In my previous blog post, I answered the question, “Should You Add New Web Tools to Your Stock Plan Administration Toolkit?” with a resounding “yes!”. So right about now you’re probably asking, “Well, Jeremy, what are these web tools, exactly?” Luckily, I’ve got some great answers for you. Listed below are just a few of the powerful tools you can leverage to streamline your stock plan administration work.

1. Tools for Communicating with Your Employees
   I bet that most people reading this are still using regular old email to send out notices to their employees. With the latest web tools, you can create engaging, interactive newsletters that your employees are more likely to read. Here are two of my top picks:
   1. Vertical Response – This is an email creation tool that allows you to create stylish templates from which to send emails to your employees. Not only that, but you can set it up to tell you precisely how many of your employees are actually reading your emails.
   2. Vizu – When you want to know what your employees think about a change to their stock plan, create a short poll for them. Vizu is a free tool that allows you to do this easily. You can then embed the poll on your portal page or include it in an email.
2. Tools for Training Your Employees
   Every new employee needs to be trained on how your stock plan works, and every existing employee needs to be educated on changes to your stock plan. This is typically done by having either one-on-one trainings or a group meeting to go over the changes. These types of physical meetings are useful, but what do you do for people who miss them – or for those who work remotely – These two tools offer great solutions:
   1. GoToMeeting – This application allows you to set up an online or “virtual” meeting with an employee in a remote location. You can share your computer screen with that person to go over the details of the stock plan. An alternative to this tool is Skype, which also works very well.
   2. Jing – This free tool is made by Camtasia and allows you to record video and audio from your computer screen, which can then be shared with your employees via your portal or email. If you need advanced video editing, you can always pay for their Camtasia tool.
3. Networking Tools
   These web tools allow you to network on the web. I know one stock plan administrator who used these tools to land his current job – and he couldn’t have done it without them.
   1. LinkedIn – If you haven’t already done so, I strongly recommend joining LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you can post an electronic resume and connect with other LinkedIn members in the industry. After you have your LinkedIn account, take some time to explore the LinkedIn groups that interest you. You can use these to read through questions that others post, as well as post your own questions for the community at large. After you join, feel free to connect with me.
   2. Equity Compensation Experts – This site was created by Dan Walter of Performensation and grew out of a LinkedIn Group. There are currently 1,000 members, and it’s a great resource for any stock plan administrator.

The above is only a sampling of the cutting-edge web tools that can make a stock plan administrator’s life easier. For more examples, you can check out the slides from our recent GEO presentation on our Web Tools in Stock Plans page. If you have any tools to add, please leave them in the comments.

Of course, if you need a web-based tool to track your stock and option records, check out the 4-minute demo of Equity Focus.