Spotify actually announced this last year (link).

However, as a user I just recently received the update.

This is a cool update to a favourite app of mine.

It makes services like Last.fm much more integrated and useful, and helps fuel useful recommendations and sharing.

This video offers a great introduction:

Spotify Apps Video Introduction

Learn more >> here

It’s clear that the services integration “the app-store mind set” is coming through more and more.   There is a clear move to application extensions within applications.

The real beauty is in the connectivity to the professional network LinkedIn, so that existing career information (already published in LinkedIn), can be imported into Visualize.me to form the basis to building your own career visualization.

This is small portion of what mine looks like: (click links to see in full)

It’s still a “beta” service, and some of the themes or palettes may not appeal to everyone, but it is a great starting point for delivering  a configurable career visualisation service.

It’s certainly something to try out and see what you can come up with.

Evernote recently launched a new Google Chrome Extension called “Clearly” to help clear away the clutter when reading web pages in the browser.

Get the extension for Chrome here

I think it works really well.

See how the previous article in this blog looks : (left tab = ordinary page | right tab = “clearly” page)

It’s great for removing unwanted clutter (columns, ads, banners) and helping you concentrate on the text and content of the main article.

The interface allows you to clip into Evernote, but it’s not as functional as the main “Clip to Evernote” extension at the moment. (would expect that to improve).

I would recommend customizing the keyboard shortcut to activate in an easily remembered key stroke.  [esc] key returns you to the original page format.

FEEDLY

My other recommendation for consuming content in the web browser is to use Feedly  (as well as many mobile platforms)

Simply surfacing and syncing your content and from Google Reader in an amazingly streamlined and gorgeous magazine format.

There’s no reason to complain about poorly formatted or over cluttered web pages that spoil your reading experience on the web, the tools are out there, just find one that suits you!

(other services are available)

Sometimes I’m sure folk feel like their inbox is part of a production line and they need to process stuff as quick as possible before something breaks or hits the floor.

You may feel like you’re in your own version of this classic Mario Bros. game…

Classic Mario Bros. (Mario Bros Game & Watch)

I hope you’re not in this persons’ shoes!

(attribution : dpstyles)

Or if you are, it’s not stressing you out.

It’s not uncommon for the number of messages (read or unread) in an email inbox to lead to a feeling of stress – getting behind on your tasks, or getting snowed under.

So unless you’re comfortable with everything in the inbox (everything’s in 1 place) – and you don’t mind that.  Then these may be helpful tips to reduce that email stress. 

My Tips for helping to deal with Email:

1. Use the sender and subject lines – to help decide how much attention you need to give a message before it’s opened
2. Use filters or agents (rules) to mark unimportant (email subscriptions |newsletters) as read as soon as they arrive or move them out of the inbox – saves you a mouse click or two  [Gmail is brilliant at this]
3. Use your preview function – to scan through email
4. Get your folder structure right (it helps you track where you are with categorising and prioritising your work – especially if you receive tasks | actions via email)
5. Use buttons or shortcuts to move messages into folders quickly and simply – again saves you a mouse click or two (then the email dealt with… but you can come back to it later if needed)
6. Turn off the New Mail Alert pop-up or sound alert (especially for busy times when you’re concentrating on something else)
7. Reduce the frequency to check or update the inbox (make it every 15 or 20 minutes instead of 5 minutes for example)

Organising your Mail File Folders:

Your approach to this will be reflected in how you think of email.  Do you treat it as personal knowledge repository (it’s not what email was created to do, and there are better options), or if you see it as part of your general information processing and flow?   If you see it as information delivery and processing service that can really help shape your strategy to sort and categorise the messages you receive.

Personally, I now treat email as a temporary information|content store, a processing station for sorting out each message as it requires.

I see 3 main categorises of messages:

• Actions  -  processed by prioritising and then action
• Knowledge -  processed by keeping & moving to appropriate content store (not email!) or disposing
• Responses -  processed by keeping & moving to appropriate content store (not email!), an action or dispose

Therefore I have the following folder structure in my mail file:

Follow Up : – Actions I need to respond to

Keep : – Medium to Long Term messages that need to be referenced infrequently for a particular topic (folder names make that obvious) – delete or purge once no longer relevant

Processed :- Where messages that have been read, actioned (if required) are moved to – eventually deleted.

