I might as well start off with a confession. I like to watch the team of medieval scribes in my office as they hand-copy issues of my Inside Information newsletter using goose quills dipped in ink; and sometimes, while I chisel out these words with my state-of-the-art Stone Age hand axes, I wonder if there might not be some useful technological innovations I haven't yet incorporated into my office routine.

Most of us, when confronted with the possibility of enhancing productivity, have a tendency to shrug our shoulders and conclude that changing business habits would be much too painful and difficult, and the productivity returns not worth the effort. But when I attended the Technology Tools for Today (T-3) conference, I realized that I may not be quite as far out on the bleeding edge as I thought.

Words into Type

One of the biggest insights for me, and for many advisors, is the additional productivity we can get from speech-to-text software. I had actually given speech-to-text a try a few years ago. After spending painful hours reading War and Peace into the headset, I was finally able to train the software to the point where I would say, clearly and slowly, "We are finally entering the modern age of productivity," and magically, right there on the page, the system would give me a Word document bearing the words: "Weaver's fine lee and touring the modem a jove pro dock if a tee."

That was then. It is now possible to capture your client meeting notes, practice management ideas and reminders in text format through a variety of services. The easiest are the short-form providers like Jott (www.jott.com); Dial2Do (www.dial2do.com/home/movie); ReQall (www.reqall.com); and a variety of iPhone applications-all basically dial-up services where you call in, say where you want email text to be sent (your mailbox, your assistant's, your outsource provider's or your daughter's cell phone), then dictate what you want the document to say. This is ideal for quick email responses and reminders. Cost is $5 to $15 per month.

Similar to these are longer-form providers like CopyTalk (www.copytalk.com) and WordzXpressed (www.wordzx.com), which typically charge by the word, and can therefore become more expensive. But (get this!), some of these services will even read your unopened email messages to you while you're driving to work, and you can dictate a response. When you get to the office, you can review your replies and send them out-assuming you haven't had an accident because you were focused on answering that client's question about his NIMCRUT instead of watching the road.

The alternative is Dragon Naturally Speaking Version 10 (www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking), which apparently represents a huge upgrade over Version 9, both in ease of use and in accuracy, and whose Preferred edition costs only $299. The software learns to understand you better every time you make a correction (by typing) into one of the files you've dictated, and yes, you can use the software as a mobile device if you buy a digital recorder. Just plug the digital recorder into your computer, feed your voice files into the Dragon program and obtain the text, which you can then feed into emails or other documents.

Alternate Realities

The other big takeaway from the T-3 conference was how technology can help you address clients' fears about the market. Bob Curtis, who runs PIETech (MoneyGuidePro planning software) suggests that clients may be panicking because they have been presented with a financial plan which, last August, had a 90% chance of success-and now, if you rerun the Monte Carlo numbers, the chance comes in closer to 55%. Their immediate interpretation: I have a 45% chance of living on dog food during my golden years. Sell everything!

Of course, this analysis is not precise. Nevertheless, the result is panic, which is reinforced by the media's constant squalling. It threatens client portfolios with bad decisions and it threatens the credibility (and therefore the revenues) of your advisory practices. Curtis offers an elegant solution: Go back to every client's list of goals-the assumptions that make up the financial plan-and start separating out the aspirational from the acceptable and the necessary.

Come again? Let's say the original financial plan includes, among the projected expenditures, two luxury trips abroad each year in retirement, buying a new Lexus every three years and maintaining membership in a prestigious golf club. The projected retirement date is set at five years hence, when the client reaches age 63. Instead of listing what Curtis calls a "single-point" goal, you would list two. The client might like to drive a Lexus, but the backup goal, which would be acceptable, would be to drive a Honda. The two trips abroad remain as the aspirational goal, but an acceptable alternative would be one trip a year on a reasonable budget. It would be acceptable, if not ideal, to move the client's retirement date back to age 65.