Communications Magazine (an output of the ACM) had a smart viewpoint piece entitled “Give Me Information, Not Technology.” Reading through it, I think its a great reminder that technical bells and whistles don’t always equal value in the minds of customers, but rather it is what the technology can provide in terms of greater efficiency for information access, application, or aggregation.  The article discussed  business needs specifically, but it made me think a bit about my own experience as a heavy user of various technical tools. Echoing the feedback from CIO’s in the paper (stating that the real value of IT - regardless of the technology - was how well it supported the information management needs of the business), I find myself drawn to the same types of technologies - things that help me stay organized and on top of my own interests and activities. Granted, I don’t spend a lot of time looking for new things to test but when I come across one that I like, I generally stick with it. That said, here are a few technologies that have helped me organize my own information recently:

1. del.icio.us - Why I like it? taggaing in real-time with a plug-in from IE7 and code that I can drop into  my blog. My intent to capture articles then blog about them has not materialized as I had hoped, but I’ve got the information where I want it.
2. feeddemon (from newsgator) - Why I like it? Robust aggregator of blog feeds with web-desktop synchronization, and - again - blog plug-in. The desktop client also includes a browser which offers seamless access to the full posts from the viewer. Nice touch.
3. Lijit - Why I like it? Offers aggregation of all of my own content with the ability to cross-reference those sources for anyone searching my blog.
4. Feedburner - Why I like it? An easy, and free, way to track my own blog stats. Much better than Google Analytics, which I tried for awhile (guess that’s why Google bought Feedburner…)
5. Xobni (’inbox’ spelled backwards) Why I like it? Still getting used to it, but a great way to categorize, sort, and profile my emails. I had just cleared out about 1100 unread notes last week - hoping Xobni will help keep things organized moving forward.

Check them out. If you have a tool to recommend, let me know - would be interested to kick the tires.

- BP

Tags: innovation //