Ten Cool Productivity and Social Media Tools That Everyone Should Know About and Why

For our Idea Tribe: Day 46

There are so many amazing resources out there that this theme is a great one for many to add to and share. Here are some of the ones that I use regularly or am acquainted with enough to understand what great potential they have.

1. Canva: A super simple graphic design tool with pre-made graphics that can be used or can at least inspire you. Look like a professional without actually having any skills. The only cost is if you buy a stock image for $1 a shot. This graphic was made in it.
2. WhatFont: Are you a font fan? This Google Chrome extension identifies what font is on a webpage. Click the WhatFont icon, hover over the font et voilà!
3. ColorZilla: Colour addict? Similar to WhatFont, it’s a Google and Firefox extension that identifies what colour is on a webpage. The eyedropper picks up the colour on the page, drop it into another tool and/or record the hex code and use at a later date.
4. Sidekick: An email tracking tool. Get live notifications when someone opens or clicks on one of your emails. Know when it was opened, how many times it was read and their location (e.g. city and state). For example, use it in Gmail to ensure receipt of important messages from that “I never got your email” guy.
5. Buffer and Hootsuite: They are on the same line because they are both great social media management tools. Schedule posts to blast out during peak online engagement hours. Buffer gets my vote for ease of use though.
6. Udemy: Want to invest in yourself by learning something new? Udemy has online courses that can be taken in your own time and you can access them forever. It has everything from lifestyle courses to programming. Have a skill that you think you can teach? Post a course and make some passive income like the lady who runs beginner sewing courses off there.
7. Periscope and Meerkat: These live-stream video apps just might bud into the biggest marketing platforms yet. Periscope gets my vote for its acquisition by Twitter and because the videos can still be watched within 24 hours of posting, which can’t be done on Meerkat. Imagine watching a man making pizzas live, which he does regularly to draw clients in. I Periscoped a ride with an angry cab driver around Chicago. It was hilarious (or at least we thought it was).
8. Pinterest: This is being added in honour of a person who told me yesterday, “I don’t Pinterest – I’m a guy.” and for anyone who thinks it’s just for planning your 2015 Chanukah spread. Selling any visual products or services are great to post on Pinterest, such as photography. How about the potential for an author to post graphics of quotes from their blog or book, which can be linked to your external site, with every repin leading more users to your site? I recently organised a large, successful event in another city by saving pages to a board. It is the third most popular sharing channel behind Facebook and Twitter, with a remarkable click-through rate. OK, I digress, guy.
9. Pixlr: There are just some things that Canva can’t do, like edit out my shiny forehead, but I don’t want to pay for Photoshop yet nor do I want to download more software. Pixlr Editor gets the basics done and all for free. Check out Pixlr’s other cool apps, too.
10. Basecamp: A project management tool that is so easy to use. All project tasks can be listed, each tasks can be delegated to team members with deadlines, each task can have its own discussion thread and has daily recap emails to update users on the progress of the project. I use it for both project and event management.

I’ve dorked out enough on these…now go try them and please share your favourites!

Ten Ideas to Improve Commuter Train Service

For our Idea Tribe: Day 39 Today’s exercise is to: Choose a business that you frequent regularly and write ten ideas to help improve their service. Since I commute three hours a day during the weekdays, our train service is my chosen one.

1. Have rails exclusive to the commuter trains. For example, in Montreal, they are currently shared with Canadian Pacific, which eliminates regular passenger service because of the need to move cargo.
2. Wi-fi
3. Outlets to charge laptops.
4. USB plugs.
5. Commuter networking service app. Connect your LinkedIn profile to the app to network/have meetings with like-minded commuters.
6. Commuter dating service app. Connect your POF profile to the app to have a commute date.
7. Re-establish the bar service that used to be on the trains in our parents’ days.
8. Have healthy snack, drink, coffee and tea vending machines.
9. Silent/study cars. Cars in which passengers must remain silent for those of us who are writing, studying, meditating, reading and sleeping.
10. On board restrooms. My hamster bladder seconds that request.

