4 journal form entries per month.

162 journal form entries in 42 months.

 

Audition

Trending

Average

All Auditions

Up ↑

39 auditions researched per season.

274 auditions in 7 seasons.

All Sent Applications

Down ↓

19 applications sent per season.

134 applications in 7 seasons.

2 applications sent per month.

134 applications in 70 months.

All Sung Auditions

Up ↑

9 auditions sung per season.

54 auditions in 6 seasons.

 

Contact

Trending

Average

New Colleague / Peer

Up ↑

22 new colleagues entered per calendar year.

112 new colleagues in 5 calendar years.

All New Contacts

Down ↓

55 new contacts entered per calendar year.

274 new contacts in 5 calendar years.

5 new contacts entered per month.

274 new contacts in 51 months.

New VIP Contact

Up ↑

11 new important contacts entered per calendar year.

55 new important contacts in 5 calendar years.

 

Repertoire

Trending

Average

Solo Repertoire

Up ↑

6 audition selections learned per season.

37 audition selections in 6 seasons.

Role / Work

Down ↓

5 roles learned per season.

21 roles in 4 seasons.

 

Finance

Trending

Average

Income

Up ↑

$13,924 in income per calendar year.

$55,698 in income over 4 calendar years.

$1,547 in income per month.

$55,698 in income over 36 months.

Profit

Up ↑

$11,732 in profit per calendar year.

$46,928 in profit over 4 calendar years.

$1,311 in profit per month.

$46,928 in profit over 36 months.

Expense

Down ↓

$2,192 in expense per calendar year.

$8,769 in expense over 4 calendar years.

$230 in expense per month.

$8,769 in expense over 38 months.

 

Project

Trending

Average

All Projects

Up ↑

14 projects added per season.

56 projects in 4 seasons.

 

Event

Trending

Average

All Events

Up ↑

106 events totaling 198 hours per season.

739 events totaling 1384 hours in 7 seasons.

12 events totaling 22 hours per month.

739 events totaling 1384 hours in 64 months.

Voice Lesson

Up ↑

1 voice lesson totaling 1 hour per month.

33 voice lessons totaling 30 hours in 38 months.

Performance

Down ↓

27 performances totaling 76 hours per season.

109 performances totaling 304 hours in 4 seasons.

Voice Lesson

Up ↑

8 voice lessons totaling 7 hours per season.

33 voice lessons totaling 30 hours in 4 seasons.

Coaching

Down ↓

21 coachings totaling 20 hours per season.

83 coachings totaling 80 hours in 4 seasons.

2 coachings totaling 2 hours per month.

83 coachings totaling 80 hours in 37 months.

Practice / Vocalizing

Up ↑

7 practice sessions totaling 8 hours per season.

29 practice sessions totaling 32 hours in 4 seasons.

1 practice session totaling 1 hour per month.

29 practice sessions totaling 32 hours in 35 months.

Teaching

Down ↓

1 lesson taught totaling 1 hour per calendar year.

4 lessons totaling 4 hours in 3 calendar years.

0 lessons taught totaling 0 hour per month.

4 lessons totaling 4 hours in 26 months.
 

©2011 Velvet Singer, LLC. Chicago, IL 60640
www.velvetsinger.com
All rights reserved.


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E-Workbook is Here — v2.9.2

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

We have been holding on to this release for quite some time, trying out the new E-Workbook in seminars throughout the country. Tweaking, building and refining what we think is an excellent add-on to Velvet Singer.

After automatically downloading the newest update, v2.9.2, you can open up the Workbook add-on from the Main Menu.

This is an entirely separate file (the first add-on that we have released) and it is a very feature rich application of its own. We may even begin to sell it as a separate product. For our current customers? Free!

From the E-Workbook menu, you can open up the workbook for either of our Seminars:

- Seminar A: Organization / Goal Setting
- Seminar B: Business Plan

There is tons of information and TLC poured into both, but we think the Business Plan workbook functions really well as a stand-alone application.

The Bottom Line: Persuasion and Communication

The Workbooks walk you through everything you need to know, helping you generate rich and persuasive prose. For example, rather than trying to describe your values from scratch, you can first pick from a list of 39 common values.

E-mail Reports

From the Business Plan menu you can generate two types of reports, opening them in your web browser to print or preparing an HTML email to your family, friends, teachers and supporters. You can also Resume your workbook from the last page you edited, Backup your data, Submit your data to our compilation project or Clear all of your previous responses.