Subscriptions :- Where newsletters, collaboration system notifications, subscriptions are moved to – rapidly deleted (after 10 days).

Useful Toolbar Buttons:

As a Lotus Notes user, there are couple of additional tweaks to the client UI that can be helpful in speeding up the processing of email.

Lotus Notes has a configurable Toolbar:

This can configured via the Preferences section: (via File > Preferences > Toolbar > Customize) or right click on the Toolbar and customize

The useful Toolbars to customize are:

• Navigate View
• Read Document

These appear automatically in context (in any view or folder or when reading a document) – as they are context sensitive.

I’ve set up a couple of “move to folder” buttons:

They use the formula:

@Command( [Folder] ; "Folder Name" ;"1" )  

So use this as many times as you need for the folders you have.

I’ve also added a button for showing only unread mail – helps clear away the clutter.

That uses the formula:

@Command( [ViewShowOnlyUnread] )  

Again it saves a few mouse clicks – the current action in

is rather hidden away and fiddly to use.

Formula Language Text Annotation notes:

Black font:- Formula language and key variables – only change if competent and knowledgeable about Lotus Formula language and structure.

Red font:- Indicates Lotus Notes folder name to be inserted into code to give destination folder of processed documents.

I’ve also written about another customisation of the Lotus Notes toolbar here: Filing knowledge into services via Email  – this provides a more thorough “how-to” on creating Toolbar buttons for yourself.

So there you go – nothing perhaps that is new and ground breaking but a helpful reminder.

What are your hints and tips for dealing with email?

Attribution : esthervargasc

Wikipedia defines Social CRM as

“Social CRM is use of social media services, techniques and technology to enable organisations to engage with their customers.”

From Paul Greenberg:

“CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”

My Story:

I’ve often discussed the need for personal data (photos, music, videos) protection services  with my colleagues, most frequently across Twitter.  We have a varying set of philosophies or tactics to meet our personal requirements and circumstances. However, I always find it a refreshing discussion to get updates on best practices or new product discoveries as we exchange techniques and recommendations.

What was remarkable about the last discussion was the personal invitation from one of the vendors discussed to find out more about their products and services.

It was great to see them reach out to me, for simply having mentioned “crashplan” in a previous tweet of mine.

I thought it was right to response with a commendation:

“@crashplan no not at the moment thanks, appreciate the contact though – kudos for customer service ”

So the conversation was short, and this time they didn’t get a sale. 

However, as a potential customer for the future, their interaction at this juncture – striking while the discussion with colleagues was still fresh and relevant to myself achieving 3 important things:

1. I was impressed at their customer service support, they demonstrated customer and “potential” customer opinions matter and their awareness that a brand is always dependant on customer perception.
2. They have active brand advocates amongst my peers, and their experiences and recommendations are the ones I trust most.
3. They capitalised their opportunity to impress upon me as a consumer the professionalism of their product and services.

So my question to you is:

What are you doing to understand the sentiment and mood of your customer base, and more importantly are you using opportunities of brand advocacy to reach out to potential clients?

Once again Kudos to Crashplan for understanding Social CRM and getting it right!

1950’s Typing Pool (attribution & rights – LadyBanana)

From Wikipedia : “A secretarial pool or typing pool is a group of secretaries working at a company available to assist any executive without a permanently assigned secretary. These groups have been reduced or eliminated where executives have been assigned responsibility for writing their own letters and other secretarial work.”

How skilled at manipulating the tools of the day should the average information worker be expected (or seek) to get by with?

Does working with web pages | online content merit a special case?

This is something I’ve seen come back around in discussions as people recognise more and more that managing their place on the web.  The act of Curation = Deliberately and actively placing, storing and sharing information | content on the web (corporate or otherwise). Has become essential to remain “in business” – visibly valuable.  These spaces or pages can be a simple shop front statements or more complex social or workflow enabled pages in a web based content management platform.  

