When I was at my old company I had a large outsourced team based in the Philippines.  Since I was only able to make it out there once every 10 weeks or so, we had to rely on tools that would allow us to transfer reports and communicate with one another from close to 18,000 miles away.  At the time this was primarily done via email, IM and FTP.  That feels so long ago because now, just a few years ago, we have seen a sharp increase in cloud-based tools for individuals and businesses.  At the heart of these tools is the goal to keep people connected by allowing for access to data and the ability to easily communicate through a variety of channels.

I utilize cloud-based apps all throughout my day and didn’t realize just how much I rely on them until I sat down and began thinking about how I store and retrieve personal data and how I communicate with a number of team members, clients, and partners on a daily basis.

Here are the top 12 cloud-based tools that I use to stay productive.  I use many other tools as well but these are the tools I wouldn’t know what to do without.

12 Cloud-Based Tools to Stay Productive

1. Google Apps/Docs: I use Google Apps at both New Marketing Labs and my steakhouse. I also heavily use Gmail and Google Docs in my personal life.
2. Google Bookmarks: Google Bookmarks ensures that I have access to my most frequently used bookmarks from any computer, anywhere I’m at.  I also use Delicious but I use that more for storage and curating together lists such as corporate social media policies or food recipes.
3. Google Reader: Google Reader is the primary way I’m able to consume so much information on a daily basis.  There are a variety of tools available for the iPhone and iPad plus I can access from any computer with a browser.
4. Mozy: Mozy allows me to sleep at night knowing that all of my data is being backed up.  I have other backup processes in place including external hard-drives and heavy use of Dropbox but Mozy remains at the center of all of these processes.
5. Backupify: Just as Mozy allows me not to worry about the data that’s stored on my computer(s), Backupify ensures that my social media data is backed up and available for future reference.  Backupify can secure your data from a variety of services including: Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, Zoho, Google Apps/Docs, WordPress, Basecamp, Gmail, Facebook, Google Calendar, and many more.
6. Dropbox: Dropbox keeps my most used files available to me wherever I am.  Not only does this serve as a backup of those files, it also allows me to access from my iPhone, iPad, or any other computer.  This comes in handy all the time and helps me to stay responsive to business requests for copies of files.
7. Evernote: I have been a fan of Evernote since it was first launched. I have multiple notebooks that I use for all sorts of things including my task management, goal setting, lists of all kinds, and random notes.
8. Hootsuite: While technically I could’ve listed all of the different social platforms, I would like to think that would be sort of obvious. However, Hootsuite is important because it allows me to stay connected on too many Twitter accounts and Facebook Pages to count.
9. Yammer: We’re just deploying Yammer at New Marketing Labs but it is being used to keep our team connected so that we’re not constantly interrupting each other and so that we can stay in contact when we’re traveling.  We had used other internal networks such as Socialcast and they worked great but a few of our partners were already using Yammer so we decided to give it a try. So far, it’s pretty awesome!
10. ScrewTurn: ScrewTurn is what we use for our corporate wiki where we keep information on just about everything we do including our policies, timelines, meeting notes, discussions and lots of other great uses we’re finding for it.
11. Zoho: When we first launched New Marketing Labs we bounced around between a few CRMs and finally settled on Zoho.  I wanted a full-featured platform because I had spent 3 years as the administrator of NetSuite at my old company but we didn’t have the needs of, for example, a software company that has hundreds or thousands of leads coming in each day.
12. GoToMeeting: Even though Citrix Online is a client of mine, I have been using GoToMeeting for years.  I already travel a lot.  If it wasn’t for GoToMeeting, I would have to rent a closet at an airport because I would never be home.

What are some of your favorite cloud-based tools to stay productive and keep connected?

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Photo Credit: bestrated1

As someone who spends the majority of their life online I come to rely on my ability to get online. I’ve become spoiled by my ability to virtually always get online from any location.

The majority of work that we do at New Marketing Labs involves needing to be online. One of the main reasons why I’m in England is to capture content to upload online. Sounded easy enough while back in Boston, right? Well, when planning the trip I knew that I wouldn’t have data on my iPhone. It’s just too expensive and I wasn’t going to get a UK phone just for this trip. I was ok with that. At least the hotel had free wifi, I thought to myself. Score. Except that as I’ve gotten settled at the hotel I’ve found out that they block access to every social site. So far I’ve found that they block Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Luckily I was able to get on to Flickr to upload all of the photos that I’ve been taking. But, otherwise, I’ve been basically disconnected from the social web for the past couple days.

Now, I agree that it is good to disconnect to spend time with family and friends but not when you’re traveling for work and need access. What I think is worse is that it’s like dangling a carrot in front of my eyes that I can almost reach. I can access the internet. I can even sort of access Twitter by going through TweetDeck. But, anything else = have fun trying. This means that I have to use precious time while at Goodwood huddled in the media tent trying to share a connection with 100 other folks uploading content of their own. It’s possible but I much preferred the idea of doing it from the hotel at night during my “off” time.

