I was in the middle of writing up the results of my latest productivity experiment last night when I received an email from the folks over at Jott.com telling me about a new feature they are adding.  If you read one of my recent posts about Jott, you’ll know that I think the ability to have words I speak into my phone transcribed has a lot of potential to increase productivity (but in that experiment, it didn’t quite work out for me the way I had hoped).

The latest feature the folks over at Jott have added is the ability to call up Jott from my phone, speak a plain English message regarding an appointment I have coming up, and have it appear in my Google Calendar.   I honestly love this idea!  How brilliant is that?  I’m with someone and set up an appointment with them (perhaps it’s the dentist for my next 6 month cleaning?), all I have to do is pick up my phone and speak the new appointment into my phone and it appears in my calendar.  Genius!

The only bummer is, I don’t really like using Google Calendar.  My problem is that during the day job I use an older version of Outlook, and keeping a Google Calendar and Outlook synchronized is really time consuming.  I use my Outlook calendar to keep track of all my appointments for simplicity’s sake.  

However, I think with a little creativity, I can get this to work.  If I set up my Gmail to forward the invite to my other email automatically, it would show up in my Outlook Inbox similarly to if someone invited me to a regular meeting.  I would just have to accept it (and maybe tweak it a little, which I normally do anyway).  So I think this feature may still help me out and make it possible to work on the thing I am really passionate about…which is of course my day job with the big corporationmy iKollect.com micro-ISV!

Tags: iKollect.com, Jott, productivity

In my last post, I shared Part 1 of my latest time-saving experiment, using the Text2Go tool to help reduce the amount of time I spend reading blogs (without reducing how many blogs I read). In that experiment, I was able to successfully transfer much of the time I spend reading blogs at my desk to the time I sit in traffic commuting to my day-job. The Text2Go tool made it really easy for me to create MP3s straight from Google’s Feed Reader, and I am in love with this product.

But that was part 1, and in all honesty, not all of my time reading online was eliminated. I still spend *some* of my time reading blogs and other articles related to small business and technology, right from my desk. So this post is about another feature built into Text2Go, the ability to speak the text of a web page directly from the browser.

When I started this part of my experiment, it was pretty simple. I just found an article that I would normally read from beginning to end, tell Text2Go to start reading the text me, and then I would go about doing some other work. Since I already had great success with the Text2Go tool, I knew before I started that the tweaking was going to be more on the side of what was read to me and what I was trying to accomplish while it was read to me, rather than how the Text2Go software performed. The Text2Go software is already top-notch in my book.

My first test involved me finding an article that I find inspiring and/or motivational for a MicroISV. I started with this excellent article on Ian Landsman’s blog over at UserScape.  I surfed on over to his site, highlighted the text, right clicked and selected Speak. The sound was immediately oozing out of my computer’s speakers. (Too easy!) Then I went about trying to tackle my list of to-dos for my iKollect application.

At first I found the voice a little distracting, but mostly because there was a new person talking to me, and I was actively listening to the voice to see if I liked it. But since I had been listening to Samantha in my car, I found that I got used to it rather swiftly.

(In my previous post, I had already determined that I found the default voice to be pretty annoying, and I had downloaded and switched to the female Samantha voice, which I think is not bad at all)

I went through my list of to-do’s pretty quickly, without being distracted much by the voice. I created my daily objective list on my whiteboard, listing out the high priority items in order of importance. The computer generated voice did not do much to distract me and I was able to perform this little ritual of mine without any problems. And I got to listen to a great article that has some great advice for newbie-entrepreneurs (of which I still consider myself).

At the top of my objective list for the day was to squash some bugs in the next release of iKollect I am currently working on (two weeks behind schedule…so sad). So I pulled up an article in my browser from Pam of Escape From Cubicle Nation (which I thoroughly enjoyed reading recently and had noted to myself to go back to when I had a moment). Then I dug in to the bugs. I cannot say I had as much luck with the “listening-while-I-work” method this time. I found myself constantly stopping my work to listen to the article.Â

So I tried switching things a bit. I tweaked the voice a little to slow it down and I reduced the volume a bit. That seemed better. So back to bug squashing!

But no luck. I was still distracted.Â

So I again tried tweaking things a little. I put on some quiet classical music at the same time as the text (I love classical as much as I love Tool, and waltz’s in particular seem to help me get into a groove). But that still didn’t work. I still found that having Samantha read to me while I tried to work to be detrimental to my task. It had to be Pam’s fault. Maybe the problem was that she wrote an article that was too damn good! Grrrr…in frustration, I picked something else off of my objective list for the day - answering emails. And click! I was back into productive mode again.  (Turns out Pam wasn’t to blame after all!)

Over the next several days, I tried many different variations of this and I consistently found that when I was doing anything with my source code, I just couldn’t listen to a spoken article and still get things done on my application. Everything else, sure, no problem. But whenever I tried to get my head around a piece of code, I ran into trouble.

So in the end, I stopped using Text2Go’s tool to read me blog entries and articles while I worked. I am disappointed that this didn’t work out for me, but I am definitely not disappointed in the Text2Go tool. It’s still a top-notch program that gives me back 45 minutes of everyday. You should check it out!

