DaveShearon

Springpad vs. Evernote: Promises vs. Ecosystem

I've been experimenting with Springpad and Evernote. I've actually used Springpad in a limited way for several years. I especially like using it for products - I have a folder for books and another for wines that is shared with family members. I love the ability to scan a bar code and (90% of the time) add the product, with reviews, links to purchases, price  comparisons, etc. Very nice. I've also used it for a travel checklist and a few other items. But, not a major effort with it.

I've looked at Evernote several times, but never been hooked. However, due to my colleague Larry Richard's recommendation, I've taken another look. And, over the holidays, I've  played with both and done some looking at reviews and blogposts about each.

Springpad's Promise

I started off leaning to Springpad, partly because I was already familiar with it, partly because Evernote just didn't make as much sense to me intuitively, and partly just because I like to try out the newer and less-used product. As I dug in, I thought I was really going to like Springpad. First, you can look at items within a folder - notes, products, etc. - in a number of views and sorted different ways. And this includes a free-form "pinboard" sort of view that lets you move things around. LOVE this for organizing ideas!

Also, Springpad claimed the ability to sync with Google Calendar, so I could handle appointments, engagements, events, and so forth as items within Springpad and the see them automatically on my Google Calendar. I thought this might let me do a better job about keeping all information about an event in one place, so I liked this. Unfortunately, it turns out this capacity does not work and an inquiry to Springpad support revealed that they intend to remove it from the feature list. The more I think about it, the more I agree with them. I can keep info about an event in either Springpad or Evernote without any real need to link it to the calendar entry - and both are readily available on my Android phone.

Springpad - the Bad

As I played with Springpad, however, I quickly realized that having lots of folders would become unwieldy because Springpad does not allow for putting folders within folders. Evernote does - it calls them "stacks."

Evernote - the Ecosystem

So, slightly disappointed with Springpad, I discovered two products for Evernote. They're part of the Evernote "ecosystem" - products built to work with Evernote due to its huge user base. The first, Mohiomap turns your Evenote data into "maps" that remind me of those produced by The Brain (another product I've played with but which has never hooked me. I like Mindmaps (even took my notes for the MAPP program in them), so this hooked me. Then I found CardDesk! It gives all the "pinboard" capability of Springpad (and maybe more - haven't finished playing with it). Suddenly, most of the advantage I thought I had seen in Springpad disappeared. Both of these products just worked, right out of the gate. And, I'm interested in experimenting more with some of the Evernote ecosystem products, perhaps by connecting up Expensify, Evernote, and Freshbooks.

Evernote - the Functionality of Stacks

Finally, as I began to dump more and more notes into each, I began to see the need for more organization, and Evernote's "stacks" gave me that. 

So, what will I use?

Well, like some others (1, 2), I'll likely use both, but I'm going to lean to Evernote for notes about ideas, documents I've created. Springpad will likely be my goto for structured data - products, checklists, etc. and for coordinating with family and friends. It is "friendlier" on first contact and folks are often sold just by seeing the barcode scan feature one time. And, in sharing information about projects with my wife (vacations, for example), the Pinterest like visual nature can be very helpful since she is more familiar with that product and not nearly as in to learning new apps as I am.

As always, your mileage may differ!

 

Scoops of Ice Cream

I'm starting to dip my toe into the market for a new laptop (tablet?).  I use several programs that are best available on Windows (Mindmanager for one).  So, I'm

reading reviews.  Love great language.  This from Wired:

"Microsoft has stuck to the Windows Way. For over a decade, it’s been serving
scoops of vanilla to compete with Apple’s waffle cones of mint chocolate chip
with rainbow sprinkles."

 

 

Photo by ElizabethHudy, Flickr

 

 

 

 

Smartphones, Mindfulness, the Masters & Intelligence

"Navigating a No-Phone Zone" by Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal for Friday, April 6, (http://j.mp/I4bNqJ) provides a great window into the experience of the gallery at the Masters with its "no phones" policy.  That's as in no phones.  They'll escort you out if you use one.  Wow.  And, cool!  Mr. Gay describes the experience as "oddly satisfying."  He says that fans "look at things - with their eyes.  They solve questions - by asking nearby human beings.  They come up with clever comments and somehow survive without offering them to the world in 140 characters."  Love that last bit!  He goes on to talk about having to make plans (meet under the big tree at 2 pm) and then having to stick to them!  And he points out that, because they weren't looking at their phones, spectators got to watch, really watch, the event.  They didn't miss key moments, or fail to make interesting observations from seemingly mundane moments, because they were too busy texting, tweeting, typing, or touching (the screen - not a person!).

This strikes me as a policy that promotes mindfulness.  Right now, my personal working definition of mindfulness is: sustained, continuously re-focused non-judgmental attention to what is.  In other words, it involves paying attention to some aspect of reality (one's breath is a frequent focus,  but the Masters should work!) and continuously re-focusing on that reality when the mind wanders.  Some Masters fans may be more non-judgmental than others: noticing the heat of the sun rather than constantly assessing whether it is "too hot" or even complaining about it.  This sounds somewhat naive and detached from reality when I write it - as if being "real" requires being "judgmental" - but that's not my experience when I practice mindfulness.  It also doesn't seem to be the result for highly-experienced practitioners.  Rather, they seem more able to deal with the world as it is and less caught up in dealing with the world as they think it "ought" to be.  (The next book I'm looking forward to reading in this area is The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them by Richard Davidson.)

