Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
“I’ve replaced my iPhone and Android apps with CloudMagic. It’s the best overall option with its reminders, improved search, cross-app cooperation and support for many email providers” via Speak low, if you speak love.
Here’s brief overview of this great, free app…
Angels are singing and the personal news aggregators and curators everywhere are rejoicing…
Why settle for being a rockstar on one social network when you can amp multiple platforms all at once? Please give me 5 minutes of your life…
Here’s what posts added via the autoschedule feature look like in the publishing queue. You can click the image to enlarge…
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, right? Here’s a minimalist workflow for content and thought leadership marketing that will help you get found when people are looking for you and what you do in the coming year…
The beautiful thing about this simple workflow is that you have to do the reading anyway in order to maintain your expert status — why not turn it into thought leadership marketing? Also every tool is free and completely cross platform and it could all be executed from a $199 Chromebook. I explain here:
How could I explain this more clearly or make this post better? Comment below or use the contact form above…
Ever heard of the Pareto Principle? Mostly likely you have but may not know it by that name. “The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” In the ‘e1evation workflow‘, 80% of my results come from having mastered just three tools. Why is this important? My clients include thought leaders like author Nilofer Merchant, author and professor Philip Auerswald, author and professor Timothy Kastelle, consultant Gretchen Jahn and professor and TED Fellow Nina Tandon; people like that don’t have the time or patience to learn an infinite number of tools — they need to know the three that will yield the most effective results…
I teach them [and all my clients] that if I could only use three tools for effective content marketing there is no confusion in my mind as to what they would be:
Why? No other combination of tools covers the basics of content marketing better. Google Reader helps me find great content that deepens my expertise. WordPress and Twylah help me document my expertise by turning everything I create or curate into content marketing with Search Engine Optimization [SEO] value for my domain. Let me explain…
Here are all the tools I use in the ‘e1evation workflow’:
And here are the 20% that yield the 80% of my results:
Questions? Feedback? Comment or contact me to talk more about how this applies to you and your situation…
There are three main reasons why I think of Twylah as my ULTIMATE lifestream repository. First, let me share a definition of ‘lifestreaming‘ for those of you unfamiliar with the concept:
The term lifestream was coined by Eric Freeman and David Gelernter at Yale University in the mid-1990s to describe “…a time-ordered stream of documents that functions as a diary of your electronic life; every document you create and every document other people send you is stored in your lifestream. The tail of your stream contains documents from the past (starting with your electronic birth certificate). Moving away from the tail and toward the present, your stream contains more recent documents — papers in progress or new electronic mail; other documents (pictures, correspondence, bills, movies, voice mail, software) are stored in between. Moving beyond the present and into the future, the stream contains documents you will need: reminders, calendar items, to-do lists.”[1]
Lifestreams are also referred to as social activity streams or social streams.
Social network aggregators adapt Freeman and Gelernters original concept to address the vast flows of personal information and exchange created by social network services such as MySpace or Facebook “Web companies large and small are embracing this stream” of providing lifestreaming.[2] Other online applications have emerged to facilitate a users lifestream. Posterous offers a variety of unique features to enhance its basic blogging function. Tumblr is a similar concept, but with slightly different features.” via Lifestreaming – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Now, why do I think Twylah is the ultimate lifestreaming tool? Because…
Here’s how it works:
Bottom line? If you can get it to Twitter, Twylah will do the rest. Automatically! Now, because I’d rather talk than type, I’ll talk you through the concept below…
Questions? Feedback? Comment below…
I’m always trying to explain things in a way that is as simple as possible but no simpler, so I thought of another way to take a pass at David Allen’s Getting Things Done [GTD] principles as applied to the curation process. Here is the workflow map:
Here is how I apply it to the curation process:
Now, let me talk you through it:
Here are the two posts I mentioned in the screencast:
Whether you do or don’t is kind of irrelevant in this case — if you’re a fan of excellence and are continually looking to improve your product or service or self, I believe you will be inspired by this movie in the same way I was…
I think the thing that impressed me most was the continuous application of the Japanese concept of Kaizen which, according to the Wikipedia means:
The Japanese word “kaizen” means simply “improvement,” with no inherent meaning of either “continuous” or “Japanese philosophy” in Japanese dictionaries or in everyday use. The word refers to any improvement, one-time or continuous, large or small, in the same sense as the mundane English word “improvement”.[5] However, given the common practice in Japan of labeling industrial or business improvement techniques with the word “kaizen” (for lack of a specific Japanese word meaning “continuous improvement” or “philosophy of improvement”), especially in the case of oft-emulated practices spearheaded by Toyota, the word Kaizen in English is typically applied to measures for implementing continuous improvement, or even taken to mean a “Japanese philosophy” thereof. The discussion below focuses on such interpretations of the word, as frequently used in the context of modern management discussions.
