Twittering the Enterprise — Microblogging with Yammer

December 1, 2008 By Leave a Comment
yammer-logo Months ago I was skeptical whether there was a use for Twitter, and wrote here "Twitter - Why" Silly me. I did eventually allow that it could be useful. Since then I've become a fanboy and am following more than 400 individuals with about 200 following me. (Shameless self-promotion - follow me on Twitter ). I do believe Twitter is a great communications and marketing (self-marketing?) vehicle. I first heard of the Mumbai attacks via Twitter and now follow world news and industry news via Twitter. Yammer allows you to use "microblogging" which is blogging a la Twitter privately only within your own company. I want to share the same kind of information as Twitter but only to colleagues not the world or twittersphere. Yammer is free and easy to setup. All you need to launch it for your company is to provide your corporate email address, then you can invite your colleagues, boss, and direct reports. Anyone can join Yammer for your company as long as they use the same domain name. yammer-screen I'm vp of marketing for a software company called Virtual Bridges, our domain name is vbridges.com. All of my friends at Virtual Bridges can join the Yammer conversation using their somebody@vbridges.com email address. yammer-screen2 Give it a try.
Filed Under: Plug-ins, Productivity, Shameless Self-Promotion, Tools, Websites

Recommended Reading — Four Interesting Memes

November 14, 2008 By Leave a Comment
em-logo I’m going to start a new occasional feature here in Enquiring Mimes-land.  I’ll post a few links that are interesting, but that I’m not going to write about at length (at least, at this time).  I’ll also give you a bit of the reason why I found the link interesting enough to clip. You might enjoy wandering through them. After the jump. Here goes for this week: Zoho Status – In what seems like a very transparent gesture.  Zoho has setup a status page that shows the response time and availability of all their web applications.  It seems like a great customer service move and if you use Zoho apps it could be valuable. Netflix for Mac – Here at the EM sweatshop, we reported you’d be able to finally watch, Netflix Watch Instantly, streaming movies from your Mac before the end of the year.  Well the time is now.  You can  start using the new Silverlight viewer available for Mac and PC, by opting-in from your Netflix account. Gmail Video Chat – If you use Google Gmail for your mail and I think there are plenty of good reasons why you should, you can now add voice and video chat to your account.  Works really well for distributed work teams. Flip HD – Flip Video, the folks that started out making the really inexpensive, easy-to-use and easy-to-get-on-your-computer video cameras now has a new, more expensive model that will take high definition video.  It’s sells for $229 – which seems a bit much.  I find the cheap one I have very handy for baby-walking-pictures and dog-jumping-at-agility vids.
Filed Under: Technology, Tools, Web 2.0, Websites Tagged With: , , , ,

Let’s Start Getting Things Done with GTD

October 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment
A popular methodology for task management is based on a book by David Allen called "Getting Things Done". The main concept of the methodology is that for your mind to work effectively, it has to stop spending all of its time just remembering what has to be done next and instead working on the actual actions of doing it. According to the methodology, your mind should be emptied of these “open loop” distractions of “to dos” by storing them all in some kind of “trusted system” that you can then organize anduse to refer back to all your tasks. The “trusted system” can be a notebook or a PDA or something on your computer. gtd-logoGTD-Free is a application that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and is a straight forward implementation of the GTD methodology and can be used as the trusted system and for organizing your tasks. The workflow for GTD consists of 5 steps, each represented by a process in GTD-Free.  The Organize and Review steps are combined – and Do is called Execute (which sounds a little like the task is given a blindfold, a last cigarette and put up against a wall). The basic idea is to do a “Collect(ion)” of all the tasks you’re carrying around in your head and “untrusted” systems (like stickies). The next step is to Process the tasks by going from the top to bottom of your list, one at a time, determining  if an item requires action and then filing it, throwing it away or incubating it for later action. Then the Organizing step determines the next action the item requires to complete it and organizing it so that it can be done when ready.  Reviewing the categories should be an on-going process done daily with a major review done weekly. Do is pretty simply, when you finally start working on the items to get them finished. GTD Workflow:
  1. Collect
  2. Process
  3. Organize
  4. Review
  5. Do
GTD-Free is a great free way to begin to explore GTD and to find out whether it makes sense for you.  If you like it, there are scores of other systems to help you collect, process and organize your tasks.  We’ll be reporting on others of them here at Enquiring Mimes from time to time. Download GTD-Free [via lifehacker]

Getting Things Done Resources

Wikipedia GTD Dictionary A Primer on Getting Things Done gtd-screen
Related articles:
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Filed Under: Linux, Mac, Productivity, Tools, Windows Tagged With: , , , ,

Evernote tips — Email It and Map It

October 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment
I find that as Evernote becomes more and more part of my workflow, I'm finding it indispensable. If you remember, Evernote is a free, cross-platform note storing application that lets you clip notes from your browsers and makes the information available to you on both your account on the Web and on your desktop. I’ve found that another very useful Evernote feature is to forward messages from my email directly to Evernote.  Every Evernote account has it’s own email address -- yours can be found on your Settings page. Edit the forwarded message to just send to Evernote what you want to keep and let it go. If your mobile phone can see websites on the internet, information stored in Evernote is always available to you. I’ve also been clipping just the text directions from mapping directions services like Google Maps or Yahoo Maps and sending it to Evernote so that the directions are available to me on my phone while I drive (of course, I don't read my Blackberry while I drive). If you're not using Evernote give it a try.
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Tools, Websites

Help Me Concentrate Here

October 7, 2008 By 1 Comment
jordan on takeoff I often work in a home office environment that includes 10 parrots (including 2 loud Macaws and an African Grey that likes to talk, sing and answer my phone calls), a corgi (likes to bark) and a 12-month old. Surprisingly, sometimes I have trouble concentrating. I’ve tried ear plugs.  I’ve tried listening to music. One answer to noise distractions that works really well for me is to counter the noise with White Noise or better-yet Pink Noise or Brown Noise. The SimplyNoise site provides free very soothing distraction-prevention, well,  noise.  Just go to the website, move the slider on the continuum from white to brown noise and stop when you can concentrate and start working (or hearing yourself think). Other uses for White Noise by the noise people:
  • Aid Sleep
  • Enhance Privacy
  • Mask Tinnitus
  • Configure Audio Equipment
SimplyNoise also provides downloads of mp3s of a thunderstorm (60 mins. – my personal favorite) or loopable white noise or pink noie.  Download the loopable ones and play in iTunes with repeat track turned on. simplynoise_slider
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Filed Under: Productivity, Tools, Websites Tagged With:
« Older Posts

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.