Today I sent a note to a popular blogger, and at the end of the message I thanked him for his passion and enthusiasm. After sending the message, I wondered if my note would be read, let alone matter to him, but that kind of thing does matter, even if in the smallest way.

There are so many people who influence us in our businesses, from the bloggers who consistently provide us with helpful information to keep our businesses growing and thriving to the people in our spheres of influence who rave about us and keep clients and customers coming our way. They help us every day, and it is important to reach out and say “thank you” every now and then.

Even when you think it will fall on deaf ears, that it won’t matter to the person, or that he or she is probably inundated with messages every day, let the person know how he or she helps you in your business and that you appreciate his or her efforts. Say what’s on your mind and make it heartfelt — because for most people, it really will matter.

Someone sent me a thoughtful thank you note a couple of weeks ago, and I have thought about her message several times since then. She said my help and support had been “wind in her sails” that week; little did she know that that note would be wind in mine for weeks to come.

Take the time to thank the people who inspire you, motivate you and teach you. Instead of passing over the comment sections of their blogs again, thinking you have nothing of value to add, let them know how their posts are making a difference in your business. With so many jerks in the world these days, it’s really nice to come across someone who actually takes the time to be, well, nice.

And, to my favorite bloggers (The Bloggess, Chris Brogan, Dumb Little Man and Gary Vaynerchuk, to name a few), thank you.

What was the most heartfelt or meaningful “thank you” you ever received?

Photo by Flickr user vistamommy, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

For many of us, “meeting hell” is a perennial and ongoing problem, sapping both productivity and morale from our work days. So how does one of the world’s most innovative corporate cultures tackle the problem of badly managed meetings? What would Google do?

Google has not only become synonymous with technological innovation, but also as a brand that employs innovative work practices, such as the famous 20 percent time for engineers and the playful Googleplex workplaces (read more about Google here).

Google’s Marissa Mayer was recently interviewed by Business Week. In the interview, she described her own methodology for dealing with the 70+ meetings she needs to attend each week.

Mayer’s six key principles for running productive meetings are:

1. Set a firm agenda. Mayer believes agendas provide focus and help participants find routes towards achieving a particular goal.
2. Assign a note-taker. Mayer’s meetings tend to use multiple displays to project presentation slides, a live transcript of the meeting and a ticking stopwatch! Each element provide focus, and crucially a record, enabling non-attendees to stay informed.
3. Carve out micro-meetings. Mayer routinely divides larger meetings into smaller 5-10 minute blocks to highlight particular subject areas. This enables agendas to remain flexible, but disciplined, and also allows wide-ranging discussions to occur.
4. Hold office hours. Each day, for 90 minutes at 4PM, Mayer holds court with colleagues in her own office. Coworkers can choose a slot on a first-come-first-serve basis. Incredibly, she’s able to get through up to fifteen meetings in these periods.
5. Discourage politics, use data. To avoid showing favoritism and to minimise office politics, Mayer insists all decisions are driven by performance-based metrics and analytics. (This approach has caused some controversies, as related by former design director Douglas Bowman.)
6. Stick to the clock. The “ticking clock” mentioned earlier might sound draconian, but is apparently a source of levity at meetings, exerting a subtle motivation, but also underlining a precious commodity in a busy organisation.

Most of Mayer’s advice seems to be largely pragmatic and productive, encouraging attendee preparation and leaving the meeting itself for debate, discussion and decision. There are lessons here for everyone, and although some of the pointers may seem somewhat obvious, it’s valuable to see how industry figures manage their time. I wonder if we’ll see some of Mayer’s practices finding their way into Google’s productivity apps?

Share your tips for running productive meetings below.

Photo by stock.xchng user trueblueboy

If you’re a creative professional, you’ve probably had to make a pitch to a new client. Unless you’re actually able to walk into your clients’ offices, managing those pitches remotely can be difficult. Email often can’t support the big files designers and other creatives work with, and other tools don’t provide real-time interactions at the level necessary for a pitch.

Realizing there was a gap in the market, ClientShow built a platform for pitching and interacting with clients that just went into beta.

The company offers creatives an Adobe AIR application to interact with, while clients can access the information you want them to look at in a Flex-based app in their browser. Your clients can access the information for free, with no downloads. As long as you’re communicating about visuals — whether that’s a web site design or an architectural drawing or a photograph — ClientShow provides a smooth interaction between you and your clients. Your clients see an interface that is branded with your company logo that they can interact with.

Within the creative’s side of the application, ClientShow is divided into four sections: Pad, Work, Pitch and Vault. The Pad area is essentially a dashboard: it allows you to sort between clients, as well as access pitch sessions and schedules. You can also add new people (known as connections) to projects and review any new notes, approvals or files your clients have added since the last time you logged in.

Inside Work, you can easily upload files — it’s a matter of dragging and dropping them into the Adobe AIR application; rich media files are no problem for ClientShow. Once you’ve uploaded files, your clients can access them as well, creating notes for you as well as approving images.

The Pitch page is devoted to creating and scheduling pitch sessions. You can choose images to show your clients, proceeding through them similarly to the way you’d use a slideshow. You can conduct your pitch in real time: ClientShow keeps everyone on the same page, as well as allowing threaded discussions. You can also save past pitches, allowing both yourself and your clients to review them in the future. This system significantly smoothes out the pitch process for web workers, especially when you’re in a different time zone than your clients. Old files and sessions are stored in the Vault, where you can still review notes and sessions easily.