The E-Mail report allows you to send a beautiful and colorful HTML report directly from the system with no setup required.

Customize your message to request feedback and direction, or make an appeal for direct financial report. The more you involve your stakeholders, the more they will support you.

Business Plans

Your business plan will arrive with professional and colorful styling. It will contain copious amounts of valuable information, yet it will also be well organized and readable.

Velvet Singer business plans contain the following information:

  • Executive summary
  • Mission
  • Vision
  • Values
  • Current approach
  • Entrepreneurship strengths / weaknesses
  • Product strengths / weaknesses
  • Positioning / branding
  • Ambitions
  • Financial outlook
  • Risks analysis
  • Strategy
  • Five year plan
  • Priorities
  • To do list

Trends Module

Rebuilt and optimized to show you only the best information without any setup required on your part, the trends module is completely prefabricated and ready-made. Simply navigate to the Trends module from the main menu, and the system will compile your data. Click around, learn and share.

From each Trend record, you can see composite information describing your progress. For example, this singer has been doing about coachings per month.

View your profitability over the years or show the same data broken out into months. You can also drill down into income or expenses.

Trend reports gather high level data so you can analyze them together or share them with your professional contacts.

This report show a singers has researched 273 auditions, sent out 134 applicat

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Version 2.8 — Personalized and Branded

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

This is arguably our biggest release to date! It is so big, we almost thought to call it 3.0, but we have some even bigger things planned so we couldn’t quite go there yet.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

Branded Reports

We are thrilled to release this powerful feature: branded reports. Currently this branding applies to the Audition “repertoire selections” report — so when you print your rep list for your next audition, you can make it look just like your resume.

You can customize the font, size, bold, italics, add a headshot or add your own customized header logo image.

Navigate to the Main Menu, Settings, “Edit Branding and Resume Information”.

Now that we have this, think of what else might be on the horizon! If you can brand your rep list, why not use Velvet Singer to create your resume? More to come on that.

“Favorite” Reports

You can easily flag any report as a “favorite”, and even personalize the name of the report. We have started to build so many reports, that it is finally becoming necessary to be able to sift through and get to just what you need.

You will notice that we started you off with a few of our favorites. These reports are likely to be useful to you as well, so click through and to get a sense of what they each provide insight into.

Dashboard Menu and Totals

The top menu now has another menu item called “Dashboard.” We thought of calling it “Quick Menu” or “Quick Find” because we are convinced this feature will really help you do things faster.

Also, the Dashboard Menu (ie. the new thing) as well as the Dashboard layout, now display total record counts (including total dollar amounts for the Finance module). This is hugely powerful! That means that you can get a quick snapshot of how much you have been singing, how much money you have earned from your church job, or where your Auditions stand, just by looking up at this menu drop-down.

This should make reporting more powerful too:
1) Select your report
2) Use the Dashboard Menu to limit the records

Simple as that!

Three Contact Categories

The Contacts module now has a few new powerful ways you can group your contacts, making it more powerful than ever to invest the time in documenting your network.

Using the Category field, you can set which of the three primary ways you relate to this contact:

  • Professionally,
  • for Artistic Development, or
  • Personally.

Your contact might be a “VIP Contact” (in the Type field), but you primarily rely on them for your artistic development (coach or teacher) not for getting a job. Now you can more accurately record the nature of your relationship, and it will all be sitting there waiting for you when you need it.

Also, our professional contacts often have multiple jobs, so now you can mark up to three as this example shows. The information will appear on all reports and based on any Quick Find you run.

IPA Source

www.ipasource.com is a fantastic resource for singers, and now you can access it directly from within Velvet Singer. You may login to your IPA Source account or purchase songs “a-la-carte.”

From any Repertoire record, simply navigate to the Web Page layout, and toggle to the IPA Source option. That will search to see if your aria or song is among the thousands that IPA Source translates.

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Version 2.7 Released

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

This release adds a few new reports and the ability to email more than 5 pages of any report directly from Velvet Singer. If you select to email a report that is longer that five pages, the system will immediately prompt you. After you select which of your professional contacts to email, the system will navigate you to a batch of email drafts.

At the request of several customers, we built a special report showing the detailed journal entries for each audition including the repertoire requirements, selections and status. The result is a very simple yet powerful repertoire “one-sheet” useful for sharing with voice teacher or vocal coaches.

Now as you configure your settings (such as your calendar or email settings), the system will record any success or errors to a simple usage log. This can greatly improve the quality of your communication between you and your Velvet Singer support team!

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