Product Strategy | Analytics | Business Development
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I blog about things I find interesting including online media, mobile, creative ideas, web technology and more. It’s infrequent, but I guarantee the stuff I post will be worth checking out.
Task management for me is more about capturing stuff I need to do than tracking the completeness of tasks. I don’t get high on “checking off” to do lists. I simply need a reliable/consistent place to capture all of the minor tasks I need to get done at any given time. I also don’t use it for project management, because I’m typically aware of the larger projects going on, both in my work and freelance life. Tasks are the random things people ask me to do in a day or things that come out of meetings that I need to address or small bits of a projects that need my attention.
The key to task management for me, and this is the one thing I took out of Getting Things Done (the hard-core task management process), is that I have a reliable, consistent place to capture these tasks so I can get them out of my head. It’s all about trust… if I know I can capture a todo item somewhere and refer back to it whenever I’m ready to do something about it, I don’t need to worry about it anymore. The GTD example is going to the grocery store… if you make a mental list of what you need, your brain is constantly focused on that list… “Eggs, milk, bread, apples…” and not able to think about other things. If you write it down in a place you know you will be able to access it when you need it, you’re brain is free to do other more important things.
Here are all of the processes I have tried in the past that didn’t work:Here are all of the processes I have tried in the past that didn’t work:
But through all of these, I’ve never been able to move away from my trusty pen and notebook. The problem with most of these are that they’re online and require an internet connected device to update, which required me to have paper as a backup. This leads to multiple lists, which just can’t work for me. You shouldn’t have to spend time rewriting/gathering/managing your todo list… it should just be there so you can work on the items… not work on organizing them.
So I’ve started yet another experiment. The biggest flaw with a pen/paper todo list is that it’s not searchable or easy to refer back to later… think days or months (well after you’ve moved on to a new notebook). So to tackle that, I bought a tablet. Not an iPad! An Android tablet. I got a great deal at Woot.com on a Viewsonic gTablet. It’s hardware and screen are comparable to the iPad2, but at $270 (on Woot) it’s about 1/2 the price of the lowest tier Apple product. It’s major flaw, according to online reviews, is that the modified Android version Viewsonic added to the device is absolutely horrible. I didn’t even bother finding out how bad it was since there are dozens of tutorials (here’s the one I used) on how to root the device and add a clean version of Android, which I did within minutes of turning it on for the first time.
Note that I’ve only had the device for two week2, but I’m trying to make it replace my notebook/pen completely using the Evernote Android App. The app allows for offline and online updates, it syncs with apps on my PC, work laptop and phone and is able to capture notes, audio, pictures and websites. It’s not really a task tracking app which has me a bit concerned but it’s definitely worth the test. If Evernote doesn’t work out, I’ll probably try RTM or a similar app geared towards task tracking… if that doesn’t work its back to pen and paper :(
If you have an awesome process for tracking your to do list, feel free to share it in the comments below.
I’ve been looking around for a simple forum software, but was disappointed with the bloated offerings from SMF and vBulletin. That was until I found Vanilla Forums. Vanilla is a free, open-source PHP-based forum software that is just about as simple as they come (that’s a compliment).
The tool has a really simple discussion thread format, several user permissions and registration modes and can easily be themed (or even embedded in your current site) to match any site.
If you’re in the market for a dead simple tool to use to host your discussion forum, definitely check out Vanilla.
Now you can add short posts (think Twitter) to your Google Places account. Using up to 160 characters you can tell potential customers about upcoming deals, new offerings and more.
Google continues to impress me with their suite of tools to empower the small business owner.
Now when you create a location-based page for your local business, users can “check-in” when they are there further exposing your business to their network. You can even buy ads based on “Places”. Small businesses should try to allocate at least some of their day to fostering these types of programs. They’re very low maintenance and have a big potential upside given the size of Facebook’s network. Facebook Places is another great tool for small business marketers.
Google has been really focused on the under-served SMB market creating both easy-to-use promotional tools, but also offering services like corporate Gmail and Google Apps to help small businesses focus on their work and not how to do their work. That’s why it makes a lot of sense for them to launch a Google Small Business Blog.
There’s not a lot there now, but I expect Google to highlight products and enhancements that can help your small business grow. This is definitely a site every small business owner should add to their reading list.
