Do you want to become a Super Tweeter that everyone is dying to follow? Who doesn't? The good news is that it's really easy. Here's the formula: find stuff that people don't have time to on their own, link to it, talk about it and engage in interesting relevant conversations around it. That's all there is to it and this is a snap using iGoogle.
I have tried TweetDeck a number of times but I keep uninstalling it because it puts a drain on my system and I find it distracting. Still, I want fast access to my Twitter account and to be able to track my replies, direct messages and to also quickly glance at what my favorite users are posting. Enter the amazing TwitterGadget for Gmail.
I am always on the lookout for little mobile gizmos/gadgets that make my life either more productive or more enjoyable. Here are three recent purchases that I am thankful for. Any of them make great stocking stuffers for your favorite geek.
My MacBook Air constantly runs hot. Even when all I am doing is running a browser for awhile, the fan kicks in - and it's loud. Targus makes a neat fold up cooling pad called Targus HeatDefense
I have a small desk at home so rather than get a big set of speakers, I found one from Alltec Lansing that does the trick. The one catch is that it runs on batteries, but the sound is amazing. I use it to stream classical music from Pandora off my iPhone. The Alltec iM-237
Finally, I have a laptop bag addiction. I can't seem to find one I like. They're either too big or too small or they hurt some part of my body. Recently, I found one that's like porridge - just right. Brenthaven makes a pair of sling bags
Happy Holidays everyone.
Photo Credit: Adapted from Gateway Arch by docdevore
For the past five years my browser home page has been set to either Google.com or iGoogle. (I briefly flirted with the New York Times as my default but have integrated their feeds everywhere else.) This week I switched it to Gmail. With all of the features they have been adding lately, particularly through their Labs, Gmail is unquestionably my virtual Swiss Army Knife. It is not only my communications hub. It is my knowledge base and to some degree my feed reader. Some say it is becoming an enterprise dashboard - it is. It is my gateway to the web. (Note they added themes today!)
In this post I outline some recent ways I have tweaked my Gmail Personal Nerve Center by connecting Gmail with other web services. (Other posts on Gmail are here.)
Search the Web from Gmail
Gmail's search capabilities are top-notch. It's a big reason why I store tons of articles, factoids and even documents there. However, it's easy to miss the little button that says "Search the Web." These days I begin most of my web queries from Gmail. I even get a head start using their advanced keywords. (For example I type in new york weather when I want to know what the temperature is.) This will become even more useful once Gmail adds its SMS features later this month. Once that's back up you should be able to use it with Google SMS and get back search results via IM.
Update and Track Your Social Networks via IM
I am slowly in the process of trying to shift more of my communications out of email towards social software and IM. (More on this topic soon.) Still, I want an easily accessible record of all of these streams. So I am using Gmail much of the time to post to these services and also receive updates.
If you set up Ping.fm you can update all the major social networks via Gmail Chat. I post to Twitter via Ping.fm. I receive back replies by subscribing to a Twitter search feed for @steverubel via IM via notify.me. In addition, I receive Facebook alerts also by running my feed through notify.me. You can find your Facebook feed here. (You can also IM Friendfeed and Yammer directly and receive updates back from them too, which I do.)
Subscribe to High Priority Feeds and Alerts
I love Google Reader but I also like to be able to subscribe to some of my feeds via Gmail so that they are archived in a single place online and offline (via IMAP). However, I want to make this easily managed. So, I put all of my high priority feeds in Google Reader into a folder, make this folder public and then subscribe to the feed in Newsgator Online. Newsgator offers POP delivery so I have Gmail automatically fetch this account, scoop up the feeds, filter/archive them and tag them with the label "Feeds."
Track the Day's News with Gmail Clips
I am a news junkie and like to stay in the know. Gmail makes this a snap with Gmail Web Clips. I have pretty much standardized on the New York Times as my source of choice. In addition, I like to be able to track Techmeme too as well as all the news on the Presidential transition. So I have added a bunch of feeds to Clips including one from the awesome Times Topics site that stream into Gmail via a nice handy little news ticker.
Use Gmail as a Writing Tool
Sometimes writing can be intimidating, but it doesn't need to be. I like to start my writing in Gmail and then move it into other services where I can do more. For example, I wrote this blog post in Gmail and then sent it directly to TypePad. I also start documents here and then email them into Google Docs for additional tweaking (eg word counts, etc.). Finally I have a huge swipe file of articles and ideas stored in Gmail for inspiration and reference (for more on this concept see this great post from Write to Done). LifeClever offers some more thoughts here on using email for writing. See my other Gmail posts for how to use the service for storing ideas.
Build Links in Gmail to All Your Other Services
Finally, last but not least, when I do need to access other services they are all a click away in Gmail. I have added the Google Calendar and Google Docs gadgets to my sidebar. I store my To Do List in Google Docs so it's usually the top item in the gadget. In addition, I store my bookmarks in Gmail by exporting them to HTML and sending the page to myself using Ubiquity, which I pull up using Gmail Quick Links. Also, the links at the top of the page put me a click away to secure https versions of some of Google's other big services.
I keep adding to my system as Google rolls out features, but to me Gmail is my gateway to the web and the one web site I could never be without. Gmail turns five in the spring and I amazed how they continue to make it even more awesome once you start to really tweak it to your needs.
The economy is the story of the year. And although Congress is poised to pass a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry, we're not out of the woods. Many feel that a deep global recession is imminent. This means there will be layoffs - perhaps lots of them. To protect your job, you need to ensure that you are personally accountable and adding value every day.
Social software and web applications, if applied correctly, are sharp arrows in your quiver. They can also become massive distractions. Here are three techniques using web tools that can help you become more personally accountable in your career.
Track Your Browser Time with PageAddict
Time and attention are finite resources that must be harnessed properly if you want to succeed. Nevertheless, this is not simple in the connected age. Given that many of us work in Internet-related fields, it's easy (and some would argue quite valuable) to spend the entire day in your email inbox or on Friendfeed or Twitter. Problem is, you may not accomplish a thing.
