It’s impressive to hear people discussing so many platforms and apps, and how their personal and business productivity has increased.
I wonder if it’s always true. Personally I like a portion of my mind cleared of tech litter so I can make sure it is able to be productive without these tools.
We know the brain is capable of incredible things. I still count on it to keep track of certain tasks {gasp}. However I do bookmark a bounty of websites, apps and platforms to investigate. Admittedly some might only get a sliver of my time. But when a tech tool seizes my attention, it’s usually for two reasons: the intuitive user experience and its ability to seamless integrate into my thought process. I enjoy having a worthwhile tool as a natural extension of my thought and learning process. I am still fine-tuning my habits but I find Flipboard simplifies news consumption into a comfortable, and easily filtered, positive experience rather than a task.
According to the folks at Flipboard: Flipboard creates a single place to enjoy, browse, comment on and share all the news, photos and updates that matter to you. In addition to Twitter, Facebook and Google+, you can flip through your newsfeeds and timelines from YouTube, Instagram, Google Reader, LinkedIn, SoundCloud, Tumblr, Flickr, 500px, Sina Weibo and Renren on Flipboard.
Flipboard has found itself a place on my iPhone homepage. It used to lie far away from my touch on the third page of my phone. Now it’s earned its position as a primary app! When I have some downtime, or need a worthy distraction, I’ll turn to my iPhone companion to check my email, social media and memes. Lately Flipboard has increasingly become a noteworthy first choice and I can give the news the attention it deserves.
Flipboard is useful for great thinkers and most visionary leaders because it makes digesting content of interest near effortless. Why is this relevant you ask? These leaders and great thinkers use their meaningful content consumption to increase their field knowledge and better articulate goals, solutions and strategy. These content strategists enjoy having a tool make the process more efficient.
Manifest cited a wonderful case last month about the content strategist turned CEO. One of the tips they sourced from the CEO was: compartmentalize – to “digest” a lot of information in a short time. Articulation was also another key tip. Reading needing to be a consistent practice because our practical writing skills are a dynamic process as the language itself evolves. As a Deaf person, I found at a young age that reading was the most functionally efficient way to learn.
Flipboard is certainly an enhanced mode of mobile education. My smartphone is an accessible hub of information available to be assimilated and it goes wherever I am. Therefore Flipboard is there to help me consume items of interest with a quick touch.
I’m not claiming this app will transform you into a leader. But it is valuable in making reading less of a chore. It’s a fun and relaxing process to literally flip through the article (and I appreciate the full page advertisements rather than fighting fat finger syndrome with banner ads).
Yummy. So with some of the downtime we have around the holidays I encourage you to make good use of some of your time with Flipboard and be ready to devour and dominate 2013. Happy New Year!
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I LOVE FLIPBOARD! It is by far, my favorite app ever.
Endorsed by two of my most trusted colleagues, I downloaded it before I finished the article. Anne, loved your sentence "seamless integrate into my thought process." Oh what I wouldn't give to be a neuron on the wall in your brain. LOL
Seriously, the entire paragraph, starting with "We all know the brain," and ending with "rather then a task" is some awesome writing, I love every sentence in it. "Fine tuning my habits" your on fire girl.
Hope your New Year is great, keep up the great work.
I'm always touched by your support Gerry. You rock and thanks for the motivation!
I enjoy using Flipboard as well Anne. Maybe I should move the app to my home screen as well.
You guys should check out the ZITE app as well if you're looking for new content. It learns what you like, kind of like Pandora does with music, and then finds new content for you on the internet. I love it. If you try it out let me know. :)
Aye Captain we need more apps, (spoken in the voice of Scotty from Star Trek) today is Lt. Uhura's birthday after all…
Gerry, did you see the previews for the new Star Trek movie? I'm looking forward to it. :)
Hardy har har sir I will check out Zite DJ!
Never Used It…… Seems another Productivity tool for Blogger… Thanks.
Welcome! Happy new year Amit :)
Great suggestion, Anne, but I have to admit I’m a fan of Zite.
Interesting post Anne. Wondering how Flipboard went from your third screen to your first. Did boredom bring you to your third screen enough times where you started getting value out of Flipboard or did you just decided to revisit the app after you downloaded it for some reason?
We're working on a startup called Skim.Me (http://skim.me) to build a new browsing experience that doesn't make you feel like you're wasting time online. A lot of the feedback we've gotten is that Flipboard/Zite/Pulse are great luxurious lean-back experiences but make a lot of people feel like their wasting time. Might have to do with not having much sense of progress or completion. Anyway, hope you and some of your readers check us out when we launch beta in a few weeks.
Your startups sounds really interesting! It wasn't boredom – I just kept realizing how much I enjoyed reading on the app. I find it very valuable! Also I always have room for one more :) Good luck!
Here is a tutorial on getting the Flipboard bookmarklet setup on an Apple iPad:
http://iosbookmarklets.com/tutorials/flipboard-bo…
Works right from the Safari web browser app.