Month: September 2011

If this then that

IFTTT

Here’s another cool little tool. ifttt, or ‘if this, then that’ is a way of automating tasks across your social networks. It describes itself as ‘digital duct tape’.

It basically allows you to set rules and actions to happen whenever you interact online.

One example described on the site is creating a task that whenever a photo is uploaded to Instagram, it should also be added to your Dropbox account.

Just to test it, I’ve created a task  that emails me everytime someone mentions me on Twitter. Not particularly useful, or unique, but the process for creating tasks is very user friendly, and the potential is huge, with lots of different services included, such as Facebook, Google Reader, Foursquare, Delicious, Tumblr, WordPress… the list goes on.

It’s a cool idea and I am sure that people more imaginative than I could come up with some great uses of it!

Trello, neat organising tool

Apologies for the light blogging this week, I’ve been doing a lot of travelling about.

Trello

Still, I came across Trello yesterday, a cool and lightweight planning tool. It allows you to create lists of actions, which can be filled in with all sorts of information, and dragged and dropped into different orders.

Here’s a video explaining it further:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaDf1RqeLfo

Well worth a play for simple collaboration and project management.

ACAS’ social networking guidance

ACAS – the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, who you’ve probably heard of on news reports about negotiations between employers and unions – have published some guidance for employers on how to manage staff use of these sites at work.

Smart phones, internet, tweeting, blogging – we have accepted all of these innovations, and many more, as part of our working lives, helping us to work more flexibly, stay in touch for longer and respond to each other more quickly.

But is it all good news? Some estimates report that misuse of the internet and social media by workers costs Britain’s economy billions of pounds every year and add that many employers are already grappling with issues like time theft, defamation, cyber bullying, freedom of speech and the invasion of privacy.

So how should employers respond to the challenges posed by social networking tools at work?

New research from the Institute for Employment Studies, commissioned by Acas, advises employers to:

  • draw up a policy on social networking
  • treat ‘electronic behaviour’ in the same way you would treat ‘non-electronic behaviour’
  • react reasonably to issues around social networking by asking ‘what is the likely impact on the organisation?’

Worth checking out.

Starting up DaveMail

I had a go at doing an email newsletter once before – put a signup form here on the blog, got quite a few people to subscribe, and then never got round to sending a single issue. Useless!

Part of my trouble then was that I wasn’t that comfortable with the software. Recently though, for a few projects, I’ve been playing with MailChimp and been dead impressed with it. So, I thought I would have another go.

Click here to sign up for DaveMail, a weekly email newsletter that will feature a fresh article that won’t get published here on the blog, plus a list of great links for anyone wanting the best of the web’s coverage of digital engagement and other technology stuff.

I’ll be publishing every Sunday, so there will hopefully be at least one nice email waiting for you on Monday morning!

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