However, as someone who loves me my smartphone, and because of my interest in education, I want to give a brief nod to an alternative view: smartphones actually make us smarter.  David Perkins in Smart Schools talks about what he calls "person-plus" intelligence. (Book note: http://j.mp/Im4nts.)  This simply means that your  ability to understand and contribute is greater if you have access to tools and
repositories of information that you have mastered, and the same for me and everyone else.  As an incredible tool to augment our intelligence, is it any wonder we're "addicted" to our smartphones.  The trick, as with any tool, is becoming a skilled master of its use.  Right time, right place, right manner.

So, mindfulness?  Yes.  Person-plus intelligence?  Yes.  It ain't easy being modern.  But it is a lot of fun!

 

 

Scarcity, Production, Self-Determination Theory, and College-for-All!

Thomas Sherman has a three posts (1, 2, 3) up on the topic of how participation by the masses in online systems is mostly destroying old mechanisms such as newspapers without replacing them with new mechanisms. (See here for an analysis of this phenomenon for youtube, twitter, facebook, etc.)  He also argues that mass participation is bendinging online systems (facebook, youtube) to mass tastes.  There's a lot to think about here, including the impact of the long tail.  But the most interesting paragraph to me is:

"Historically, technology has come with utopian promises of change that it has failed to deliver in the hoped for or predicted way. Industrialization and automation were supposed to create abundance and leisure but today some of our greatest social challenges involve scarcity. Our personal lives are marked by over-work, "time famine" and sleep deprivation. In America, many people working full-time or multiple jobs are unable to provide for their family's basic needs."

This is an extraordinarily important point.  How, in a culture that distributes wealth based on contribution (free market) do you handle the fact that technology continues to enable fewer and fewer people to produce more goods than everyone can consume?  The corrollary of this proposition can appear to be that a growing percentage of folks may not have the capacity to contribute sufficiently to "earn" adequate resources for a good life, but there's a fallacy in that apparent corrollary which I will get to below.  What to do?

Some will argue that the government should take care of this through single-payer  health  care, "livable wage" laws, government-owned or mandated public housing, "free" public education, restrictions on layoffs or plant closings, mandated pension systems, etc.  However, there are economic counter-arguments to each of these suggestions, and the real-life experience with them has often been disappointing.  Without trying to re-hash the economic and performance arguments in this area, I would suggest a basis from positive psychology for thinking about this issue:  Self-Determination Theory (SDT).

SDT suggests that humans have three basic psychological needs:  

Autonomy -- the feeling that we are living our lives based on our choices,

Competence -- a sense of being able to do the things that are important to us,

Relatedness -- a feeling of connectedness to those around us, family, friends, community.

Approaches that better allow for individuals to meet these psychological needs will work better for society.  This requires more sophisticated policy thinking than "let government do it."  It also requires a recognition of the strengths of individuals and their ability to create excellence and meaning in jobs that some college-educated law makers, governors, school board members, presidents, etc. have trouble seeing as valuable.  See the work of the Gallup organization on how the strengths of individuals can make them exceptional as bartenders, hotel maids, and Walgreens' stock clerks.  Or see Amy Wiersneski's work on work as a calling for hospital orderlies or administrative assistants in a university. 

The idea that anyone without a college education cannot live a good, happy, fulfilling, meaningful life is just wrong.  Of course, we don't say that.  What we say is that everyone should go to college.  But that's what we mean.  Even when it is said by a popular president, it's just wrong!  College for all?  Not a reasonable goal today.  Good life for all?  Absolutely!  Other people matter!

"Other People Matter" - "Social Networking in the Digital Age"

Gordon Crovitz' column in today's Wall Street Journal has the second phrase in quotes above as its headline.  The first is Chris Peterson's summary of the key findings of positive psychology.  Mr. Crovitz notes that rising number and attendance at business conferences, and focuses on the D: All Things Digital Conference sponsored by the Journal's Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.  The point is that even the leading lights in technology like to get together in person.  I would have enjoyed hearing Bill Gates talk to a crowd around an outdoor table about his efforts to improve American high schools and eliminate malaria in Africa!

In another interesting aspect, the conference bans PowerPoint presentations!  Instead, panelists and questioned, intensively and persistently, by the organizers and attendees.  As an educational strategy, I like it.  I've become a bigger user of PowerPoint as I give more presentations, but I struggle with it.  I try hard to use it as a visual aid to a story, not my personal notes about what to say next.  And that makes creating a presentation MUCH harder.  Right now, I'm working on a 30-minute presentation on Positive Psychology and Law that will be recorded for delivery online.  Yikes!  That's tough!  I'm focusing on the interactive tools I will have available.

Distance learning, telecommuting, and webinars are all great.  But, I suspect that as we learn, work, and meet more with folks who are physically distant from us, the desire to get together with them in person occasionally will grow.  Other people matter, and their avatars are insufficient as a complete substitute.