Google continues to help small local businesses reach their customers. Their enhancements and continued expansion of Google Places significantly increases the potential exposure of local businesses. Now, with Google Tags, they’ve made it easy for small businesses to add specials, coupons and other advertisements to Goolge Maps and local search results.
With Google Tags, you can maintain weekly specials or do “real-time” coupons all for $25 per month. Add this tothe free promotion offered by Google Places and this gives small businesses an incredibly powerful and cost effective tool to find new customers.
As I’ve stated here several times before there are good and bad SEO practices. The good people at Datadial have put together an infographic that highlights SEO best practices and the “blackhat” techniques you should avoid at all costs.
So in case you couldn’t tell by the last 4 posts, I was pretty busy in March/April. In addition to launching 4 new sites, I also found a new job. Leaving IDG was difficult—5+ years of history and an incredible group of people made the decision to leave very difficult, but I was ready for a change of scenery (and business model).
Care.com is a 4 year-old startup based in Waltham, MA that’s taking the care needs world by storm :). Whether looking for a baby sitter, pet sitter, elderly care or a housekeeper (and more), Care.com can really help. I’ve already used the site to find a housekeeper to come in twice a month and help around the house. They’re much more affordable than you think!
Once again, Google confirms they do not use the keywords meta tag. They also reinforce the fact that if you write good/useful (read: not keyword injected) description meta tags, they will use it in search results.
In my last post (“SEO: A Cautionary Tale“) I pointed out questionable tactics that some “SEO Experts” employ. However, there are some best practices that make your site easier to index and most of them can be done by you, free of charge.
1) Create a Google Webmaster Account: Use Google’s free webmaster tools to optimize your site’s searchability. You can also use this tool to submit a sitemap (a list of all the pages on your site) which ensures search engines have access to all of your content. Don’t forget about Bing’s and Yahoo’s webmaster tools too.
2) Sign up for Google Local Business: If you’re a local business, the major search engines now offer enhanced business listings (often for free) which appear at the top of local search results. Google, Bing and Yahoo all have these types of listings and you should make sure your company is listed with them.
3) Read Google’s SEO Starter Guide: This is an incredible resource, directly from Google, which details the various web design/layout techniques including URL patters, header tags, unique titles and meta descriptions, etc that help Google index your site.
4) Write good content and make your website useful: There’s no substitute for simply making a good, useful website. If you make a website that people enjoy, they will reward you with quality links which will eventually lead to your site being listed where it belongs in Google.
When it comes to your search engine rankings you need to be honest with yourself. Do a search for your most sought after keyword for your business and there are likely millions of results. Now add a state or even a city to that term and there are still probably 10s of thousands of results. Anyone making promises that they can get you to the top of these lists are likely full of it, but the tactics above should at least setup you site so it can be crawled effectively by search engines.
Task management for me is more about capturing stuff I need to do than tracking the completeness of tasks. I don’t get high on “checking off” to do lists. I simply need a reliable/consistent place to capture all of the minor tasks I need to get done at any given time. I also don’t use it for project management, because I’m typically aware of the larger projects going on, both in my work and freelance life. Tasks are the random things people ask me to do in a day or things that come out of meetings that I need to address or small bits of a projects that need my attention. 
So I’ve started yet another experiment. The biggest flaw with a pen/paper todo list is that it’s not searchable or easy to refer back to later… think days or months (well after you’ve moved on to a new notebook). So to tackle that, I bought a tablet. Not an iPad! An Android tablet. I got a great deal at Woot.com on a Viewsonic gTablet. It’s hardware and screen are comparable to the iPad2, but at $270 (on Woot) it’s about 1/2 the price of the lowest tier Apple product. It’s major flaw, according to online reviews, is that the modified Android version Viewsonic added to the device is absolutely horrible. I didn’t even bother finding out how bad it was since there are dozens of tutorials (here’s the one I used) on how to root the device and add a clean version of Android, which I did within minutes of turning it on for the first time. 
I’ve been looking around for a simple forum software, but was disappointed with the bloated offerings from SMF and vBulletin. That was until I found 
Google continues to help small local businesses reach their customers. Their enhancements and continued expansion of Google Places significantly increases the potential exposure of local businesses. Now, with 