So if  this is “important” then why are responses that tend to be heard are…

“I don’t know how to do that!”  or “I haven’t got the time to learn about that!” or “That’s programming, I’m not that technical!” or

“Isn’t that something you did years ago, when you were (technical|in development|scripting)?” [delete as you see appropriate]

Why do we get these negative sentiment… 

[this is not my responsibility | it’s not worth the effort | what benefit is this to me?]

type of responses?

Is web working really different from other information worker tools?

Do you see the same sentiment registered when describing working with documents, creating presentations or spread sheets?

I would suggest there is a different angle on the requests…

“Can you help on this?” or “Do you know a way of…?”

The sentiment tends towards a much more positive, and self-motivated set of responses – seeking to obtain knowledge or take personal responsibility on how to educate or develop their skills.

And this all happens in the day, of FAQs, online help in text, picture and video form!

SO do we need to recognise the need for a dedicated pool of web content editors managers?  (i.e. bring back the typing pool)

Or is this just people seeking to hide behind excuses of one form or another? 

What could be discouraging their engagement or involvement?

Is the platform or technology to blame?

It could be we are spoilt with the user experience in of more application based tools and the web is still not consistent enough in the presentation and user experience it offers?   That is true as web based services do vary considerably in their ease of use, and they don’t tend to offer much in the way of common standards or approaches to empower or enable users.  

Some services try to keep things simple by only providing a limited set of structures and gadgets or widgets to bring content to the pages. They tend to provide great tools for the masses to participate in common collaboration mechanisms, but may restrict how complex content can be structured and linked together. 

Other services allow a more under the covers method to develop the content and the structure from the ground up.  These enable more powerful and bespoke structures for content to meet a more custom structures or workflows.

So do these inconsistencies and variety of capabilities, provide sufficient requirements for dedicated content editors – community managers, wiki gardeners etc.?

Yes I think so, perhaps these reasons do justify a specific role or team, but I think this is only a temporary position.

We may presume that the continuing advancement web | application interface development will eventually remove the barriers presented by these current limitations and inconsistencies.  Will that finally level the ability field between web work or applications?  As more than likely all common applications will be fully web served and directly served via a browser.

Perhaps, then this is representative of cultural issue and something we need to be aware of?

Will the ability competently manipulate shared | common content and structures continue to present a skill divide between the information workers of tomorrow? 

How much will competent web content editing and management become an absolute necessity as a skill of an information worker? Will the ‘open’ community nature of work present an on-going challenge to how willing or comfortable people feel about sharing or actively contributing  to a shared workspace?

I think this is could still remain an issue, especially if the negative sentiment and attitudes (noted above) persist meaning that the effort of “Collective Curation” needs to remain with a select few.

I believe we need to start:

• Placing more emphasis or at a minimum parity on working in the web as we do with traditional workstation based applications.
• Thinking about how to help people adopt an attitude or behaviour of work that encourages and enables them to “narrate their work” or “curate at source”.  Helping them  to decide in process of assessing or developing information what is required to remain in the shared corpus of knowledge and what is trivial and of little or no long term value, and so to store or dispose that information in the correct manner.
• We need to start using “collective curation” strategies and principles to our knowledge to ensure it remains as value as possible. 

Perhaps in fact the principles or interactions and responsibilities around using “Common Land” could be a useful template to an approach of community content management?

In so much as people recognise a need to share and responsibly manage and steward a common resource, to ensure it remains a sustaining and useful resource for the benefit of all involved for the long term.

So What do you think?  Is this something you’ve noticed too?

Useful references:

List about Collective Curation

Understand collective curation in under 90 seconds

A summary of how we all share and interact with information around us.

We’re becoming information curators

Brian talks about opportunity for all be information curators

Wikipedia : Digital Curation

What is Digital Curation?

Skype has been front and centre to web based voice and video communication for many years (est. 2003).  It has under various guises managed to sustain an open platform (supporting many common platforms), and the continued addition of new features and functionality:

Calling	Video	Messaging	Managing
Skype-to-Skype Phones and mobiles Online Number Conference calls	Video calling Group video calling Screen sharing	Instant messaging Send files Sending SMS Facebook	Skype Manager Skype Connect

                  

The increase in feature set, has opened it up to greater competition and pressure in other markets.  In the main it’s always being loved by consumers, but largely shunned by businesses or enterprise because on the mistrust of the proprietary internet telephony protocol : Skype Protocol and peer to peer architecture.

