FLM

Workflow driven apps versus App driven workflow

Hans de Zwart and I write a monthly series titled: Parallax. We both agree on a title for the post and on some other arbitrary restrictions to induce our creative process. This month we write about how the constant flux of new apps and platforms influences your workflow. We do this by (re-)viewing our workflow from different perspectives. After a general introduction we write a paragraph of 200 words each from the perspective of 1. apps, 2. platform and 3. workflow itself. You can read Hans’ post with the same title here.

To say anything at all about workflow, let’s first clarify what I mean by workflow. By workflow, I mean the acquiring (input), analysis and storing or archiving of information for personal use (both work and personal related). With the advent of, first of all, the Internet, Internet based applications, the Freemium Business model and  a growing number of different types of Internet connected platforms, a lot of different kinds of information processing solutions became available to the wider public. That’s great, but how does that trend actually influence our (in this case mine) information processing workflow?

Apps

Web 2.0 for me means two important things: the participative web versus the consumption focused and dynamic web based applications versus static pages. Apart from but parallal to that the Freemium business model gained popularity. The Freemium model was important in removing the threshold of trying out and using new apps. For me it’s very common to subscribe to and/or download a new app to check out what it can do for me and see if I like it. Apart from being free, being connected is the thing which makes you use Apps instead of sticking to Post-it notes (pun intended). Being consciously (actively) connected means I can easily share information. Being unconsciously (passively) connected means information is abundant versus rare allowing for exploiting the Long Tail. Summarising, accessible Internet apps enable network effects.

Some of my favourite workflow related apps: Diigo for social bookmarking and note taking, Evernote for note taking, Google Reader for RSS feeds (RSS being one of the most powerful and underused technologies of the past and coming decade). WordPress for writing blog posts. Dropbox and git for backing up and sharing files. Mindmeister for organising my mind. Google will help you find all these apps.

Platforms

In the old days, the Desktop computer with an (Internet) browser was the main way the majority of us connected to the Internet. Since some years however, starting with GSM enabled laptops, more and smaller portable Internet enabled devices are getting available. The most ubiquitous one must be today’s smartphone, the most recent one the tablet. For me, getting a smartphone, meant two important things: first, being able to access the Internet everywhere and anytime made important parts of my workflow independent of space and time. Second, GPS allows for location aware apps. In practice that means that I virtually always have a zero inbox because gmail on my phone allows me to read and follow up on mail during otherwise lost time like when waiting for the train or during a non-important point of a meeting. Note taking apps like Diigo or Evernote make it possible to take a note, make a picture or record a voice message anytime and immediately sync it to the cloud. The current trend of newly emerging platforms scaling from smartphone to, let’s say, desktop computer I believe will just fill the niches which are merely expressions of our different personalities.

Workflow

To be honest. I think Apps and Platforms have no other impact on my workflow than making it more efficient. I can use my time more efficient by not being dependent on a physical location to access the Internet or my notepad and pencil. And tagging and search systems make information easier to store and retrieve. That is all a great asset and I am very happy with it. But still, I believe THE most important aspect of any information processing workflow is reflection. You can use your favourite RSS reader to quickly digest enormous amounts of news. You can use Diigo to bookmark and archive the whole internet. You can use Mindmeister to organise all your brilliant figments. But if you don’t have a feedback system which reflectively reprocesses that information, it will become a useless pile of data. The conclusion must be that apps and platforms are great for turning information into organised data. But that’s not what you want, what you want is to turn information into knowledge. To do that, you have to reflect, learn, write, teach, do, live …

Me writing this post has been way better for me than me discovering and using Evernote.

NOTE: I did not include any hyperlinks (o, how much I love that word, hyperlink!, it has this futuristic, but futurustic from the 80′s feel about it) in the text. I recently read somewhere that including links in text drastically reduces the readibility of text and makes the reader quicly lose focus. As stated in the text, there’s always your pal Google to help you out.