10 Ways to Improve Traveling in Coach that an airline like JetBlue Could Implement Today to Make People Happier

1. I thought of this idea while traveling years ago. Make the flight even cheaper by having it sponsored by other companies. They pay for advertising which is placed on either side of the eating tray. The tray would have to be retrofitted with a clear plastic on both sides in order to fit the ads in.
2. Perhaps businesses could also sponsor snacks or samples (e.g. hand cream). We often get samples of goodies/give-aways from marketing people on the street, but why not receive them on the airplane? The consumer would be excited to know that they are receiving a goodie/give-away once they board the plane. What will my goodie be this time?
3. Ensure every flight has free wifi. Go-Go wifi is charging about $14-15 a shot for wifi on flights.
4. Have people with children sitting close together. Perhaps special toys or entertainment for the children to keep them busy, so our kids don’t disturb other passengers too much.
5. Have a separation blind that can come down between you and the passenger beside you. No more will I have to be pitched for five hours to join a religious group or listen to a conversation between people on either side of me. It can also block out some light if you’re trying to rest.
6. When the flight lands, a little reminder will flash on the screen in front of you to tell you that you’ve left something in the pouch in front of you, e.g. you put an iPad in there thinking you’ll remember it, but “oops” you didn’t and it gets left behind. The pouch will have a sensor to detect if there is anything in there or not.
7. A do not disturb hat you can wear so that the flight attendant lets you sleep instead of offering you pretzels while you were mid-REM.
8. A JetBlue singles app: You indicate that you’re single and you can locate other singles on the plane that you might be interested in chatting with/sitting beside.
9. Games you can play on a touch-screen in front of you, which can also be played against other passengers, such as chess, backgammon, trivia or solitaire if you prefer playing on your own. It’d be so cool to be playing trivia against someone in seat 16D while you’re in 3A, wouldn’t it? Or have a group trivia challenge for anyone on the flight that wished to participate. It would all be timed, so that the game wouldn’t be held up. The passenger with the most points wins a JetBlue prize. You can even register a name for regular fliers, Maybe the player with the most highest scores at the end of the year wins a trip.
10. A JetBlue industry app: You can indicate what industry you’re working in, so that you can have an opportunity to meet others on the flight that are in the same industry. Flight networking!

List 10 apps you would like to use. It does not matter whether they already exist or not, think of what would be helpful for you in particular.

1. An app to remind me to follow up on job applications.
2. An app that sends me specific jobs according to my résumés. It pulls out key words, skills and job titles and sends me the best matches.
3. An app that reminds me to breathe. To detach. To meditate. If even for a short moment, so that I don’t get caught up in a negative moment – someone else’s negative moment.
4. An app that sees what I’m eating. It senses a barcode, notices that I’m eating chocolate and offers me alternative snack ideas.
5. An app, that is connected to my Kindle, which calculates how much I’ve read that week and reminds me to stick to my reading goal of X # of pages/words per day or week.
6. An app that reminds me to focus on Choosing Myself and all that is encompassed in the Daily Practice. It measures your Daily Practice goals, against what you’ve accomplished. Shows a graph to compare. Helps you to improve at least that 1% a day until your true to the ritual.
7. An app that allows you to look for a job/client anonymously. Like a LinkedIn profile for an active job seeker, but with a randomized name and certain hidden info so that current employer can’t find out about it.
8. An app that reminds me to be a better family member and friend. I enter favourite people and it reminds me of birthdays well in advance to send a card/gift. It also randomly reminds me to call/contact them so that I show interest in their lives outside of when I need them for something.
9. An app where I enter everything that I wish to accomplish that day/week/month/year (e.g. gym, courses, writing). I enter how often I work, when I commute and whenever I actually may have some down time. It will create a “most productive” schedule in order to meet those goals.
10. An app that reads whatever I am nutritionally deficient of that moment (kind of like a diabetic’s glucose meter). It then recommends what food I should eat for the rest of the day in order to meet my healthiest nutritional objectives.