   Hangouts

Google + Hangouts are very much the new kid on the block for voice and video communication.  Based upon the more traditional client-server architectural model and it relies on the extensible messaging and presence protocol (XMPP), extensions to XMPP like Jingle, real-time transport protocol (RTP), session traversal utilities for NAT (STUN) and secure real-time transport protocol. (reference : howstuffworks-googleplus)

Google has been adding features fast since its release: (reference: wikipedia-googleplus  & googleplus blog)

• Share button under any YouTube video to reveal an icon that suggests watching the video with friends in a Google+ hangout
• Mobile Hangouts (for Android, coming soon to iOS) are available since the service went public.
• Hangouts On-Air gives users the ability to create instant webcasts over Google+. The broadcasts can also be recorded for later retrieval. This feature, announced at September 20, 2011, is at the moment limited to some videocast personalities, but the announcement indicates that it will be opened up. The first publicly-broadcasted Hangout will be with the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am on the night of September 21, 2011.^[24]
• Hangouts with Extras, currently at a preview state, will allow users to share documents, share a scratchpad and share their screens with other users

My Impressions:

Both services are very easy to use, but I can Google winning out with the overall integration, as it has a more comprehensive set of services offerings to affiliate with Google+ hangouts.  Whereas Skype is a pure play service and needs partnership opportunities to bring into play in different modes and circumstances (mobile and social media).

In terms of performance, my limited experience guides me to believe, Google+ Hangouts are best operated in-country, to get optimised performance and fidelity of transmission.  In the UK I’ve used it without issue, but hanging out with folks in the US or Europe does introduce a degradation to the service.   Skype on the other hand performs both well in-country and internationally, I switched Skype to video chat with family in Europe after the hangout sessions crashed repeatedly.  I don’t know how this reflects back on the architecture or the resourcing of the services from both providers,  but I suspect the experience of Skype from many years of being in-service plays a part in delivering a more refined and quality service.

Whether Hangouts will out gun Skype is still too difficult to predict, especially since Skype has new relationships with Microsoft and Facebook, so I will continue to operate both services and see how things develop.

For the uninitiated & curious this is a quick introductory video:

credits: Google

The obvious thing that most people notice is there space and cleanliness of the Google UX, which has sprung from this initiative of Google (Evolving the Google design and experience).  Of which I am a fan, as I mentioned in a previous blog post about G+.

Many observers have pointed out that the G+ UI is very similar in layout to Facebook, by using a central column of activity with adjacent switches and controls to help navigate the UI. I presume research on user interface design, indicates that best practise for an information flow format would be a central column feature with blank margins or edges to the browser window to draw in the eye to the core content.  Though in my mind it does leave a lot of unused space available in the browser, which could be exploited – perhaps for not for primary content but as supplementary content or additional control features.

However, in spite of this good stuff, I see the following limitations with the current (mid – July 2011) UX of G+ which inhibit my full participation in this platform.

You can only view one stream of activity at a time (a particular circle or the whole stream):

• Compare that to most Twitter clients (Tweetdeck, Seesmic etc.) where there is a lot of flexibility in the number of columns on view combined with the Twitter list feature is a very powerful mechanism for tracking multiple activity streams simultaneously. 

• I am not sure the web UX of G+ will develop a multi-stream UX soon (I may be wrong).  Though I expect on the release of the API – 3rd party clients will provide this feature pretty rapidly. 

• Perhaps Google will allow users to create additional tabs|spots for favourite streams here would be a possible solution?

(For example, I already use the Google+Tweet integrated extension – so it can be done)

Circles are missing activity notification features:

• Currently UI indicates the displayed stream by highlighting it in a red font.  But it provides no information about the status of activity in other circles|streams you may be interested in, therefore your decisions on where to view next are more pot-luck than driven by useful information.  This could be fixed by providing..  
• An unread count for each circle (though will that make it feel like email all over again?)
• Give new post indicators (e.g. change of font colour of updated circles, or place updated circles at the top of circles list, blinking circle icon etc.)
• Indication of new posts in a stream by a different background fill colour, like unread marks, but that fade on scroll or mouse hover.
• Obviously, this is more applicable when viewing a particular circle stream, rather than your whole activity stream, but knowing what circles are active or dormant should be indicated visibly to assist your management of the G+  service.