Like my friends Paul Stamatiou and Kevin C. Tofel I spend the vast majority of my computing time "in the cloud." This means my browser, Firefox, is used more than any other application. But recently I have started using PageAddict, a free Firefox extension, to collect data on my Internet usage and I have found it invaluable.
PageAddict monitors the sites you visit and logs your time. You can then tag them into categories. All the data is stored locally on your computer. A similar tool that people love is called RescueTime. However, given that I spend a ton of time in my browser I have found PageAddict more than adequate for my needs.
Above is a screenshot from PageAddict that shows where my time was spent over the last two weeks. Email includes my corporate web-mail and GMail. Soc Nets includes Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter. While docs covers Google Docs, which I use to write, and Google Spreadsheets, which I use for GTD, goals, projects and ideas.
As you can see almost all of my time online is work related. Still I can see that I need to shrink my social network usage a little bit and increase my time with documents, web applications while also keeping RSS contained. I also need to go through the undefined section to see if there are big groups of sites that can be tagged.
Wrangle RSS
Many of us are RSS addicts. ReadWriteWeb recently did a great job showing how blog reading can help you grow in your career. This has certainly has been true for me and it's why I read 568 feeds, tag much of what I unearth there, file it in Gmail and share it liberally.
Still, as great as RSS is, it can eat your time. I have worked over the last couple of years to a) shift most of my reading to the early mornings or evenings when I have time to really ponder the content and b) use RSS as a knowledge management hub for information that others can use, including you, my colleagues and clients.
Google Reader Trends gives you the data you need to track this over time. You can see how many items you have read, what day/time you consume feeds as well as how many items you have shared. It also shows you the feeds you read the most, even via a mobile device - this is something even RescueTime or PageAddict can't track. Analyze the data and make sure it's aligned with your goals. Below is a screenshot from my reader.
Track All Your Time via a Web Calendar or Online Spreadsheet
In my field we all track our time. In some cases this is how we know what to bill clients for our time. In others, it's to ensure that we aren't over-servicing accounts. However, if you don't have to track your time I highly recommend it since it's a great way to ensure that you are focused and delivering value.
I have been using Google Calendar to track my time. I set up a calendar just for this purpose and use it to log when I start/completed a task. Then I transfer this data to our enterprise-wide time tracking tool. What I like about using GCal is that I can search my time or go back to a specific date to see what I did when. I also use bookmarklets to speed up the logging of my time.
As a next step I may move this to Google Spreadsheets or Zoho since I can generate charts to see where my time is being spent. I also want to think about how to synchronize my logs with PageAddict.
Bonus Tip: Create a Motivation Wall with Picasa or Flickr
This tip isn't really about measurement, but it's a little web app hack that I use to motivate myself. Using Picasa Web Albums I set up a private album called "The Motivation Wall." On the wall I collect images of people - some living, some dead - who achieved greatness. I try to hit this site every so often because I know it will inspire me to do the same.
In the screenshot above you will find some of my heroes - Michael Jordan taking the final shot to seal victory in the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Phelps winning his seventh gold by a hundredth of a second and Ben Franklin (a tinkerer like me) discovering electricity.
Additional links of note...
23 Personal Tools to Learn More About Yourself
Bytes of Life : For Every Move, Mood and Bodily Function, There's a Web Site to Help You Keep Track
Personal knowledge management is becoming one of the most critical skills that information workers like journalists, marketers and PR pros need to succeed today. Specifically, I am talking about the efficient collecting, processing and weeding of massive amounts of data. In this post I want to offer tips on how to take full advantage of tagging information in Gmail. (I have covered Gmail previously in this context in three separate installments.)
Gmail is not just an email client, but a rich, searchable database. Think of it as a data mining system. The more data that you allow to flow into Gmail, the more you'll get out of it - if it's organized. Even better all of this information is available across any device and even offline using IMAP. As much as I like Evernote, it's lack of offline notes on the iPhone made it a deal killer for me. Plus I already live in Gmail so it was easy to stick wit it.
GMail has labels, which are essentially tags, but they're unwieldy. You need to constantly manage them if you store a lot of info. It's a pain. I prefer to tag on the fly. And using GMail's unlimited plus addressing and filtering capabilities, you can. Here's how.
First, set up a filter in GMail so that all mail from the prefix of your email address to that prefix is auto-archived and marked as read. In my case this means mail from steverubel to steverubel. This will ensure that the emails do not show up in your inbox.
Next, as I find information I want to collect, I email it to myself using Ubiquity, a new extension for Firefox (Google Toolbar offers a similar email capability). However, instead of emailing it to just my regular email address I add a tag to the prefix by tacking a word on to the address with a plus symbol. To add multiple tags I send the message to multiple plus addresses all at once.
For example, Nielsen just published some interesting data about health and social networking. I know I might need this later so I select the article and invoke my email command in Ubiquity and send the message to both steverubel+health@gmail.com and steverubel+socialnetworking@gmail.com. The article never hits my inbox. It gets autoarchived where I can get it later.
Now if I want to find everything I have tagged under health and social networking, all I need to do is search for to:+health or to:+socialnetworking and bingo, the article turns up.
Finally, you need to make your tags easily accessible. Searching for these keywords every time is a pain. The solution is to use GMail Quick Links. For tags I access regularly I pull up the search in GMail and either bookmark them in my browser or add them as a Quick Link in GMail. (Note you need to enable Gmail Labs first in the settings.)
That's all there is to it. Next up I plan to couple this technique with Google Alerts and Newsgator's POP3 capabilities, which comes free with Newsgator Online, and GMail fetching to add have news and RSS flow into GMail that matches certain conditions I set up in advance and have them autotagged.
I consume a lot of information - all of it, digitally. In fact, I recently completed the transition a 100% media green state. I continue to use Gmail as a nerve center - my primary capture system. But sometimes, I want to flag something quickly to review later. Usually, these are tiny bits of info - notes or bookmarks - I need to capture very quickly. Here are three ways I do that.