Kaizen is a daily process, the purpose of which goes beyond simple productivity improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates overly hard work (“muri”), and teaches people how to perform experiments on their work using the scientific method and how to learn to spot and eliminate waste in business processes. In all, the process suggests a humanized approach to workers and to increasing productivity: “The idea is to nurture the company’s human resources as much as it is to praise and encourage participation in kaizen activities.”[6] Successful implementation requires “the participation of workers in the improvement.”[7] People at all levels of an organization participate in kaizen, from the CEO down to janitorial staff, as well as external stakeholders when applicable. The format for kaizen can be individual, suggestion system, small group, or large group. At Toyota, it is usually a local improvement within a workstation or local area and involves a small group in improving their own work environment and productivity. This group is often guided through the kaizen process by a line supervisor; sometimes this is the line supervisor’s key role. Kaizen on a broad, cross-departmental scale in companies, generates total quality management, and frees human efforts through improving productivity using machines and computing power.[citation needed]
While kaizen (at Toyota) usually delivers small improvements, the culture of continual aligned small improvements and standardization yields large results in the form of compound productivity improvement. This philosophy differs from the “command and control” improvement programs of the mid-twentieth century. Kaizen methodology includes making changes and monitoring results, then adjusting. Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.” via Kaizen – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This film is available via streaming Netflix — although the topic is a little odd, if you’ve read this far I predict that you, too, will be as inspired as I was by Jiro…
Over at Lifehacker today, they’re talking about the Dark Side of Getting Things Done [GTD] but here at e1evation, llc, it’s all rainbows and unicorns and we’re talking about how to apply Getting Things Done [GTD] to the curation process…
Now if you haven’t read David Allen’s classic productivity work, this would be a great weekend to do it. You can click the image to the right in order to purchase and download a copy to your Kindle or Kindle software immediately. I like to repost he Getting Things Done [GTD] workflow diagram as a reminder of the options…
…in this screencast we’ll be using Google Reader as the ‘in basket’ and the ‘stuff’ we’ll be processing is the articles that come from our trusted sources. We’ll be using Twylah and Power Tweeting to process our actionable items. Give it a view…
Why Twylah?
Questions? Feedback? Want to apply Getting Things Done [GTD] to your curation process? Use the form below or connect with me in social media…
Here are a couple of free tools that can help you track and fix your internet brand and get it back on track…
Have Questions? Feedback?
Steve Dotto has a great post over at Stepcase Lifehack:
Evernote has become, for many of us, the hub at the center of our digital lives. We store everything — from notes to images to web sites to expense reports — in Evernote.
While many productivity apps have built-in Evernote integration, many still don’t. Fortunately there is a terrific technique that allows you to integrate Evernote into almost every app or program.”via How to Use Evernote for Everything [Video].
If you’re an Evernote fan like I am, you’re going to love this…
Me? I’ve posted many times on how important Evernote is to me — especially as Getting Things Done [GTD] ‘container’. Here are some of my greatest hits…
I’ve also done 5 screencasts on various aspects of Evernote and I put them in a playlist for you here…
One last thought. If you’re a Getting Things Done [GTD] fan, you might also enjoy this powerful but inexpensive book…
Jason Boog recently wrote:
As digital content multiplies online and on our devices, our risk of “information over-consumption” increases.
In his new book, The Information Diet, author Clay Johnson shows how we can improve our information consumption and create a healthier diet while exploring the Internet.
On his site, he outlined four simple tools for creating a healthier media diet. We’ve linked to these resources below–how do you manage your media diet?” Full story at: Do You Suffer from Information Over-Consumption? – AppNewser.
Here’s a trailer from Clay Johnson’s book [which I highly recommend by the way]…
The tool that he did not mention is Google Reader. Google Reader is a tool that you can use to create your own virtual newspaper by tracking the sites, searches, and sources that are important in your world. Before I read Clay Johnson’s book, I subscribe to thousands of different sites. After I read his book, I started to develop a theory that I should use Google Reader to focus only on topics that would fuel my expertise and I got rid of a lot of different feeds.