G+ needs more than just Circles (in their current form):

• Circles are great, they help out a lot.  They help channel, tailor and focus the conversation to an audience that grasps the tacit context and content around the information shared.  Also these are the early days of G+ – so we need to give Google a fair crack of the whip and respond to feedback etc.
• However, my gripe is this. Circles provide a method to categorise or filter people and how you share with them, but not necessarily where content should be shared.  Or actually where to find that content again…
• I can’t search for posts or comments from inside G+ (I know there’s Chrome browser search work around), but it’s not brilliant.
• Utilisation of topic (hash) tags are missing.
• All circles are private, there are no public equivalents.
• I feel this leads to a random spray (scatter gun) of information and knowledge across G+ which users find hard to grasp and navigate.  Which is why I think we’re all mostly talking about G+, rather than other things. see this example
• I’m sure Google will be working on this, but I feel there needs to be either an implementation of public circles or topic specific pages|groups.  
• Then not only does the individual user have the ability to post content in context or to the right audience, but community|shared knowledge actually has a conceptual container & residency.  Therefore if you’re interested in “X” you join the page|group about X, and as a consequence find the associated experts, latest information, debate etc. Then you can create your own related circle to be your receiving filter for that information stream.  
• To me it just seems to be something missing in G+.  Each one of us is creating our own circles of content consumers and creators, with very little reference apart from our own social graph.  Which seems fine for private or intimate level of social kinship. But at a community sharing level I think there needs to be a higher level of visibility on the nature of content shared or purpose for sharing. To build and cement connections in that community, as well to motivate, inspire and drive it forward.  Do you disagree?  Do you think G+ can seed such strong communities without that conceptual framework?

I hope Google does address some of these issues soon, as I feel a little reticent to fully engage in the platform, as at some level I’m not quite comfortable with this scatter gun approach to content sharing. I think this is partly because of the richness of the conversation factor within G+, it seems  that as a platform more deserving of quality discourse and sharing, so it feels important to do that in the place of most social value – and I can’t tell where that is in G+.

I feel it is more deserving than Twitter, because of fully developed conversation model (chronicled comments and stream),  and the removal of the character limit on the individual post or share.  And also more deserving than Facebook, because at the moment it remains free of commercial interference … whether that will continue?  That is probably unlikely as Google will need to monetise the platform at some point, and that’s bound to mean more than just Adsense links.

So I won’t past comment on Google +’s evolutionary history or how it compares against the usual suspects.  If you need that information please visit your preferred search engine.

What excites and interests me about Google +   is the slickness of integration with basic and existing services that Google has delivered with this primary iteration of the service through general UI revision.  Gmail, Google Chat, Photos etc. are all plumbed in well (perhaps not exactly as people wish, but that’s why the feedback button is there).

They’ve combined these key services and nicely presented them in the revised Google UI – which provides sensible toolbar menu and workspace with simple clean lines and uncluttered space in the browser.  The top right-hand side being particularly useful with the constant presence of the notifications and share menu, along with the context|service sensitive help and setting options.  All this I’ve easily get used and start taking for granted immediately.

So I’ve realised that Google + is almost the sort of connected set of services and social connections where I could use and work everyday.   Until now, I’ve not had a visualisation of a connected web worker interface and services that flow and connect together so well as Google +.  Perhaps that means I’ve missed something somewhere, or only had fleeting interactions with such a platform available elsewhere?

So why do I think it’s particularly suited for supporting the workplace?