Use the Google Web History for Quick Notes
Google offers a handy history feature that archives all of your searches by date and time. You need to have a Google account and activate it. Once you do, the search engine will remember every search and search result you clicked. You can star items and even subscribe to either your history or these bookmarks as a feed.
If I am on phone with someone and I have an idea I want to capture real quick, I go to the search box in my browser (which is always open), type in my quick note and search. Now it's archived in my history, which I can always go back and search later.
Annotate Bookmarks and Feeds with a Private Friendfeed Room
Friendfeed has a feature called Rooms that you can use to share links with either the public at large, a small group of friends or just yourself. The feature is great on many levels, but it's especially handy as a private info trapping system. Here are two ways I use it.
The first is to grab this bookmarklet and start capturing stuff you find in the wilds of the web and stuffing it into your private room. You can annotate it in the process. In addition, later on you can go back and leave additional notes as comments. All of this is searchable too via a box in the upper right hand side of the room. In addition, all rooms can be accessed on a mobile device via FFtoGo.
The second way to use this is to start importing RSS feeds into a private room. This essentially sets up a mini private River of News that you can also review, annotate and search later on.
Use a Link-Trapping Service for Reading Lists
The final tip is to use a link-trapping service for compiling articles you want to review later. There are three I have experimented with - Instapaper, Readbag and LaterLoop. Each of these services saves bookmarked articles into reading lists. They offer bookmarklets and other tools for easy flagging, a personalized RSS feed as well as mobile versions that strip down the articles down to just text for low-bandwidth reading on the go.
Of the three, LaterLoop takes the cake for two reasons. First, it keeps a running archive of all the articles you have read. You can go through these and star items for later. Second, it lets you download virtually your entire archive for offline reading. I use this all the time when I am on planes. It's invaluable.
Those are my latest tips. Enjoy!
Photo credit: Really Simple Syndication by Shira Goldling
The following is also my column this week in Advertising Age.
If you think there's already enough to distract you in your life, just wait. With Americans spending 100 hours a year commuting, according to the Census Bureau, the internet is coming to your car in a big way -- and not just to the front seat either.
Dashboard navigation systems provide a natural entry point. Year-over-year unit sales of GPS devices grew nearly 500% during the 2007 holiday season, according to NPD.
Several GPS manufacturers such as Tele Atlas, which supplies systems to the automakers, already display the logos of nearby fast-food restaurants' gas stations. However, the screens are quickly getting more useful -- or cluttered, depending on your point of view. Navigon's high-end model, for example, features helpful restaurant reviews and ratings from Zagat.
Soon, devices that can both send and receive data will hit the market. Dash, for example, is integrating Web 2.0 crowdsourcing into its systems, allowing cars to send information back to the company to improve traffic calculations. As mobile broadband becomes more ubiquitous, it's conceivable that these devices will soon talk to your cellphone via Bluetooth and, thus, talk to social networks as well.
With send/receive capabilities and overall bandwidth improving, local contextual advertising, perhaps rich-media-based, is just around the corner. Google already allows users in Europe to send directions from the web to maps on connected dashboards. Microsoft is working on a system through its Sync technology to provide ad-supported, location-based information for which users would normally pay. (Disclosure: Navigon, Microsoft and Zagat are clients of Edelman, my employer.)
The back seat offers perhaps more immediate promise for TV advertisers in search of new venues. In March Sirius and Chrysler launched an in-car video network called Backseat TV. The subscription service carries kids programming from Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. Kids weaned on the service will surely demand more as the technology gets more sophisticated, perhaps to the chagrin of parents.
And therein lies the rub: Marketers will need to strike a careful balance to protect privacy and to not push into a space that many consider sacrosanct. However, given the size and captive nature of the in-car audience, the digital-advertising potential is becoming very clear.
The following is also my column in next week's AdAge.
One of the most important skills executives need today is the know-how to manage and harness their personal information flow.
The Attention Crash is a crisis in global business that is getting worse every day. By 2009, the Radicati Group predicts that we’ll spend 41% of our time managing email. Now add to that the IMs, documents, Facebook pokes, RSS feeds, Twitter tweets and text messages coming at us and we’re officially way oversubscribed.
Unfortunately, the problem will not abate. Human attention is finite. It doesn’t scale. Worse, the pace of change today is so rapid there’s a huge need to stay digitally savvy.
The key is in wrangling your information flow. Here are three of my best tips.
Inbox Zero (www.inboxzero.com) - Blogger Merlin Mann has created a simple way to effectively manage email. His approach involves setting aside blocks of time for “email dashes,” quickly triaging messages and automating some of the processes with search folders – a powerful Outlook feature that most never use. Be sure to watch the video on Merlin’s site.
Invest in Search – When in doubt, let search tools - either on your desktop or online - do the work for you. The time you invest to set up these systems can pay huge dividends.
For example, I subscribe to around 500 RSS feeds in Google Reader. The great thing about my reader is that it’s searchable and acts as a personal database. So recently when my colleague asked me for March Madness online video statistics, was able to pull them up in seconds by searching my archive.
Make Unusable Time Usable – I read a ton. However, I have mastered how to stuff it into pockets of time that are normally “unusable.”
I get through about one business book a week by listening to them when I commute, travel and run errands. Most of the key books are available from Audible.com or iTunes. I am currently "reading" Groundswell by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li.
In addition, I use Instapaper.com to bookmark articles I want to read. I can access this site from any computer or mobile device. I also keep a reading folder in my email nerve center that syncs up with my different devices. It’s even available when I am offline.
These are just a few of the best tips. For more “lifehacks”, check out my bookmarks.
With smartphone sales soaring and Citigroup projecting year-over-year growth of 50-60%, it's a safe bet that a lot of you are increasingly surfing the web from your mobile devices.
