23 Things on a Stick - Thing #13 – Online Productivity Tools

1) Customized homepage - The igoogle customized homepage is great. In fact one could set up a “customized homepage” for the library using a library e-mail as the username. Then the whole library staff could use this home page and its productivity tools! Pageflake looks like the same thing really – except it errored when I tried to load it. Then it closed down my browser. I do not doubt that it is every bit as good as igoogle. There are so many things that can be done with a lot of these tools from the customized home page. The calendar the Notebook, the ability to keep lists, how about a to do list or a phone book for the library. The nice thing about it too is that it is multi user and can be accessed from anywhere in the world. This would allow for a worker to go over seas or to a branch library and work without interruption. They could also work from home if they were so inclined.
2) Calendar - With this technology one could setup a library calendar – perhaps a work schedule for librarians or library events – since this is all done online it can be viewed by multiple people from multiple locations.
3) Task List - I was not really impressed with the Ta da list. To me a google doc or zoho writer document is much more flexible and robust. After viewing the “Remember the Milk” tool, which is slightly better than the Ta Da list, I would be forced to conclude that people just want to make things – I do not see how this is practical as I feel that it takes more time and energy to set it up the way you want then the benefit you would get from it. Again I feel that a google doc or zoho writer doc is much better way of making online lists.
4) Tools with multiple features (Backpack) – Now this is cool – and once again the fact that it is multi-user makes it that much better. When people collaborate these tools come in very handy. What is especially nice in Backback is the recent activity section that tells you when something has been added or has changed – without this feature this whole concept of the multiple features would not work as it would be an administrative nightmare trying to keep up with all the changes and additions.