While I’ve been able to mostly get my work done, even if a bit delayed, it has been very frustrating. So, my question to you is what do you do when you run into technology issues that prevent, or greatly hinder, your ability to get your work done?

Correction: I’m apparently able to access Flickr but not able to see any photos while doing a search hence why there isn’t an accompanying photo with this post of someone running into a wall.  Their system is even classifying Chris Brogan’s website as a Usenet and is blocking it. Go figure.

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Besides thinking that the tour bus was awesome and being slightly jealous that I couldn’t have something uber-cool like that, it got me thinking about why Timbaland invested the money to build the tour bus.

Timbaland is one of the most sought after producers in the music business and also an award-winning artist. His ability to be creative anywhere at any time is critical to being able to stay on the top of his game. Without a tour bus with these capabilities, he would either have to turn down opportunities or do a lot of flying back and forth.

This brought me to consider whether or not I have an optimal set up with me at all times to enable content creation and fuel creativity.

To enable myself the ability to create content on-the-fly, the following tools are standard in my gear bag (mostly affiliate links):

• MacBook Pro
• iPad
• iPhone 4
• Nikon S8000 digital camera
• Livescribe pad & pen
• Western Digital 1TB portable hard-drive

In addition to the main gadgets, I also always have all of the cords, chargers, memory sticks, and other accessories that will allow me to transfer and upload my content and always be charging.

There certainly is some duplication between the capabilities of each of these gadgets but they do provide me the full suite of tools that I inevitably need during my travels.

I also always have a magazine or two and at least a book besides the magazines and books that I keep on my iPad and iPhone. While this doesn’t necessarily enable content creation, unless I’m reviewing a book for this blog, it does help to keep my mind sharp and inspire ideas.

Depending on where I’m traveling to, this bag will be tweaked but this is my standard day-to-day gear that I always carry with me.

While there may be some tools that could be upgraded or other tools that I want to add to my gear bag, my assessment is that I do have a complete set of tools to enable content creation and creativity from anywhere I may be.

Are you enabling your ability to be creative and create content anywhere you go? What say you?

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For now, Google OS is not designed to be your main operating system.  It’s just a fast way to get online, a simplified operating system that removes unnecessary software and opens the browser in a few seconds.

Google OS will keep everything you do in the cloud.  Obviously, the suite of apps will be Google products.  While the launch of Google OS is exciting, and plenty of blogs have covered the launch, it does bring about the question of living in the cloud.

Many people I know turn to the cloud for some portion of their daily interactions but still feel more comfortable and interact with a typical desktop.  For example, I use Google Docs for documents that I want to share with others or that I want to be able to access any time (in addition to tools like Dropbox).  For day-to-day documents, spreadsheets, and slide decks, I use iWork or Microsoft Office.  Instead of sharing documents, I attach them to emails which then cause a long thread and confusion over the latest document version.  I know that using cloud-based apps like Google Docs would solve this, especially for a company using the Google Apps environment.  But, the challenge is that as a business society, we are still comfortable with doing the email thread method, even if we know it’s not the most productive.

Eventually we will all make the convergence fully to the cloud.  If Google has any say in it, their push of Google OS will help to make that convergence even sooner.

Check out this video from Google to find out more about Google OS.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What are your thoughts on living in the cloud?  What percentage of your time is spent using cloud-based apps versus desktop apps?

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The official description of the Federal IT dashboard is:

The IT Dashboard provides the public with an online window into the details of Federal information technology investments and provides users with the ability to track the progress of investments over time. The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including general information on over 7,000 Federal IT investments and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments that agencies classify as “major.” The performance data used to track the 800 major IT investments is based on milestone information displayed in agency reports to OMB called “Exhibit 300s.” Agency CIOs are responsible for evaluating and updating select data on a monthly basis, which is accomplished through interfaces provided on the website.

A complete overview of the Federal IT Dashboard, you can check out this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

For anyone that loves to play with graphs, you’ll get lost on this site for hours.  Sometimes I had to remind myself that I was “playing” on a government website responsible for tracking Federal IT investments and projects.

Not only does the website offer the ability to look at an overview of all Federal IT investments and projects, it allows you to drill down by department as well.  Another interesting feature of the site are the interactive trend graphs.  Check out this video as an example.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The site has been designed to allow visitors to share all of this information via embeds, Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious.  You can also grab the CSV files or pull in the RSS feeds.

Of course, one of the first questions that comes to mind is whether or not these tools are actually being used or if they were just created to look pretty.  According to a July 17th blog post by Vivek Kundra, our Nation’s first Federal CIO, the Department of Vetern Affairs has halted 45 IT projects which were either behind schedule or over budget.  The total budget for these projects during Fiscal Year 2009 is approximately $200 million.  VA CIO Roger Baker credits the IT Dashboard with providing him the analysis needed to pinpoint these 45 IT projects.