WikiMindMap

Thanks to Brian Friedlander for pointing me toward www.wikimindmap.org.  Cool site to search wikis, including wikipedia, and display the results as a mindmap.  Here's a picture of the search results for "positive psychology."

   

Funny Google Searches

A recent Google search that found one of my prior posts read, "Cliffnotes for Fish!"  Really.  Have you seen the book?  It's 115 small pages with big type and written as a story!  The searcher could have read the book in the time spent looking for a shortcut, and had more fun to boot!

Instalanche benefits

One of the bonuses of an Instalanche is the interesting folks who leave comments and the chance to check out their web sites.  At Jon's, I found this.  I agree; quite an unusual visual effect.

SPSS Customer Service Problems

I try not to begrudge software companies for reasonable protections of their intellectual property.  It is sad but true that the selfish, dishonest, and illegal behavior of a few causes problems for all of us.  But I've just run into a licensing scheme for SPSS statistical software that is extraordinarily customer unfriendly. 

Apparently, though I successfully installed the $200 "Graduate Pack" and went through their online registration process, I did something wrong.  Maybe.  Or maybe it's their fault.  But, either way, yesterday after the close of business, the product suddenly quit working and throws an error report that "the license will not permit that operation" every time I launch the software.  Turns out that, either due to my mistake or some problem on their end, the software was only installed in "trial mode" that expired after two weeks.  AND IT NEVER GAVE ME ANY WARNING THAT IT WAS IN TRIAL MODE!! 

I've used other software with trial periods -- MindManager comes to mind -- and they've usually given you at least a warning on launching the program and generally a countdown to the drop dead date.  Not SPSS.  Nothing.  Nada.  And, what's worse, they won't respond timely to the problem.  It's a common enough situation that the first three FAQs on their customer-service site read:

Where do I find my Authorization Code or License Code?

What's the difference between a License Code and an Authorization Code?

I installed the software two weeks ago and it was working fine. Now it's not working. What happened?

The first suggestion is to use the License Authorization Wizard in the software itself to register over a high-speed internet connection.  Great.  No problem.  I go through the process, keying in the 19 digit authorization code that is in the manual.  And I get back the response that my software is now licensed, though I may have to re-start the product for it to take effect.  OK.  No problem.  Shut 'er down and re-start.  Same thing.  Throws the error report and won't work. Repeat the whole "License Authorization" rigamarole; same result.  Repeat; nothing.  Ok, now it is really their problem, not mine.

The FAQs mention that the code was on a "yellow sheet" loose in the box with the product when delivered.  What?  Are they kidding?  A critical piece of information on a separate sheet loose in the box?  That's ridiculous.  And, of course, it's long gone now.  Or maybe it was never there.  Regardless, it's not a solution for me now.  But, wait!  They also have a "License Code Request Form" on their web site.  Now, I'm "logged in" to their site.  They have my customer identification information, including my e-mail address. (Why is a fax number a required field on this form?  That doesn't look good!)  So, they're going to retrieve my license code on the spot, or at least e-mail it to me, right?  Nope.  The form, as far as anything on the site shows, does nothing worthwhile.  Instead, it returns this message:

Your customer service inquiry has been sent to SPSS Customer Service who will process it and get back with you shortly.

AND CUSTOMER SERVICE IS ONLY OPEN 8:30 - 5:00 CENTRAL TIME, M-F!!

So, my partner and I have a deadline of next Friday for the first draft of our Capstone paper, I've been doing data analysis all week and need to be immersed in it this week, and, instead, I'm sitting here writing this post because of REALLY POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE FROM SPSS!!

Resoultion:  On Monday, I got an e-mail from an SPSS representative in response to a  license request form I had submitted.  The e-mail asked for the "lock code" for my machine and told me how to obtain it. I sent that and the registration authorization back and got a return e-mail containing a 95-character license code.   I entered this through the license wizard, started SPSS, and got a message that "the license has expired"!!  So, it now being a M-F betwee 8 and 5, I called, sat on hold for 15 minutes, talked to a customer service representative who, after putting me on hold for several more minutes, put me through to technical service.  The technical service representative had none of the information about me from my registration, even though the customer service representative had that info.  He had to set me up anew in their system.  Then he went through some questions, generated a set a files, zipped them up and e-mailed them to me.  With him on the phone, I unzipped them into the main SPSS directory and ran a batch program that was among them to "clean" the flag in SPSS that made the program act as if it had been in trial mode.  Oh, and I had apparently licensed the program correctly because the customer service records showed it licensed on the day I installed it, 2 weeks before it shut down.  The batch program worked.  Problem solved.  Three days lost.  And apparently this happens to folks with Graduate Pack 14.0 fairly frequently.

ActiveWords & Mind Manager

I use both ActiveWords and Mindmanager daily and love both.  Now buzznovation reports they are working together.  Too cool.  The integration of technologies to create custom performance tools without custom programming is a trend I expect to continue, and I think it will make inter-functioning software components (work-togethers and add-ins) a continuing boom.