Still, even with the iPhone, the mobile browsing experience leaves lots to be desired because of the bandwidth and reception issues. Enter bookmarklets. These utilities add one-click functionality to your mobile device and they're terrific time savers.
Here are three such links I use constantly on the go. Drag the first two to your bookmarks/favorites and sync them to your device and you're all set. For the final bookmarklet, you need to first visit each service to configure them.
Google, Mowser and Skweezer are mobile transcoders that take any URL you throw at it and strip away the graphics for faster browsing. I prefer to use Google's version since it also gives me the option to browse the feed. The next time you want to get to a page quickly and your browser keeps loading the page. Stop it mid-stream and simply tap your Mobilize This! bookmarklet.
Wikipedia This! Need to settle a bar bet like the name of Boba Fett's dad? Wikipedia of course has all the answers. Access this bookmarklet, enter your search term and you'll be whisked away to the answer.
ToRead and Instapaper
The great thing about the mobile web is that it's always with you. The downside is that sometimes it's hard to read a long story. Enter ToRead.cc and Instapaper. Both of these sites help you bookmark articles for the future. In the case of ToRead, it will email you the full text of the page. Instapaper assembles a reading list you can access from anywhere.
Happy browsing, travelers!
There has been some debate the last few days about the merits of web-based vs. desktop applications. This was sparked by a big article in last weekend's New York Times about Google and Microsoft (an Edelman client). Ionut Alex Chitu is moving his information to the cloud. Meanwhile James Kendrick at JKOntheRun continues to like his desktop apps.
There is a hybrid solution. You can get the best of both worlds by setting up a web-based Personal Nerve Center (PNC) and making it ubiquitous and redundant so it's available from anywhere, even offline. I find this system makes it easier to manage the information overload drag. (If the entire PNC concept is new to you, then I invite you to read my initial posts on the subject first.)
All of these tips require any IMAP or hosted Exchange email account to work. I wrote this with GMail in mind, which now thankfully supports IMAP. This post has several parts...
Establish the Personal Nerve Center as the Hub of your Online Life
I use lots of applications both on the desktop and online. However, I learned from Leo Babauta to become a Cyber Minimalist. This means once the stuff is created, I email into into GMail so that it archives and labels copies of my photos, personal word docs, meeting notes, web pages/PDFs I want to read and even MP3s. I also send "takeout" articles from Google Reader into GMail by using that site's email functionality - e.g. articles that I want to read later. This way, my essential stuff is available anytime, anywhere from any device, even offline (as you will soon see).
For example, when I create a list in Google Docs (which I use for GTD), I always email a copy to a secret "plus sign" GMail address. This automatically gets filtered and archived under my "Lists" label, which I can access from anywhere.
Create a Portable, Offline Version of the PNC that Works on Any Computer or Mobile Device
Getting your information online is just the beginning. The real magic happens when you sync the web with devices and computers.
I carry a USB drive wherever I go. On the stick I carry two copies of Portable Thunderbird - one that runs on Macs, the other on PCs. Both are synced to my IMAP account and have most of my essential PNC data cached - specific folders of articles, bookmarks, notes, GTD lists, etc. In both cases, these copies of Portable Thunderbird are password protected and encrypted. (The Mac version sits on an encrypted disk image.)
The advantage of this system, even though it's not always completely current, is that I can find any computer in the world and even if it's offline, have access to my critical information. That's not all, however.
I also keep my cell phone in sync with my GMail PNC. I always make sure key labels/folders like @Lists, @Reading, @Docs, @Meetings and @Personal stay in sync with my iPhone. This way, even if I am in the air and without connectivity, I have access to my essential data and files. This will work on any IMAP capable smartphone. I wrote about this over the summer but have since simplified the system now that GMail supports IMAP.
Build an "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass" PNC
In addition to keeping my USB key and iPhone in sync with my Personal Nerve Center, I also store encrypted copies of Portable Thunderbird on Box.net. This way, if for some reason I don't have my USB stick or mobile device (pretend I am Will Smith in I am Legend), I can log onto Box.net and download the copy of Thunderbird to a new USB drive. It's a backup for the backup and may one day be handy for the rare occasion when Gmail goes down.
Pump up your PNC with the Power of Search Folders
Last but not least, when I am accessing my PNC offline - be it from Mail.app, Thunderbird or Outlook - I use search folders to easily find certain information that's in my PNC. Lifehacker explains how here.
For example, I can find use these to easily pull up all my Twitter posts and replies from the last six months. I can certainly achieve this in Gmail using sophisticated searches, but you get more power and speed on the desktop than you do with the Web-based version of GMail.
This is what I am experimenting with now. It's clear to me that for the time being, there is no substitute for desktop apps - even though webware is catching up. The magical nexus is when you combine them so that your information is ubiquitous and that's exactly what I have going right now. Eventually, I expect this will all become more seamless and not require as many hacks.
Like lots of people I have become more aware of what I can and should be doing to help the environment. (Thanks, Al.) Now I am taking this to the next level by getting toward what I call a "Media Green" state. Basically, I am converting all the media I consume (and there is a lot of it) into the most environmentally friendly format I can find, without sacrificing too much of the experience.
This is the last big piece of my effort to get more green. I bank and pay bills online. Earlier this year I traded in my small SUV for a very efficient hybrid car. Further, I am more conscious of little things that I really ignored until recently - like turning the thermostat off when I leave the apartment.
In addition, thanks to my extensive use (or maybe that's misuse!) of Gmail and IMAP, I have already moved 100% of my work stuff, like meeting notes and documents, to bits. People are amazed when they come into my apartment or office and see no paper at all. I don't even know how to add the network printer at work! Media was the last frontier.
Here are the three steps I took to go "Media Green" ...
In: Audiobooks | Out: Printed Books
I "read" somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 books a year - mostly business, nonfiction and sports. However, nowadays I rarely buy printed books and instead download audiobooks from either Audible.com or iTunes. Now that MP3 players are ubiquitous - and cheap - their selection has grown a lot over the years.