It will be nice to see if other departments are able to use the available data in the same way that the Department of Vetern Affairs was able to.  A tool such as this would be useful to implement across other Federal budget expenditures as well as being designed for State and local government to use as well.  Understandably, this is a first step to hopefully more widespread implementation.  But, in it’s short history of being launched, I’d say that halting $200 million in over budget or behind schedule projects is a great accomplishment.

Have you checked out the Federal IT Dashboard yet?  What do you think about it?

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Click here to view the embedded video.

• You leave your house and stop at the gas station.  Since you’re paying with credit card you never go inside the store and therefore never have an interaction with the clerk.
• Next, you stop at the bank to deposit a couple checks, check your balance and withdraw some cash.  You do this all from the ATM.  Alas, no interaction.
• You run across the street to the grocery store.  You go inside and grab one of the personal scanners.  As you walk through the store you scan your items and bag them.  You head over to the meat counter, punch your order into the touchscreen and a few minutes later grab your turkey and cheese from a slot where they placed the items when the computerized system called your number.  When you’re done shopping you head to self-checkout, dock your personal scanner, swipe your credit card and are done.  No need to have personal interaction.
• You plan on staying in tonight so, while still at the grocery store, you head over to the Redbox movie vending machines.  Again, a swipe of your credit card and out pops this week’s 2 new releases that you really wanted to see.  Catching on yet?  Yep, no personal interaction.
• When you get out to your car you remember that you brought that pesky bag of coins that have been laying around the house.  You head back into the grocery store and hit up the Coinstar machine.  Dump in your coins, choose to receive an Amazon gift card, and off you go.
• Next stop, recycling some bottles from the Sunday football routine.  Nope, no need for personal interaction here either.  Pop your bottles in, grab your receipt and off you go.  You’ll save them for the next time you run through self-checkout at the grocery store.
• You remember that you need some cleaning supplies, some pet food and a few other things.  Time to hit up Walmart.  The biggest retailer in the entire world.  Surely you’ll have some personal interaction here right?  Nope.  You grab your items, head to self-checkout, sign the little digital reader and off you go.
• After a tiring couple hours you head home, log into Amazon and buy a couple books you’ve been really wanting with that gift card you got from Coinstar.

In that scenario there was no need for any personal interaction yet you were very productive and probably spent the entire morning running around.  While this is great from a productivity standpoint, is it hurting the chances for us to have meaningful face-to-face interactions?  I think so.  Furthermore, this isn’t even taking into consideration what these technologies are doing by reducing the workforce, increasing the bottom line of these corporations, and the many other factors that come into play with implementations of more and more advanced technologies into the consumer space.  Granted, I prefer to use these technologies as they allow me to stay highly productive and move at my speed, not the speed of others around me.  But, it is interesting to look at from a higher level, more global standpoint.

This is another reason why I am in love with social media.  What I didn’t add to the above schedule is that after all that, you come home, log into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and GTalk and have 50+ meaningful conversations with friends from all over the world.  However, there is something about face-to-face interaction that is very important.  It is one of the things I enjoy the most about going to conferences, meetups and other networking events.  There are some things that can only be gotten from face-to-face interactions.  Maybe that is one of the reasons why I enjoy this social space so much….because it is social and there are less and less opportunities for me to have meaningful face-to-face discussions with the gas clerk, sales rep, movie store employee, etc.

What’s say you?

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Photo by: Litandmore

I would imagine we will continue to see similar retrofitting occurring at other airports and other airline gates as we continue to become an even more connected society.

No more having to sit along a wall just to charge your laptop, phone or other toys while waiting for your flight.  At least not when you’re flying Southwest out of BDL.

Good for you Southwest and thank you!

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The idea is simple and brilliant.  Scan your membership card to unlock a scanner.  Then walk around with the scanner, scanning and bagging your items as you shop.  Once you’re done, dock the scanner at the self-checkout, pay via your chosen payment method, and you’re done.  To accommodate this, Stop & Shop also has installed new scales at several locations throughout the produce section.  This allows you to quickly weigh your produce and print out a barcode for it.

One of the things I found interesting about using the scanner was that as I walked around it let me know of sales.  Also, at any given time I could see how much I had spent, how much I saved, and the details of everything I was purchasing.

Overall I was really impressed with the shopping experience.  The only inconveniences were due to the implementation being new and the need to still retrofit the shopping carts with a dock for the scanner, as well as the addition of more bags throughout the store.

I can think of so many reasons why this is great from a business perspective but am really curious to hear your ideas.  So, in the comments below let me know what you think about this concept from a business perspective.  What do you see as being good?  What problems do you see with this type of technology?

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