Tags: iKollect, productivity, Text2Go

Every month, I try some new tool or method to try to improve my productivity. Last month, it was Jott.com, where I experimented (and failed) with speaking my blog entries into my mobile phone while I commuted home. Actually, the experiment wasn’t a total failure since it got me into the habit of using Jott.com’s service whenever I am out and about and I have a business idea that I want to remember. I just hit the Jott speed-dial, speak my idea into my mobile, and a transcribed email is waiting for me in my email inbox when I return to my computer. Sweet.

So last month I was trying out a service to help reduce the amount of time I spend typing my blog entries, and this month I am trying out a tool to help reduce the amount of time I spend reading blogs (without reducing how many blogs I read). And that tool is Tumbywood Software’s Text2Go software.

Text2Go is a tool that allows you to capture text from the web, convert it to speech and then listen to it, either easily and directly through your computer’s speakers, or on your iPod. The current production version that you can try and buy is designed to work with iTunes and your iPod, but since I didn’t have an iPod, Text2Go didn’t really interest me. And although my teenage nieces make fun of me for not having an iPod (behind my back, of course) , I have argued that I like having a straight MP3 player with a built in FM radio, and I’m not changing my ways darnit!  (call me crazy, but I still like to listen to the radio).

But On Halloween, Tumbywood Software quietly announced a beta release of their Text2Go software which supports MP3 players in addition to iPods. This caught my attention (I was giddy!), and I promptly moved this tool right to the top of my list for things to try. I wasn’t even going to wait for the final release; I was going straight away to the beta version (which is unusual for me).

Installation was a breeze and before I knew it I was ready to start using Text2Go. So I opened up my browser to Andrey Butov’ blog, Antair Achievement (hmmm, that’s odd, he hasn’t written for a while, he must be getting ready to release something new again). I highlighted the text, and clicked on the Text2Go menu bar option to create an audio file from the text. That was pretty much it. Relatively quickly there was an MP3 waiting for me in my “to car” folder. For comparison’s sake, I quickly downloaded and switched to the female voice and saved the same MP3 also in my “to car” file. I moved the MP3 files over to my MP3 player (along with some other music I had wanted to move (keep in mind that the process is even simpler for those “cool” kids with iPods) and went on to do some work on the next release of iKollect.

The next morning, I tried out listening to the blog entries in the car. Ugh, I found the default male voice to be quite annoying. But the female voice is really quite easy to listen to! At the end of the blog post, I was elated and I could already conclude that Text2Go was going to be a home-run.

Later that day when I was ready to read some blogs again, I instead chose to create MP3s out of all of the blog entries in my RSS reader. Well, not all of them. If they were visibly small entries, I just read them. And if they had visuals (i.e. embedded JPGs or what-not), I chose to read those also. I did all of this directly through my Google Reader, which is quite handy. I was sure to include Gooogle Reader’s header for the post as well, because I wanted to be able to tell which blog entry I was listening to in the car when it started playing.

For my ride home, I listened to each and every one of the blog entries in the female voice and it was great! At times, the blog entries caused me to think of other things I wanted to do or research further, at which point I just grabbed my phone, hit the Jott speed-dial and spoke a message to be emailed to myself. Brilliant!

All in all, Text2Go is just plain awesome. And I don’t use that word often. Oh yeah, and I don’t have any relationship to anyone at Tumbywood Software that would make me say that. It’s really just a great tool, and I expect it to save me quite a bit of time, period.

I am excited for the final release of this new version that creates MP3s. Tumbywood Software has an easy sale with me, no joke. And on top of that, Tumbywood is only charging $25 for this product, which is unbelievably cheap.

As if that’s not enough, Text2Go also makes it easy to play web page directly through my PCs speakers without creating any MP3 files. So over the next couple of days I am going to toy with playing the pages directly through the browser while I do other work. I’ll write about how that goes in my next post. But honestly, even if that’s a dismal failure, shifting my daily blog reading time to my commuting time will already add hours of possible productivity to every week. No joke!

It’s also worth mentioning that Tumbywood Software is a MicroISV run by an Australian bloke named Mark Gladding. If you too are a fellow MicroISV-er, you might enjoy reading Mark’s blog, in which he talks about his experiences running his MicroISV. Or even better still, use Mark’s Text2Go tool and *listen* to his experiences on running his MicroISV!

Tags: iKollect.com, productivity, Text2Go

I have been receiving lots of feedback about the site lately. This is a good thing as far as I am concerned, it means that people are checking the site out and are feeling compelled to speak up. And although I am overwhelmed by all the email lately, I am still thrilled to be getting it.

The feedback can easily be organized into 2 categories: (1) people who are seriously using the system to maintain their inventories, and (2) everyone else. The funny thing is, I expected that in this age of Web 2.0 and all, it would be really important for our site to look pretty and do fancy things. But the interesting thing is, the people in group (1) above don’t seem to care about the site being kinda “rough around the edges”. But the folks who do not use the system, seem to have a lot of interest in telling me how I should redesign the site, or change the colors, etc. (many of those people have been very nice to me, I don’t mean any disrespect!)