For starters, I love that I can carry several audiobooks with me at once. Try that with bound books. You'll break your back. I keep two or three at all times lined up on my iPhone ready to go.
Second, audiobooks fill tons of unusable time - such as when I am waiting on line at Whole Foods or at the security checkpoint at the airport or when I am driving to client meetings. In addition, if you get an Audible subscription they actually cost less over time than hard copy books. I wish publishers made all of their titles available in audio
format. Still, many of the more popular books are available as audiobooks.
If you have an iPhone, it gets more fun. Sometimes when commuting by train into the city I take notes via Gmail IMAP about what I am listening to. Of course, you don't need an iPhone to do this. Audible supports tons of devices, including Palm Treos and more.
My next step is to start storing audiobooks in Gmail or Box.net so that I can access them if I am out of content or space on the iPhone.
In: RSS, IMAP-enabled GMail and the iPhone | Out: Printed Magazines and Newspapers
Years ago I used to read three daily newspapers - the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Newsday, my local paper. I also used to buy dozens of magazines on computers, business and sports. I used to store them in a snazzy rack. Of course, I read lots of trade pubs too - AdAge, AdWeek, PR Week, etc. Now, however, I have almost completely ditched print in favor of reading online. (I just have to cancel a few remaining subscriptions.)
I now subscribe to the RSS feeds for every publication mentioned above plus hundreds of blogs. The beauty of this is that I only subscribe to what I care about and ditch the rest. So, for example, for the Times I subscribe to top news, NY, business, tech, NBA and football feeds but not the movie reviews.
Once I find articles I want to read, I clip them by emailing each into the Gmail Personal Nerve Center using a special email address so they get filtered. Then the articles show up in my "Reading" folder on my iPhone as well as on the desktop and web thanks to the new IMAP features in Gmail. This will work with any modern cell phone that supports IMAP, not just the iPhone.
In: XBox Live, DVR, Apple TV/iTunes/iPhone | Out: DVD Movies
I am not a huge movie buff, but I enjoy a flick every now and then. However, I have found that between the three boxes I have connected to my set - an XBox, cable box w/DVR and an Apple TV - I am more than covered. (This tip is not for hardcore movie fans who love DVD extras.)
XBox Live Marketplace (an Edelman client) is one of my favorite services. They have 350 movies for rental with more added all the time (subscribe to the feeds here). Many of them are in HD. Basically, all you need to do is sign up for an account and rent the movies online via the console. Movies begin to download and after about five minutes you can start watching. The rest of the flick downloads as you watch. After a few days, they expire and no longer work. It's a very elegant system and cheap too.
A lot of people have DVRs these days. Here's how I use mine. I scan the listings online a few weeks in advance and flag the movies I want. Then I record them and keep them stored for a rainy day when I want to watch a movie. I keep a library of about five to ten movies. As a next step, I may add additional storage to my DVR.
Last but not least, I have an iPhone and Apple TV. I purchase movies off of iTunes and download them for later viewing. The selection of movies on iTunes is not that great. XBox Live is better. However, I like the convenience of viewing them on my iPhone when I travel. I even take a cable with me so that I can plug my phone into the hotel TV (this works with iPods too). I may also explore storing movies on Box.net so that I basically increase my iPhone storage, provided wifi is plentiful.
These are just three simple steps I took to go "Media Green." If you have other ideas, leave them in the comments.
OK, since you clearly like these hackery posts (e.g. the one I wrote last night), here's one more on the topic. Then it's back to the normal fare here.
I am on a quest to figure out how I can use web services to run my entire life at home and work. I have two key requirements: 1) that I can easily get data in and out of the online service and b) that I can access my information quickly using my cell phone or download it to the device or my computer. Usually this means the web service has to have email in and out capability.
When it comes to remembering things, I am really bad at it. I subscribe to the Getting Things Done productivity program and The David's philosophy of getting things out of your head. My iPhone is my ubiquitous capture device. However, when I can I create to do lists that consist not of text but photos! It's faster. Plus, like Mark Cuban, I have terrible handwriting so digital is the way to go for me. So far I am using this mostly for personal errands but I am dreaming up new schemes to create all my GTD lists by taking pictures of people that I need to do something for, etc.
Here's an example. When I run out of cleaning supplies, I don't make a shopping list. I snap a photo of the empty container with my iPhone (however any old cameraphone will do). Then I email it into Flickr, which is free. I mark all the photos as private. In addition, I tag them "todo". Oh and the emails get backed up into the Gmail nerve center since I use their SMTP server. I could probably add a filter and a label here too.
Here's what my todo page looks like. It's reminding me of two things - to pick up cleaning supplies and to buy a nice present like flowers for my Mom. (Oh and to my consumer package good client friends out there - you know who you are - my cleaning woman picks the supplies not me!)
Then, when I am ready to head to the store, I call up Flickr Mobile from my phone. You can use any other photo service here that supports email - Flickr, Apple's .Mac, etc. Sometimes I will use .Mac Web Gallery but I like Flickr's simplicity. Of course, you don't need email. You can simply keep the images on your phone. But I would rather back up my images.
This is just the beginning, however. I am thinking about giving out the special Flickr email address for the page to a small group of others (hmm, my boss?). That way they can put things for me on my visual list and I will get updates via RSS. I may even make a game out of it - give me the best mnemonic possible so that I really remember to do something!
Anyway, even if I don't take this further, I love having a visual to do list. And it's fun!
Next month will mark 25 years since I started using a home computer. Brad Feld and I were talking about this in my office a few weeks ago and I have been meaning to write this post since. Twenty-five years is a long time! So I thought it might be fun this summer, being geeks and all, if we wrote about "all the computers we have loved before." Here's my run at the highlights, to the best of my recollection. Share yours with the tag: myfirstcomputer. Oh and skip to the end for a peek at the future if this doesn't interest you ...