Simply put, I think Google Reader is the single most important tool in my content marketing arsenal. I use Google Reader to make the information I need flow to me instead of searching for when I need it. Google Reader is also consistent with Getting Things Done [GTD] principles. it serves as a collection bucket for what I call just in case information. Gmail is my collection bucket for just-in-time information but Google Reader is the place where I collect information that is not related to relationships and revenue.
Let’s review the GTD diagram:
Not only does Google Reader serve as a collection bucket for all of my just in case information I can use it to process my news for publishing purposes. GTD principles would tell me if I can curated in 2 minutes or less us do it. If it takes longer than that different from later. Google Reader also serves as a ‘context’ for news and I can use it to stay focused. That way, when I’m doing e-mail and doing e-mail and when I’m reading news I use Google reader.
The following is kind of a longish tutorial about Google Reader from a GTD perspective. I’m pretty certain that if you take the time to view it and apply it, will change your world like it did mine…
Questions? Feedback?
Want to get found when people are looking for what you do? Consider this…
Want to know more? Connect with me…
Friend and client Nilofer Merchant just published a new book “11 Rules for Creating Value in the #SocialEra”. In Chapter 7, “Capture” she talks about one aspect of what she calls ‘levers of value’ and how social can be used to create and deliver work…
Work is freed from jobs. This means that human resources change when most of the people who create value are neither hired nor paid by you. And competition has changed so that any company can achieve the benefits of scale through a network of resources: for example, designing a product from anywhere, producing it through a 3-D printer, financing it communally, and distributing it from anywhere to anywhere.
Merchant, Nilofer (2012-09-12). 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era (Kindle Locations 665-670). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
Along those lines, I want to share a couple of tactics I use to get other people to do my ‘Personal News Aggregation’ work by creating what I refer to as a ‘Personal News Agency’…
In this screencast I focus in on examples using Twitter, Pinterest, dlvr.it and Twylah to create Search Engine Optimization [SEO] value for your website by leveraging the things other people share…
UPDATED 10/8/2012: Hey, in the video above I struggled with getting an rss feed from Twitter. Thanks to @socmedsean, here’s how to do it:
Okay…here are the details. Start with getting your RSS feed. Twitter still provides access to their RSS feeds via the following URL:
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom
Twitter allows you to customize your search queries by adding certain parameters. Check out this great post on Sociable.co to learn about the Twitter RSS parameters. Basically, by customizing the RSS search, the following RSS search gives me all of my tweets:
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from%3Asocmedsean
(the %3A is the URL encoded representation of the @ symbol)
and I can further refine that RSS search to only show those tweets that include “http”…which means that the search would return all of my tweets that also included links
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=http%20from%3Asocmedsean
(the %20 is the URL encoded representation of a space)
and finally, I could further refine the search so that it didn’t include retweets by simply telling the search to exclude any tweets with “RT” in them.
http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=http%20-RT%20from%3Asocmedsean
NOTE: The order in which I put the parameters is very important. The from has to come last or it didn’t work properly and the %20s are critical. If your feed isn’t working, check that it is similar to mine above.
via Shhh…Don’t Tell. You Can Still Post Your Tweets to Other Platforms | Social Media Today.
Comment below or connect with me so we can talk about how this applies to you and your situation — I can show you how to deepen your expertise using the strategies and the tactics I talk about in the screencast…
By the way, I highly recommend Nilofer’s book!
Does your inbox look like this? If not, why not? There really is no excuse especially when you combine David Allen’s Getting Things Done [GTD] principles with Google’s powerful Gmail technology…
Effectively handling e-mail is a passion of mine; I believe that the ability to effectively handle e-mail separates the sheep from the goats in the business world. How can you ever aspire to thought leadership if you can’t get out of your inbox? I have been using e-mail since 1994 and I remember initially how excited I was to get newsletters in my inbox. I thought to myself how cool is this? I can have companies send me news?!? Now, almost 20 years later I’m doing everything I can to hunt down and kill newsletters in my inbox and instead consume the information in Google Reader!
