Tag Archives: evernote
Useful and valuable
One of the things that stuck with me from reading Braden Kelley’s book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire is something that is rarely mentioned when deciding on an idea to execute, the distinction between useful and valuable.
Usually we have products and services that are useful but not valuable. But then again what’s useful and valuable to you is not the same for me. For example, Evernote is both useful and valuable to me because I can write, save, edit, clip notes and access them from wherever I am. Evernote is a tool for the information obsessed like me. I’m on the fanatic end of their users where I can’t imagine going back to not using Evernote.
On the other hand, an opposite example is Facebook while useful is not really valuable to me. I could care less if Facebook disappears tomorrow. But if Twitter disappeared tomorrow I would feel empty. Twitter is both useful and valuable to me for many reasons.
Like I said, this might not be the same for you.
One size fits all makes it difficult to be both
This is the complexity of creating products or services that aim to satisfy a specific need with a one size fits all approach. Some customers will see your product or service as both useful and valuable while others may just find it useful. This is where it’s our job to help those customers ‘discover’ the usefulness in what we offer either by educating them or by influence through fanatic customers. This is also why word of mouth works, it’s more likely that we like what our friend likes from his ability to show why his new toy is the greatest thing in the world and we might just give it a shot.
Complementary ain’t that bad
Taking the FB and Twitter example, another thing to consider is that while the media likes to put them head to head, they’re both different. And that makes them more valuable. Some of us can imagine life without FB and others without Twitter, but can you imagine life without both?
Both complement each other and that makes them, IMO, more valuable. That’s also why it’s so important to differentiate!
But still it’s not ‘either’ ‘or’, it’s ‘and’
There are certain products and services that will be both useful and valuable to some, but those are very scarce. But that shouldn’t stop us from considering thinking about how useful and valuable it is for the customer when creating a new product or service.
Braden nails it in this short paragraph from the book:
Often usefulness comes from what a product or service does for you, and value comes from how it does it. If you’re looking to truly deliver innovative products and services into the marketplace, then once you succeed at the designing and developing the ‘what’, don’t forget to also focus on achieving excellence in the ‘how’.
Bingo!
Moleskine + Evernote: Idea capture heaven
Do you know how we get ideas when we’re not thinking about problems? I don’t know about you but I’ve never gotten good ideas in the middle of a brainstorm, I’ve gotten them after the brainstorm when I’m not even thinking about problems.
I’m a big believer in understanding how one thinks to improve how one thinks so I’ve been playing around with a habit I have. When I get a gut feeling about something I either write it down on my Moleskine when I’m away from the PC, create a note on Evernote if I’m using my computer or snap/type it into the Evernote app on my Palm Pre.
If you capture ideas I bet you have a similar habit, I’ve been writing down my thoughts for a long time but for the last month I payed attention to my own idea capture behavior to figure out which one I use the most and therefore which works for me. The pattern I noticed was that I do a lot more capturing on my Moleskine and phone app than when I’m sitting in front of my computer. Why is this?
Because good ideas comes to mind once we are in a relax mood and not in a sick hurry. When I write on the Moleskine I do so when not engaged in focused thinking, thoughts come out of pure observations. I use the Evernote app on my phone to snap photos of things so I can come back to them later and the Evernote app on my desktop works as a brain bank of clips of my daily browsing.
On the weekends I retype the notes on the Moleskine into Evernote which I shouldn’t have to do but I’ve found that it may spur some insight when I’m retyping them into Evernote because those notes have been simmering in there and gives me an opportunity to revisit them. It’s a long process I know (if you have other ideas let me know!) but it’s an experiment I’ve been doing and thoroughly enjoy, I just can’t seem to let the notebook go!
Innovation is everyone’s job and capturing ideas is one technique that people could start applying today to bring more creativity into their work or their business organization.
How do you capture ideas? Which one works for you?
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A lesson in co-creation
Felt like writing this post because I think it’s pretty awesome.
I use Evernote religiously so I was ecstatic to hear that CEO Phil Libin was going to be answering people’s questions on the EN blog today. Why do this? To improve the product of course. Evernote has some pretty passionate fans (including me!) who care deeply about the product because it’s useful and it’s become part of their daily habits.
It really is like your second brain so who better than the loyal fans to know what might make it a lot better?
When was the last time you heard a CEO answer people’s questions (all of them!) on a blog and even offer to chat by phone? Not everyday…You see forums, send us an email, a Twitter account, support phone but not the CEO on a ‘let’s improve the product Q&A’ ideation blog post.
Takeaway: If you’re a CEO and you’re interested in knowing what your customers think of your product, show it!
Weekend innovation tip: Use the Phoenix checklist to develop an original solution
Keeping a checklist of questions close to you (Moleskine notebook, Evernote) comes in very handy when you need some creative firepower. When presented with a challenge, knowing what to ask is the difference between doing more of the same and doing something extraordinary. The Phoenix Checklist of questions was developed by the CIA to encourage agents to look at a challenge from different angles.
Using Phoenix is like holding your challenge in your hand. You can turn it, look at it from the sides, from underneath, from above, giving you all the angles to arrive at an original solution.
Use the Phoenix to solve your next challenge!
How to use Evernote to keep your mind sharp
There are enough reviews of Evernote out there so I will not do one here. What I will do is share with you how I use it to manage information and gain insights. There other notebooks in my Evernote but I will only focus on the 4 I use to help me focus my brain.
What I like about Evernote is it’s simplicity.
It has everything in the right place, it’s intuitive just like sitting in the drivers seat. You know where the steering wheel, accelerator, brakes and speedometer are located.
The web clipper is by far the most used feature of Evernote and is conveniently placed on the Firefox toolbar. Just like everyone else I use it to copy full websites, text, videos and pictures. This is what happens next:
Every new note goes to the ToRead notebook where I will then go and read and filter to the other notebooks.
If I’m reading a PDF and I find information that I want to read later on, I’ll use the clipper to select and copy it to Evernote. This takes advantage of Evernote’s text-in-picture reading capabilities later on if you’re searching your notebooks.
I’ll normally forward to-do stuff from my email to the ToDo notebook, this also helps me think about different ways I can do that activity instead of just treating it as another habit.
Back to School buy The ToUse notebook Teeth buy
is my tactical arsenal. These are a collection of case studies, examples, how-to’s of tactics that I can put to use right away. I can recall examples of usage and think of different combinations on how to put it to use…it helps me formulate strategies really fast.
The Brain Bank notebook is where I develop insights from. I put articles, reports, pdf’s, blog posts, etc that I need to think and reflect on. This is where patterns may emerge that may lead to something (signals) and then use them for some future think (foresight).
That’s it! This is how I use Evernote. It’s still a work in progress but I’m having a lot of fun.
While I use Evernote as a strategic analysis/innovation tool, I’m sure everyone has their own reasons for using Evernote. How do you use Evernote? I’d love to hear any tips!
The Pagemaster buy I’m glad to see some of my friends are benefiting from using Evernote. I’m still waiting for the Blackberry app to come out, I can’t wait!