1982: Atari 800
Ahh the summer of 1982. I was 12 years old and a video game junkie. The Go-Gos dominated the radio. Even today if I hear Pac Man music or "Head Over Heels" I start to jiggle my pocket for quarters.
I had used a Radio Shack TRS 80 (often called the Trash 80) at sleep away camp in 1981 and loved it. From then on I was dying to have my own computer. My parents bought me the Atari for my Bar Mitzvah. We upgraded it to 64K of RAM (yes, I said K) and added a cassette tape drive and a dot-matrix printer. I connected it to the Sony Trinitron TV in my room.
The Atari 800 was a good computer. My Dad, an engineer, and I made it do all kinds of cool stuff. For example, we programed in Basic to plot out ones and zeros on a dot matrix paper to to draw pictures of Snoopy. I subscribed to Compute! magazine and Antic. The magazine came with pages of code that you would input by hand. The result: usually a fun snake game or something like that. (I know I know. You probably think I lived in a Log Cabin too.)
1985: Atari 800 XL
This was basically the family upgrade to the Atari 800. I used a word processor called AtariWriter to write school reports. This is what it looked like...
More importantly, this was also the first computer I used to get online with a 300 baud modem.
I first subscribed to an Atari online service called Plato that was really cool, but it went bust. Then I logged on to Compuserve and GEnie, a service that General Electric ran. I hung out in the chat rooms and forums. It was all text based but really cool and fun. It was like digg with its knuckles on the ground.
Later on I signed up for a USA Today online service that was for sports junkies. We ran up huge bills on all of these because it was all charged by the hour back then. The 'rents were not too pleased at the time but clearly it was all worth it.
Last but not least, during the mid-1980s I set up a BBS - what was then called bulletin boards. You dialed into a phone number via your modem that you found on other BBSes. Each one was a private network with content. I ran one about sports but shut it down when we started getting calls in the middle of the night.
1986-1991: The Computerless Dark Ages
From 1986 to basically 1991 or so I didn't actually get a new computer. I largely used the ones I had access to in school. They were all Apple computers.
In high school I used an Apple IIe, Apple III. I took a class in computer graphics and used the Apple III to draw and saw that the computer could be a creative tool too.
In college I used Macs. By then Macs were starting to gain steam. My friend in high school had a Mac Classic and I was jealous but it was too expensive for me to buy at the time. However, in college I used a Mac SE and Microsoft Word extensively for word processing. I really didn't spend as much time online as I did in high school but still used GEnie a fair amount.
More importantly, I got my first taste of desktop publishing in 1990. We used Macs to design and layout the school newspaper, which I was a contributor to. I was fascinated with Pagemaker and what it could do.
1992: Apple Macintosh LC
After I graduated I wanted to get a Mac so I saved up everything I could muster and purchased a Macintosh LC, PageMaker, Photoshop and Illustrator. I taught myself these programs inside and out and later Quark as well.
This computer was perhaps the one that was most important because it's the one I used when I fell in love with the Internet. In 1992 I reconnected online by signing up for America Online. I will never forget the feeling of dialing in and seeing everything I could discover online. Back then AOL was a closed service - a walled garden. However, it had a wealth of content.
1993: Apple PowerBook 145B
My Dad had an IBM luggable computer in the late 1980s and I saw that portable computing was going to be a big deal one day. It was really unaffordable at the time. However, by 1991 or so with the introduction of the ThinkPads and Powerbooks, they were becoming within reach.
In 1993 I bought the most affordable PowerBook - the 145B. It had a black and white screen but it was great for writing, which I was doing a lot of at the time. I began in fact to freelance for MacUser (then a US magazine) and Mac Home Journal. I also attended my first Macworld conference. I used a 44mb Syquest Drive for back up and to shuttle files back and forth.
1995-2002: Dell Dimension (several models)
By 1995 the Microsoft marketing machine was in full motion. You knew Windows 95 was going to be a big deal. I switched from the Mac to the PC as my main computer. I was also not doing as much graphic design and more research/writing and PR so it was time to go corporate.
In 1995 I was still an AOL member but by then they had truly began to embrace the Web. In 1994 I began to explore Archie and Gopher. By 1995 I was using Mosaic then Netscape, but connecting through AOL and later an ISP. Finally, like everyone, I started to use Internet Explorer. My Dell Dimension was the computer I first used to explore the Net. I also joined MSN and liked it a lot too.
Later on, I upgraded to a new Dell every few years. Each time, I purchased more power. Finally in 1999 I added a broadband connection and began to use the computer a lot more.
1996-2003: Various Laptops from Dell, Toshiba and IBM
Separately, I also had a computer at work that I took home. I have worked on a laptop since 1996. These included IBM Thinkpads, a Toshiba Tecra and various Dell Inspirons. I also briefly used an Apple Powerbook (the Wallstreet Model) during the dot-com boom when I worked at a small agency. To some degree, I used these more than I did my desktop, especially as I added wifi in 2001. During this time I ran Windows 95, 98, ME and eventually XP.
2004: Apple PowerBook G4
By 2004 I was ready to ditch the desktop. I really liked working off the smaller screen. Also, my job really became a lot more mobile as I began to travel the country speaking and consulting. I bought an Apple PowerBook G4. This was the computer I started this blog on. It was also the machine I used to podcast and experiment with lots of other sites. I also started to take this computer to work in my last job. It ran double duty.
Switching over to the Mac had pros/cons. I loved the Mac OS X interface, but I missed many windows apps. Also, I found that many sites would not work with Safari or Firefox and longed for a way to experience the best of both worlds.
2006 - Today: Apple MacBook (Black edition, version 1)
Finally, in 2006, everything came together in just the way I wanted it. I bought the first generation Macbook. This is the computer I use today at home and on the road (more on that part in a bit). It's perfect because I am able to run both Mac OS X Tiger and Windows Vista. I was running them both under Bootcamp but have switched to Parallels so that I can operate both at the same time.