As someone who is so passionate about e-mail I read a lot of different articles about various strategies for achieving Inbox Zero. Not once however have I heard someone offer this simple advice: jealously guard your inbox! Only allow things into your inbox that are related to relationships or revenue. Everything else belongs in Google Reader. When you do email do email and save news for a time to look at news! If if you will follow that one simple rule and implement some of the steps that I outline in this screencast, you will once again become master of your e-mail domain!
Questions? Feedback? Next week? Getting Things Done [GTD] in Google Reader…
Bonus Gmail screencasts…
Older Gmail screencasts…
If you’re using YouTube to promote your business, you want to watch this!
RSS feeds are back!!! On November 1, 2011 Google took them away but now they’re back…
In his epic book “Here Comes Everybody”, Clay Shirky writes:
We are living in the middle of the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race. More people can communicate more things to more people than has ever been possible in the past, and the size and speed of this increase, from under one million participants to over one billion in a generation, makes the change unprecedented, even considered against the background of previous revolutions in communications tools. The truly dramatic changes in such tools can be counted on the fingers of one hand: the printing press and movable type (considered as one long period of innovation); the telegraph and telephone; recorded content (music, then movies); and finally the harnessing of radio signals (for broadcasting radio and TV). None of these examples was a simple improvement, which is to say a better way of doing what a society already did. Instead, each was a real break with the continuity of the past, because any radical change in our ability to communicate with one another changes society.
Shirky, Clay (2009-02-24). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (p. 106). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
What good, though, is that expressive capability if people can’t find you when they need what you do? You need to be known!
The question is, though, for what should I be known? Everyone’s an expert! How do we know this? Seth Godin told us so long ago in his ebook ‘Everyone’s an Expert’ [About Something]…
So now you are an expert. I know it. You know it. It’s the rest of the world that may not know it. Yet. In my humble opinion however you did not get to this ripe old age of wherever you’re at without becoming an expert in something. The 10,000 hour rule is just that – Malcolm Gladwell hypothesized that it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. Now think of all the things you are an expert at!
Here’s the problem, however: your area of expertise may be so narrow or specialized that no one in your town or county or even your state needs it. There are however almost 2,000,000,000 people on the Internet. Even if your expertise appeals to only one in 1 million people that still means there are 2,000 people who need you to guide them. The 10,000 hours you spent gaining your expertise probably means you’re pretty good thinker too. The challenge is you can be the sharpest knife in the drawer but if no one can find the drawer you’ll never get a chance to get out…
Chris Brogan says:
“As you now know, if you have no Google results, in a sense you don’t exist.
Brogan, Chris; Smith, Julien (2010-07-16). Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (p. 161). Wiley. Kindle Edition.”
My good friend Dana VanDen Heuvel, a thought leader in his own right, says “there are thinkers and there are thought leaders. They both have a point of view. The thinker has a point of view that is limited by word-of-mouth but the thought leader is only limited by world of mouth.” Using the good, fast and cheap tools available on the Internet a thinker can make his or her thought leadership position searchable, findable, knowable, usable, and shareable. Because of all those ‘ibles’, they may actually become credible. Publishing your thought leadership position will give you a share of voice which may lead to share of mind and ultimately to share of market…
The first step in ‘being known’ is actually accepting the face that you ARE an expert and discovering your ‘onlyness’ as author Nilofer Merchant puts it in her book “11 Rules for Creating Value in the #SocialEra“:
The foundational element starts with celebrating each human and, more specifically, something I’ve termed onlyness. Onlyness is that thing that only one particular person can bring to a situation. It includes the skills, passions, and purpose of each human. Onlyness is fundamentally about honoring each person, first as we view ourselves and second as we are valued. Each of us is standing in a spot that no one else occupies. That unique point of view is born of our accumulated experience, perspective, and vision. Some of those experiences are not as “perfect” as we might want, but even those experiences are a source of ideas and creativity. Without this tenet of celebrating onlyness, we allow ourselves to be simply cogs in a machine—dispensable and undervalued.
Merchant, Nilofer (2012-09-12). 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era (Kindle Locations 107-113). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
So now we have established the foundation of being known; you have to define your area of expertise and embrace your ‘onlyness’; only then can you take the next step. More next Tuesday…
Wow. It’s almost like RIM is proud of killing this insanely great app…
Not that it matters anymore, but here are two videos I did on the power of Gist…
Some smart investor should pick up this technology — it is/was amazing for it’s power to track trusted sources…
Bright, shiny objects! 
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