geek is a verb.

Instant messaging (IM) enables powerful collaboration with remote colleagues. Sending quick requests and providing quick responses can be done with less interruption to either party involved than a phone call or email.  I even find it useful for short conversations with people sitting nearby, as it does not disturb others sitting in the same area and can be done as a parallel task to other work that may be occurring – like participating on a conference call.

I am not here to extol the benefits of IM.  However, if you don’t find it to be a powerful business tool for you, then I recommend you stop reading here.

The thing I am here to evangelize is how easily you can stay in touch with IM while on the go!  In an effort to maximize my use of IM, I have recently started using a mobile IM client, IM+ All-in-One Messenger for the iPhone, and I am finding it extremely useful as a business communication tool - it allows me to manage my team and interact with my clients and colleagues through IM regardless of my physical location.  As a consultant, being available to all my clients on their schedules is critical, and mobile use of IM provides that availability without reducing flexibility of my personal schedule.

One of the enabling aspects of IM is the way it publishes presence to your colleagues – e.g. “Dan is online” or “Dan is away”.  Much like spotting someone across the room indicates that person is present in the room, these status icons and messages communicate an equivalent presence for online colleagues.  IM+ service acts as a proxy to your IM account and logs in on behalf of you, publishing a persistent “Dan is online” status, and notifying you when messages are received, so you can respond.  Using IM+ you are always logged in and available to your friends and colleagues, whether or not you are sitting at your desk.

I settled on IM+ All-in-One Messenger for the iPhone for the following reasons:

1. Support for a large set of protocols (AIM/iChat, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo!, ICQ, Jabber/Google Talk, Twitter, Skype Chat, Facebook IM, and MySpace IM).  This is important for me as it needs to support whatever my clients are using.
2. The “always on” presence it offers even when I am not running the IM+ application.
3. A well designed user interface.

I use IM+ All-in-One Messenger for the iPhone, but a version of IM+ All-in-One Messenger is also available for just about any modern mobile device (check for supported devices at the IM+ Web site for details on which features are supported on each platform).

I also recommend you search for IM in the appropriate venue for getting new applications for your mobile device and see if another application fits your needs better.  I propose the following requirements:

1. Must support the IM protocols you use.
2. Must run on your mobile device.
3. Must publish your presence as available/not available based on your desired status and not whether or not you are actively using the application.

Happy messaging!

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It seems like I have spent a lifetime chasing the optimum way to perform personal information management. I have tried Sidekick, Outlook Notes, OneNote, NoteStudio, TiddlyWiki and countless other solutions along the way (I got tired of listing them and I suspect you got tired of reading them.) The pace of technology has not helped, but has actually exacerbated the issue by increasing the richness of the information as well as the number of communication devices I might want to use to access the information.

My latest hammer for this nail is Evernote.

Why. Evernote‘s tagline is “Remember Everything.” And… well… it does. I started using it first on my iPhone and started snapping pictures of books I wanted to read, movies I wanted to see, restaurants at which I wanted to dine, etc. I then uploaded them to Evernote and tagged with some categories and “poof” – instant “I like it list”. The first wow factor for me, however – and I suspect will be for you – was it’s amazing optical character recognition. Once I snapped the book cover, not only did it upload and throw it into the categories I assigned, but it converted the title and author into text and indexed it for search. The jaw dropper was when I snapped and uploaded and photo of a card from my mom and it not only understood the witty verse, but my mom’s handwritten note as well! (Now even Evernote knows she loves me.)

How. Evernote has nice desktop applications for Windows and Mac; mobile applications for iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile; and a slick Web application with a decent mobile skin. You can add information using any of these, plus “Web Clipper” plug-ins for Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, a “bookmarklet” if you have a different favorite browser, twitter, and probably others – check the Evernote site yourself. Oh yeah, you can also email your information. The Mac client is pretty feature filled and integrated, and from what I have read, the Windows client is at least as feature rich.

What. As I said, I started with photos and still am a heavy photo collector – not scenery, friends, and family, but information. I use my iPhone like a scanner. Get a business card, snap a photo, evernote it. Take some notes by hand, don’t have time to process yet, snap a photo, evernote it. Like that cabinet for the kitchen, snap a photo, evernote it. It is my “photographic memory”. I have been know to throw some PDF’s into the mix as well. I have more recently started using it for my typed notes and even some web-clipping. The iPhone client also let’s you upload voice recordings, but I don’t really find that useful yet.

Boo. There are a few things don’t love. Very few. PDF’s don’t display in the iPhone client with thumbnails. PDF’s with images don’t OCR the images, you need to do that first outside Evernote. I wouldn’t mind some wiki-magic like connections between notes.

I am sure I didn’t touch on everything cool about it. The evernote blog highlights features, integrations with other applications, and has some user stories.

It is free for images, audio, PDF’s, and text up to 40MB of new information/month. For $5/month ($45/year) you get any file type you like (not clear what else you would want) up to 500MB plus SSL (in case some perpetrator is trying to sleuth my favorite cabinets), no ads, and some collaboration features.

Summary.

• Synchronized information across every device you own sans your toaster
• Becomes your photographic memory
• Great information indexing

ps. I apologize in advance for someday adding Evernote to the information management graveyard list.

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I have been eagerly awaiting my invite to Google Voice – and it has arrived.

Now the typical use of Google Voice is an interesting one – a virtual number that you publish as your phone number, then configure to ring your home, cell, or another number you want, or ring them all! One number you provide to friends and colleagues, then configure to work the way you want to be contacted.

You can read about all the features at Google, but the feature I have been waiting for is the free voice transcription. I am now able to configure my cell phone to send voicemail to Google Voice, which will then convert the message to text and either email or sms the message to me. This handles any number of scenarios where I can get away with peeking down at my phone, but not picking up the phone and dialing into voicemail.

Here is how it works!

First, configure Google Voice to answer the phone, take a message, and send you a transcription:

1. Logon to your Google Voice account and, click on “Settings” in the upper right hand corner of the screen
2. On the “General Settings” tab, enable “Do Not Disturb” and “Voicemail Transcripts”
3. Also on the “General Settings” tab, set your desired notifications – I SMS them to my phone but you can also get email notifications.

Then, configure your cell phone to forward callers to your Google Voice number instead of the cell phone providers voicemail.

1. If you have GSM like me (AT&T) read GsmFeatures and pay attention to the call forwarding section. Alternatively, blindly follow my instructions. You may want to check to confirm any forwarding charges for your cell phone service provider.
2. If you have a non-GSM provider (check here), skip the remainer of these steps and use the correct ones for your cell provider to forward unanswered calls to your google voice number. I googled instructions for Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile to save you some time, but since I cannot test them, you’re on your own…
3. Enter the following into your phone: *61*NNNNNNNNN*11*15# and press “Call”. “8005551212” is replaced with your google voice number. The “15” at the end is the number of seconds you want your phone to ring before going to voicemail. It can be 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30. If it’s going to be 30, why even bother doing this, nobody is going to wait that long to leave a message except your mom.
4. If you panic, you can undo it by entering “##004#” and pressing “Call”.

All set. Now someone calls and if I don’t answer, they leave a message with magical Google Voice who kindly transcribes it and sends me an SMS. The transcriptions aren’t always 100%, but they are almost always good enough that I “get the message”. Plus, since I am an Apple fanboy, I have decent iPhone application, GV Mobile, that lets me listen to the messages just like AT&T Visual Voice.

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Welcome! I have proudly worn the mantle of geek for many years now. I spend an enormous amount of my time “geeking” around with technology – i.e. tinkering and trying this and that until I get it just right. I hope you enjoy my findings and they enrich your life.

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