More importantly, these days much of what I need is accessible from any computer because it's in the cloud. Work files are all on servers accessible from anywhere. Personal files too are backed up to the web and are available. This is a big trend that will extend out to mobile phones too. For a peek, take a look at Soonr.
The Future
What will my computing experience look like in the next 25 years? The devices I use today will look even more quaint than an Atari 800 does today. I don't have the answers. None of us do. But directionally you can see where it is going.
The gap between cell phones and laptops will narrow dramatically in the next several years. The iPhone and Palm's Foleo are two notable examples. (Palm is a client.) Windows Mobile too will power many of these devices, as will Web services. Take a look at iZoho for example.
This week I took my first overnight business trip in 10 years without a laptop. All I took was my iPhone and a travel router. It worked perfectly, though it was only one night. Still, it's a big deal that I was able to do this. Other execs I know only travel with their Blackberries.
Soon, all of these devices will connect to peripherals - flash-based storage, keyboards, full-sized monitors, mice. And they will do so seamlessly and wirelessly. In five years very few of us will be lugging around laptops. The cell phone will be our computer, both at home and in the office.
In addition, more of our data will live not on hard drives but "in the cloud." They will be accessible from everywhere, particularly as high speed broadband becomes more ubiquitous.
When I was out in the Valley a few weeks ago Intel indicated that they see no end for Moore's Law. That's good news and clearly if this post is around in five years it will be interesting to see just how much more we can do with technology. I intend to be around for the ride.
A few weeks back I wrote two posts (Part I, Part II) on how to transform Gmail into your personal nerve center (PNC). These and other similar how-to posts are consistently among your favorites, so I plan to keep at it. They might not seem immediately relevant to marketing and PR, but believe me they are. We all need survival skills like these to keep up with our increasingly wired customers, the torrent of data they generate and our hectic lives. As you read these, think about the applications for your job.
This post is the third in the Gmail PNC series. Most of it will work with other systems, including Outlook and Yahoo - with some tweaks. Like the others, this post has several parts...
Turn Gmail into a Business Diary
Knowledge workers attend lots of meetings. We also have tons of loose bits of information that need collecting during the day. It all needs to be processed. To jog our memory, we take notes. Most of the time this is with pen and paper - unless your culture is laptop/Tablet PC friendly. Many aren't. I use David Allen's GTD system and now buckle it into Gmail as my sole collection bucket.
I long for a searchable record of my meetings and important notes. This has led me to experiment with numerous systems over the years. Ideally, I want my data available 24/7 from any computer or mobile device. Even better, I wanted it organized by date with a list of my meetings on top - e.g. like a paper-based business diary. If you combine an online calendar with Gmail, you can make this a snap.
We have an Exchange Server at work. I use it for group scheduling but I also keep it in sync with Google Calendar. GCal and other systems like it can send your daily agenda to you via email. Mine arrives precisely at 4:38 every morning, often just before I get up. Using Gmail's filters/labels I automatically have these tagged Diary.
Once the message arrives, I keep it in my inbox all day. Then, as take notes, I reply to the email, but change the address to my own. Then as the day goes on, I keep adding to the conversation thread with replies to myself. These all get threaded as a single conversation.
It gets better. If I am on the go, I will write down the notes in a Moleskine and then call my Jott or Callwave number in between meetings. These arrive in my inbox too (either as text or an audio file). Later, when I am back at my computer I append the note to another reply to me and archive the entire conversation thread. Finally, at week's end I go through all seven notes as part of my weekly review. (The fIgure below is from a weekend - when the review is conducted.)
Annotate Books as You Read Them
I buy a lot of books and audiobooks. Almost all of them are about business or sports. I draw lessons from every single one and I want a way to capture it all. Once again, Gmail is a lifesaver here. This technique builds on the one prior.
Using the Google Toolbar trick outlined in Gmail PNC Part I, I find the book on Amazon.com and send my self a snippet of the title, author and summary to steverubel+secretword@gmail.com. I automatically label these "booknotes" using Gmail's filters. Then as I go, I simply keep replying to myself with the notes I want to keep on the book. These all get archived as a conversation for later search/retrieval.
Get Critical Information When You Need It
Let's say there's a traffic jam on the highway you drive home everyday. Or worse, there's a tornado or even God-forbid a tsunami on the way. You'd want to know about it I bet. You can instantly by combining Gmail with GTalk, some RSS feeds and Feedcrier.
I have Gmail and thus the embedded Google Talk client open constantly when I am at my computer. When I am on the go, I run Google Talk and/or the Gmail for Mobile application (unless I am on a plane). However, I don't miss critical information thanks to Gmail/Gtalk. The key is that it needs to live in an RSS feed.
For example, I pump local severe weather alerts from the National Weather Service into Feedcrier, which sends pings through IM. The premium version of the service will even send these to you when you're offline. You can also do the same with Yahoo Traffic feeds or tsunami alerts.
Turn Gmail Into a Searchable River of News Reader
I use the Google RSS Reader. However, I check Gmail more frequently. Again, this is even more true when I am on the go running from meeting to meeting.
I keep a group of my favorite feeds in a GReader folder called "Faves." You can browse them here. This special aggregation page has its own RSS feed. I take that feed and run it into RSSfwd, which will send you feeds to your email account. Another good service is R-Mail.
As the feeds arrive, they get labeled "Feeds" and archived. However, RSSfwd has a handy threading feature that keeps all of these posts together as a single Gmail conversation. The result is a giant river of news in Gmail! Even better, if I drop and add feeds to my Faves group, I don't have to re-import them into RSSfwd plus they're completely searchable. This technique will also work if you share your feeds with Newsgator Online too.
What hacks work for you? Share them in the comments.
Highrise is a brand new contact management/CRM tool that will soon be released by 37 Signals. If you're not familiar with 37 Signals, they are the brain trust behind awesome tools like Backpack, Campfire and Basecamp. Highrise is a tool that's designed both for groups and individuals. It is basically a place for you to track and share all of your key relationships.
