I just learned about www.posterous.com and I think it has the potential for changing my blogging habits forever. The idea is that one email to posterous not only populates a named blog on their site (i.e. www.larrywinger.posterous.com) but it also can be configured to send the same info to your blog, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the list goes on. This email message is actually my first experiment. BTW, it can also handle all sorts of file types including doc, ppt, pdf, jpg, gif, png, mp3, avi and mpg. Pretty amazing stuff…and free.
Personal productivity ideas that seem to be working for me.
I’m a raving fan of a free online voicemail management service called YouMail that I discovered in April. Built-in cell phone voice messaging capability is, in my opinion, a real weakness for most providers. YouMail to the rescue.
Before I go into a laundry list of features, let me tell you how it works for me. By disabling Verizon voice messaging and forwarding those calls to YouMail, I now get instant text message notification of voice messages, including caller ID and datestamp plus a new beta voice transcription of the message. Great for getting the gist of your message without having to step out of a meeting.
But the best part for me is that YouMail also launches an email containing that same info and transcription, with a link to their website and my message in MP3 form. It plays automatically and is downloadable. Very cool. That way, when you have a voice message you’d really like to keep, you can.
On the caller end, YouMail is fairly amazing as well. You can record or choose a pre-recorded outgoing message for all generic callers. That’s expected. The unexpected part is what you can do with people you know will be calling. By entering their name (first & last) along with all numbers, it will use a “Smart Greeting” with them.
So if George Smith is one of my contacts and he calls from a phone number I’ve put in the system, the “Smart Greeting” will say “Hi George, Larry’s not available right now. Please leave a message.” Needless to say, your friends will be impressed!
Take that even one more step. At any time you may override the “Smart Greeting” and record a caller specific message. “George, sorry we couldn’t talk before I got on my flight. We were delayed and I’m going to be arriving at 6:30, not 5:15. See you curbside. Thanks.” Can you begin to see the advantages?
And finally, I should mention that you can re-program your cell phone speed dial to go right to YouMail’s excellent voice message retrieval system. That is an acommodation for the Luddites among us — good old fashioned voice mail with a better cell phone interface, if nothing else.
I’m skipping the laundry list of varied greetings, voicemail management, caller identification and blocking. You can read that for yourself. But at the very least, give it a try. With compatible phone systems, you can even set it up to capture your landline messages as well. Happy messaging.
Tags: voice messaging, YouMail
For most of the last century, task management has remained fairly predictable and boring after the radical introduction of the basic “to do” list. Most of the books and programs until fairly recently were all about how to keep and update your lists. Same program, different wrapper.
My Dad managed his personal and professional life with a shirt-pocket holder full of 3×5 cards and plenty of change for pay phone calls. You can’t argue with success in time management, however it is achieved, but I’m so thankful to be living and working in a different environment.
I’m glad to report that things have changed dramatically over the past few years, especially with the emergence of new paradigms — and a handful of technologies that support them.
While I am no expert, I can say that I finally feel comfortable with my task and email management system, thanks to ”Total Workday Control” by Michael Linenberger.
Before I say more about his approach, Read the rest of this entry »
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