Independent Thinking » Google Reader

5 Must-Have Tech Tools for Business

Daria Steigman — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:13:10 +0000

In an interview with The New Small author Phil Simon, Zane Safrit asked a great question about essential business tech tools. It got me thinking about the five tech tools my business can’t do without:

1. Access. People talk a lot about the cloud and cloud computing, but what good is having your documents and work processes offsite if you can’t access them? To me, being able to work anywhere today is dependent on a hard-wired Internet connection, a good router, a broadband card, and/or great WiFi.

2. WordPress. If Simon hadn’t mentioned WordPress in his top-5 list, I might not have thought about it. But WordPress is an essential technology platform because it powers my Web site and my blog–the “home base” for my business.

3. SmartPhone. It seems hard to fathom that I once walked around without a portable phone. Now I can’t imagine not being able to check e-mail on the go. And that doesn’t even touch on all the other productivity apps I access daily–and, of course, the mobile phone. My current phone of choice: Motorola’s DROID.

4. TweetDeck. My Twitter client of choice, I don’t just use TweetDeck to keep up with trends, breaking news, and my Twitter community. With its real-time streaming, it’s also great for tweetchats. In addition, I use the platform to monitor LinkedIn status updates and my Facebook feed.

5. Google Reader. I don’t know why anyone says RSS is dead. Between the 130+ blogs I read regularly and the alerts I’ve set up, Google Reader makes it possible for me to organize and process a great deal of information. I also like that I can follow smart people and aggregate–right in Google Reader–what they are curating. Plus there’s a terrific mobile app so I can catch up with my reading on the go.

What tech tools are in your business arsenal?

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What’s in Your Toolbox?

Daria Steigman — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:39:28 +0000

[Note: This post originally appeared on IABC's Communication World blog.]

I was checking my e-mail, tweeting with friends, and reading through a backlog of blog posts last Friday while soaring across the United States at 35,000 feet. It was a great way to feel connected after a week of airplanes, hotels, and day-long meetings. But then I came back, and my Internet service provider had a major outage—leaving me offline and disconnected for several hours on Monday.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the tweets or my e-mail that I missed. It was Google. And Dictionary.com. I was working on a report for a client, and I’m so used to being able to fact check, decipher acronyms, and check for precise word usage that the productivity snag was making me really cranky, really fast.

That got me thinking about the tools I take for granted that help me as a multitasking communications pro, business owner, and blogger.

Here are seven programs and tools that help me to be productive every day:

Google has become my backup business hub. Plus I can sync my Droid so that I can access Gmail, my contacts, and my calendar on the go.
Google Reader is indispensible. Without a good aggregator, it would be impossible to keep up with 10-15 blogs, let alone the 100+ I read regularly.
Ever since I loaded that first beta version of Google Chrome, I’ve been hooked by the speed and simplicity of the browser. I’m particularly fond of the bookmark sync feature since I typically use two computers (one desktop, one netbook).
TweetDeck is my Twitter desktop client of choice. The Groups feature is invaluable; I also run Facebook and LinkedIn feeds. I typically monitor the notifications window at the bottom of my screen, and pop in periodically to chat during the day.
Evernote enables me to capture random ideas for blog posts and other notes and access them wherever and whenever I want.
Post-it Notes, Sticky Notes, and 1 dry erase board. I’m big on both to-do lists and capturing ideas and potential innovations. I use my dry erase board as a visual reminder of projects and deadlines and as a place to aggregate blog post ideas for Communication World, Workshifting, and this blog. I use the Sticky Notes program (which sits on my desktop) for nagging items. Post-it Notes is for one-off items, from checking on the status of an invoice to a phone call I need to return.
My Droid, with its crisp big screen and Android operating system, is rapidly becoming an invaluable business tool. Plus it has amazing turn-by-turn GPS navigation.

What’s in your toolbox?

Photo by Ali Edwards (Flickr).

Are You Filtering Information In or Out?

Daria Steigman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:42:57 +0000

Call it Web squared or just a data explosion, but the universe isn’t the only thing that’s expanding. So is the volume of information out there in bytes and megabytes.

Take Twitter, for example. When I first signed up, I wasn’t following enough people to need any group functionality. That quickly changed. So I created a “Faves” group in TweetDeck to make sure I didn’t miss tweets from the 50 or so people I interact with most or whose Twittersteams provide other value. But then that Twittersteam started to grow, so I created a second group–this time of local folks.

That’s when it hit me: by default, I’m filtering in more and more information. Whether on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Reader, or another site, I’m increasingly looking for tools to help me receive and process–rather than avoid–the growing data stream.

What about you? How are you filtering information, and has this changed over time?

Photo by catspyjamasnz (Flickr).