Jason Fried from 37 Signals gave me an early look at the product. There's more on their blog. As is par for the 37 Signals crew, Highrise is impressive. It is a particularly invaluable, simple, lightweight tool for PR, marketing or sales professionals. It streamlines a key part of the business that requires lots of tracking.
Further, while I can't disclose pricing, I assure you it will rock the media contact management business, which includes big vendors like Bacons MediaMap and Vocus. Unlike these other vendors, however, Highrise does not come with media data. You need to upload it into the system. So it could be a great complementary product that lets PR teams track their key folks more closely, either by themselves or within a small work group.
Each Highrise screen can include contact notes, tasks, images, recent emails and more. This last part is awesome, particularly for PR pros. Everyone on a team can bcc: a special Highrise email address for the page that tracks a particular journalist they are following. You can do this right in Outlook and your emails - as well as others - will automatically get attached to the page. There's also a special dashboard that brings all the information together. (See screen grabs below.)
In addition, the platform includes rich tagging capabilities, contact groups, search and more. I have long been a fan of 37 Signals Backpack product. Backpack and Gmail - which I combine by the way - run my busy life. This product is a winner for individuals and teams. Further, if 37 Signals can begin to integrate this baby with Campfire, align with a data partner or two, it will radically change the PR business and allow greater collaboration between clients and teams. Kudos to Jason and the crew.
Since my last post about my unorthodox uses of Gmail, I have been thinking there might be more ways I could be using it as my Personal Nerve Center (PNC). And in fact, there are a bunch. Time on the road away from my computer helps! Many of these work well in other web clients too by the way. Here's another round. (Note: as of this writing, Gmail is acting up. Murphy's Law. However, I have found that 99% of the time it is fine.)
* Create a Mobile Searchable Database of PDFs (Gmail + Adobe PDF Conversion by Email)
* Archive Your Weblog and Comments and Make Them Searchable (Gmail + FeedBurner/FeedBlitz)
* Import a Searchable Version of Your Calendar (Gmail + Google/Yahoo/MSN Calendar)
* Build a Weather or Sports Almanac (Gmail + Windows Live Alerts)
* A round up of other ideas
Create a Mobile Searchable Database of PDFs (Gmail + Adobe PDF Conversion by Email)
Like many of you, I have gobs of PDFs on my computer. Most of them are research reports written by analyst firms like eMarketer, Pew and Forrester or even PowerPoints. Sometimes I need to pull up a nugget of information from them in a split second. Often this occurs when I am away from my computer or logged out of the server at work. In fact, my colleague Leah was asking me about one of these nuggets today. Now I have a solution.
Although Google extracts text from attached PDF files, it does not index the contents in the Gmail database. This limits its utility. Thankfully, Adobe (which I should note is an Edelman client) has a free service that will take care of this for you.
All you need to do is email your PDF to pdf2txt@adobe.com and they will send the full text of the PDF back within minutes. These files can be searched from within Gmail. Then set up a filter from the Adobe address (noreply@adobe.com) and have the messages archived and automatically labeled. Now you have a searchable database for your PDFs - oh and it's fully accessible via a mobile too.
Back Up Your Blog and Make it Searchable (Gmail + FeedBurner/FeedBlitz)
Feedburner and other services like Feedblitz can take your RSS feed and convert it into an email newsletter for readers who don't use RSS.
I have been using Feedblitz on my blog for years and I subscribe just to make sure it is working correctly. I used to delete these emails but now I figured out they can actually be quite useful. I set up a filter, as described above, to archive these emails as soon as they arrive. As far as I know, Google doesn't place a limit on the number Gmail filters. Now I can search my blog quickly from the PNC by using the from:Feedblitz command and my search keyword. Plus, I automatically have a backup for my entire blog.
By the way, if you use Blogger, you can configure it to automatically email your posts once they go up. Here's the result when I searched for from:Feedblitz ajaxy newsgator. (Bonus tip: you can create a searchable archive of all your comments by archiving the email alerts and mining for them later.)
Create a Searchable Version of Your Calendar (Gmail + Google/Yahoo/MSN Calendar)
I don't know about you, but I a few years back I started saving old versions of my calendars - even from when I was in another job. I keep them on my desktop and occasionally search them. In fact, just the other day I referenced an old calendar to find a hotel I once stayed at in San Francisco.
Archival calendar data on the desktop is useful, but it's even better on the web and it's awesome when you roll it into your Gmail PNC and it's mobile. So even though I manage my calendar on the desktop, I export it into Google Calendar every few days and make sure that it sends me my daily agenda via email every day. Yahoo and MSN Calendar have similar features. I have a filter whisk these out of site and bingo - I have a quick way to search my calendar right from Gmail - and, most importantly, on the go.
Build a Weather or Sports Almanac (Gmail + Windows Live Alerts)
Quick, what was the score the last time the Bears played the Jets? What is the W-L record of the Dallas Mavericks against the Phoenix Suns the last three years? Finally, what was the weather on your birthday the last five years? If you care about this stuff, set up your Gmail PNC so it can quickly fetch it for you.
The secret is to sign up for alerts and have them archived. In my last post I mentioned Yahoo Alerts. Microsoft has a bunch of good ones too - including Fox Sports - and they are sometimes more reliable. You should configure these to alert via email and for the final score. (Disclosure: Microsoft is an Edelman client.)
For weather, check out Accuweather and Weather.com. They too have email services. You can also take any RSS feed and run it through a service like Rmail to create all sorts of archives. Once you're set up, all you need to do is filter, archive and search and your good to go.
What other types of information can we store in a Gmail PNC? Some of the ones that come to mind are a but more manual. Movies is a good one. Using the Google Toolbar method described in my last post you could clip and save movie information from a bunch of sites and annotate them with your own reviews. Some folks store recipes in Gmail. Combine this with a recipe-a-day email service and it becomes even more powerful. Share your Gmail PNC ideas in comments.