I can only get so much work done on the site at a time, and I still need to do lots of other small business related things. So what do I do? Do I put my effort and/or money into improving the way things look on the site? Or do I instead put my efforts and cash (if I can find any) into adding features that our customers are craving?

As a microISV, we realize that it’s important to analyze everything to determine what is and isn’t working. One of the things I was looking at recently was where my new users were coming from. There was a pattern that I almost missed. The folks who use the system seriously are telling their friends, and those people are using the system quite seriously as well. On the other hand, the people who critique the graphics and lack of fancy javascript either send me no customers at all, or just merely more newbies who are only using the system so they can tell me what they think of it. You can see why I’m so concerned about the first group of people.

My “power users” ask for new features that are not easy. Prior to our most recent release, the most requested feature was the ability to look up a coin’s value. So even though that was a doozy to implement, I went for it. And it has really paid off. How do I know? It’s all in the numbers baby!

Prior to implementing this new coin lookup feature, I had a very consistent number of customers who would use the system and then stick around and continue using it. I guess they must have liked the site and thought it didn’t suck too much.

But after implementing that new coin lookup feature, I saw an instant increase in the number of people who tried the system and then stuck around. And it has been pretty consistent. To me, the only explanation was that they too (just like my existing customers) wanted to know how much their coins were worth, and I provided them with a successfully working solution. And this wasn’t a 2 or 3 percent increase either. This was a 29% increase in this reported figure. I wonder, if the site was instead improved to look prettier, but didn’t provide this feature, would I have seen this same positive response? I doubt it!

So right now I’m still not working on the graphics, and instead I’m working on feature #2 … and it’s another doozy. This feature should be interesting because it gives my customers a cool feature they are asking for, but also will help me on the marketing front. So I’m excited to finish it and see the results it generates (hopefully positive ones!).

A couple of weeks ago, I created a blog entry about Jott.com , a service that allows you to speak a message into your phone and have it automatically transcribed and emailed off to a predefined address.  My closing statement in that earlier entry was “I highly recommend this service to overly busy people everywhere”, or some such like that.

You see, I have been trying to get more efficient with my time lately and I have been known to read and write articles during the 35 minute drive home from my day job.  So you can imagine how thrilled I was about the idea of being able to speak my blog entries instead of trying to write while I drove … or even worse, using my blackberry while I drove - and my wife was even more thrilled, for safety reasons!  Well after two weeks of using Jott.com’s free service, I’d like to officially go back on my recommendation.

As with most any new technology these days, I figured that it would take me a little while to work out the kinks.  I imagined myself cruising down the highway, speaking my blog entries and they would be delivered automatically to my blog.  It was gonna be awesome!  But it wasn’t awesome at all.  I had expected it to make me more productive, when in fact it only made me better at figuring out what Jott.com thought I was saying.

As an example, I’ll share part of my first blog entry I tried to create on my way home from the my day in the rat-race.  It started out pretty well.  I dialed up the Jott.com hotline.  The phone rang and was greeted by a friendly “Who do you want to Jott”… so far so good.  I responded “blog”, which was a shortcut I had created in the Jott.com system, pointing to one of my email addresses that I set up to post directly to my blog (just another one of those nice features in WordPress).  This was all going very well I thought.

Then the Jott.com operator lady signaled me to start talking.  So I did.   I said something very important, and then I paused just for a moment (to make a right turn on red, I was of course driving).  And suddenly “beeep”… the Jott lady assumed I was done talking and was ready to whisk my message off to my blog.  I was almost home, so I decided that the quick sentence I had spoke would be good enough for the blog entry, and I could elaborate on it when I was logged back into WordPress again.  No worries (or hakuna matata, for my under 8 readers).

When I got online that evening, after all the kids were asleep, I decided to go do that “elaborating” I had planned on earlier.  So I logged into WordPress only to see “Would there be syke if the video sites had the ability” as my blog entry for the day.  WTF???  Was I drinking on the drive home too (not serious of course) ?  I racked my brain trying to figure out what I was saying, but I couldn’t crack the secret Jott code.   That blog entry was lost forever.

My two later attempts blogging and driving were also dismal failures.  And I found myself yelling into the phone, over enunciating my words, like I was talking to a deaf person.  And since I was afraid to lose an important point, I would keep repeating my sentences.   It went something like this:

“TODAYS BLOG ENTRY IS ABOUT MARKETING.  MARKETING IS WHAT I AM WRITING ABOUT.  THIS ENTRY IS ABOUT MARKETING.  OKAY.  HERE I GO.”

Then later, I had to read through this mess, and clean it up before it was published online.  Ugh.  Talk about a royal waste of time.  So I’ve given up using Jott.com to create my blog entries.  I still use Jott.com to send myself a quick email when I have an idea.  Or when I have something I need to add to my to-do list.

But I certainly mean it when I say that there would be syke if there was a service that could do this properly!

Tags: iKollect.com, Jott, productivity