adoption curve dot net

Here’s an unashamedly Mac-centric review of a number of outliner and task manager packages – it’s a long list, and it ranges from basic stripped-down lists to some packages that I suspect the authors would have difficulty explaining.

Ted Goranson: About This Particular Outliner

For the record, my current favourite is DevonThink, which pulls together elements of an outliner, list manager, text editor, web browser and database. I don’t for one minute think I’ve even scratched the surface of what it can do, but I’ve found that it fits quite well with the Getting Things Done technique – about which, more to follow.

I don’t often read The Financial Times on a day-to-day basis, but I picked up a complimentary copy from a hotel yesterday and spotted an interesting article on the back page.

It was headlined “Accessories at the core of Apple’s plans for the iPod” (here’s a link to the article, but it will scroll behind the paywall shortly) and talked about Apple’s moves to consolidate their hold on the iPod market by encouraging an “ecosystem” of accessories.

Now I don’t actually own an iPod – instead I’ve got an iRiver, which actually does more than an iPod (it records high-quality MP3, there’s optical line-in and line-out, it has an internal microphone etc), but it lacks two things that the iPod has. Firstly, it doesn’t have the street-cred of the iPod – it’s got a look and feel that only it’s mother could love, and the earbuds aren’t white.

But also – and more importantly in the light of the FT article, it doesn’t have the ecosystem of accessories that the iPod has. Everything from an iPod Sock (that’s a knitted case to you and me) to a BMW 3-Series – Apple have brought a number of major car manufacturers on board to build iPod-compatibility into their in-car entertainment systems.

All of which make the iPod a much more compelling choice, regardless of it’s inferior specifications. And it seems that Apple have learnt from the iPod’s example with their latest product, the Mac Mini. Although it was launched only a couple of weeks ago, already we’re seeing accessories specific to the Mac Mini come onto the market.

It’s written from the point of view of external PR, but this is a good article on business blogging by Steve Rubel, who’s a partner at the semi-legendary PR firm of CooperKatz & Co. It makes a lot of the example of Microsoft, who seem to have drunk the blogging Kool-Aid by the gallon of late — as Steve points out, they’ve gained word-of-mouth marketing that would be impossible to achieve in any other way. In point of fact, it’s worked for Steve as well — he has gained a (deserved) reputation as one of the experts on how to use blogs for PR purposes, and much of that reputation is based on the ideas and opinions that he posts on his blog.

Much of our work with blogs has more internally-focussed — but let’s face it, the reputation of the average department within an organisation amongst it’s peers within the parent company is probably not much better than Microsoft has in the open market. How many times have you heard (or caught yourself saying) “what on earth do department X do all day?”

So publicising what it is that you do — and taking the opportunity to show that value that you add to the organisation — is something that most of us would admit to being something we should do more of. Blogging “inside the firewall” is a way of doing just that — keeping your internal customers informed and engaging them in a dialogue.

“Thinking outside the box” is one of my least favourite cliches, so when I came across Joyce Wycoff’s “whimsical journey” (her words) to find a replacement, I thought it was worth posting.

From the 125 suggestions, these are the top 4:

There is no box

Escape the matrix

Spark the gap

Thinking past the horizon

I’m not sure that any of them are actually a huge improvement, although the last one does at least have the advantage of being least of a cliche. I’ll be adding them to the Buzzword Bingo card, and waiting to see how long any of them take to appear in a Dilbert strip…!