These are my call-out features that make it a potentially great Enterprise collaboration platform:-

• Google chat conversations that remain active and sync’d no matter which Google service tab you have have active, keeping continuity of contact and context.
• Google +’s Hangouts (video conferencing) present a step change for multi participant video chat services, with intuitive launch and privacy controls.  This will be an excellent service for remote teams.
• Google +’s profiles are well done, with key controls and updates, to help viewers choose how they wish to interact with that person.  It’s certainly made me think Google account profiles, are an important digital business card as well as sign post to the rest of your digital identity.
• Google +’s sharing and circles, are there to help drive adhoc collaboration and project activities forward. Helping people target conversations and activities to relevant individuals and groups. Combined with the notification & filter features, your attention handling overhead is reduced. So you can focus on updates when they come in, but otherwise dedicate your focus elsewhere and let things move on in the background.
• Google has done a good job of the activity stream implementation so far, delivering different filters/views on your stream via the circles categorisation.  Activity streams are more effective than an email inbox in helping an individual track a large flow of data in a loosely coupled manner, as well providing a more flexible engagement and participation model.
• Gmail and Mobile integration (Huddles – group texts) (primarily Android currently), are already well done and obviously be subject to further improvements in future iterations. It’s also all browser based so the form factor, OS or the resources of the end-point device are not so much a limitation of the service but help to extend it’s reach and serve mobile users better.

It’s not complete by any means so there’s a couple of key things to come that Enterprise will be interested in:-

• Google Apps, the current Google Enterprise services, look a great prospect for integration with Google +.  It will interesting to watch how that implementation takes shape, and the security and identity features they put into manage privacy, identity and content publication needs.  They’re already done some implementation of dual accounts in the Google+ toolbar, and you can switch IDs see here: account switching
• Google +  API, another great prospect to integrate both consumer services and enterprise grade application services.

So I’m going to be interested to see how Google + evolves, there’s certainly being no lack of expertise and feedback for Google to exploit to help it change Google +  in the right manner.  It’s certainly good to have a strong disruptive influence in the social networking market place.

For reference this GigaOM post is also a great summary of the potential of Google + as enterprise workplace.

However, the humble computer mouse still remains (at least for now & probably for a while yet) an important accessory to make computers functional and responsive.

I recently found that I while had a very good, functionally accurate and light mouse, it wasn’t comfortable for extended times of use.  I knew that having a comfortable and supportive mouse, was very important keeping my hand as stress and strain free as possible.

Find out more : Speedlink Bluetooth mouse

Therefore I consigned this small light, rechargeable blue-tooth mouse as my travel and mobile working mouse.  I like that fact this mouse doesn’t need additional USB connection parts to provide wireless connectivity, or spare batteries.  I always travel with it and a USB cable so it is reliable in performance and function when I’m on the road, or actually in the office (as I WFH so much).

For my home mouse, the ergonomic design and comfort factor in the hand was of prime importance to me.

In fact, I need a premium mouse, as I am very dependent on the well being of my hand (the right in particular) so that I can perform my job.

The short list came down a couple of Logitech & a Microsoft products. 

Logitech MX Air Mouse

Logitech Performance Mouse MX

Microsoft Arc Mouse

My research incorporated looking on the vendors web sites, reading Amazon reviews and watching reviews on Youtube.  (consumer research | reviews | social media) As the tool had to be physically comfortable and testing was a necessity, I also spent some time in PCWorld holding and testing these devices, the web is great for getting a really good sense of how reliable or well things perform. But there is still nothing better than a "hands on" experience for some things.

In the end,  I chose the Logitech MX Air Mouse. 

While at first it doesn’t look like the best mouse to support the hand, it is in fact very comfortable to hold and use. The long length of the device is excellent for letting the hand take an almost at rest form and still operate the mouse.  It also looks as if is mainly design for off the surface control and interaction.  In fact is can and does perform off the surface very adequately. However, my main activities focus on content creation rather than consumption and therefore I don’t really need the surface free functionality.  The best part of the design for me, is the touch sensitive scroll panel, with the "free |fast spin" mode that the mouse supports.  As the middle scroll panel is flush with the rest of the mouse surface, you get none of the aggravation common with wheel based mouse scrolling.  In fact in writing this blog post, I’m reminded of features I don’t regularly use (audio playback and volume control).

Here’s a quick promo video about the Logitech MX Air Mouse.

Interestingly Microsoft are now bringing out the “Touch Mouse” :-

While it will have multi-touch functionality and looks very comparable to the Logitech MX Air Mouse.  I think I’ll stick with the Logitech MX Air for now.