ClientShow seems particularly useful for small creative shops, such as freelancers or partnerships with only a few team members: if you already have a well-established pitch process, it’s not necessarily worth changing it up, but if you struggle with pulling together a professional presentation for each new client, it’s very useful. ClientShow just opened its beta, but the application appears quite polished. During the beta, ClientShow is free to use, although pricing after the final app is released is unclear.

How do you manage remote pitches?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

Here are some apps that provide useful ways to collaborate online on writing scripts for anything from short promotional corporate videos to full-length motion pictures. Sure, there are many ways to accomplish this task, such as sharing a document using Google Docs or Zoho Write, but these three apps focus specifically on the task of writing scripts, along with the formatting that requires. They each include the ability to invite other writers to join your project and maintain a centralized copy of the material for each contributor to view and update.

Adobe Story

Adobe Labs is currently featuring Adobe Story in preview mode, which means you can create an account and start using it for free (for now, anyway). You can create projects that can include as many scripts as you want. These projects can also include charactor biographies and links to external resources, like blogs or relevant web sites. The user interface is slick and rather intuitive. There’s also an Adobe AIR desktop app (of course) that conveniently allows you and all collaborators to work in offline mode, synchronizing all changes whenever you’re connected again.

Here’s the home page for a fictitious project I’ve created called “The Revenge of The Blog,” which is basically a remake of the classic campy horror film “The Blob.” There’s also a character biography page for Robert Scoble, who will reprise the Steve McQueen role from the original movie (I said it was fictitious!)

Plotbot

Plotbot is a web-based script-writing app that also allows you to collaborate with other writers. The good news is that the web app functions very well just like a desktop app, and automatically formats the scripts as you write it — you just have to come up with the ideas. It’s pretty good at determining what you’re trying to type, such as a scene heading or character dialogue.

There are also some handy tools, such as the notebook area where you can track thoughts and information about the story as well as a forum area to brainstorm with others. You can upload a screenplay if you already have one available. Plotbot is free.

Celtx

Celtx is a little different than the other apps in this collection. It covers a far wider variety of scripts for more types of projects besides film, such as scripts for video, documentary, theatre, comics, advertising, video games, music video, radio, podcasts, videocasts, and much more. It provide a free desktop application that you can download and install, but collaborating with others via the online service (called Celtx Studio) is not free. It provides collaboration for up to five users for only about $5 per month, which isn’t bad.

The Celtx app offers the most features that I’ve seen in this type of tool. Not only can you add dialogue to scripts, it has other functionality such as a sketch tool to draw objects, a catalog to track all props and objects, index cards to arrange scenes and a cool storyboarding tool. Check out Sam’s post on the app for a full review.

So there you go, three different ways to collaborate with others on scripts, whether it’s for an entertainment project such as a movie or a corporate instructional video. These apps make it extremely easy to maintain all related information and help save you time and effort with the medium’s formatting, so you and your team can focus on the creative aspect of writing.

What tools do you use for collaborating with others on scripts?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

Between security hassles and being charged fees for everything but the oxygen we breathe on board a plane, air travel has become something to be endured rather than enjoyed. But a new service that recently opened in Atlanta Hartsfield airport, called Minute Suites, wants to serve as travelers’ oasis from the stress of life traveling the unfriendly skies.

Atlanta Hartsfield’s Minute Suites is located on Concourse B in a space that was formerly a business center, and bills itself as a “traveler’s retreat”. Minute Suites offered me the chance to give them a try during a layover on a recent cross-country trip.

Although my flights were not arriving or departing from Concourse B, the location was convenient to reach. Minute Suites is close to the intersection at the center of Concourse B, where passengers can board the train that shuttles people between Hartsfield’s concourses. It was a two- to three-minute trip each way from Concourse A where my flights were arriving and departing.

The Minute Suites host on duty when I arrived, Michael, was cheery and welcoming despite the extremely early hour and my jet-lagged, exhausted demeanor. He lead me to my suite and gave me a tour of its amenities.

Minute Suites are 7ft x 8ft units that are entered through a sliding door. I was told the five suites are sanitized between each use. Each suite is furnished with a sofa that pulls out into a bed, and a desk with a chair. The suites could easily accommodate three adults or two adults and two children.

The only amenity that Minute Suites doesn’t have is plumbing. If you are looking for the restroom, you’ll have to step about 100 feet down the concourse to find one.

In the wall next to the desk is an HDTV that serves as the unit’s entertainment system and Internet terminal; the television service offered is DirecTV with the NFL package. The TV can also be used to check on the status of your flight, since it can display the airport’s Flight Tracking system.

If you have your own computer along, Minute Suites offers ethernet and Wi-Fi internet access included in your suite rental in addition to the provided Internet terminals. I used my MacBook to try out the Wi-Fi access. Getting on was as easy as entering the password I was provided, and the connection felt snappy enough (at least for the web surfing and email that I was trying it out on).

There is very nice attention to detail in the Minute Suites. There is a hook with two hangers for hanging up jackets, and each unit has its own thermostat so each visitor can set their own comfortable temperature. The desk chair rolls and is nicely cushioned. There are controls for the lights and sound system in the wall at one end of the bed.

Since I had just gotten off a red-eye flight, I was particularly interested in trying out the daybed for a nap — something that I would normally never do in an airport. Pillows and blankets are provided. The suite contains an alarm clock on a ledge behind the bed, or the Minute Suites staff will provide you a wake-up call (or actually, knock). Michael was extremely prompt with my wake-up knock, although I had set my iPhone alarm as a back-up.

The bed was very comfortable. I tried out the Nap26 program that is built into the entertainment system, which is supposed to make you feel as though you’ve had three hours of sleep in only 26 minutes. I found the program soundtrack so annoying that it actually kept me awake instead of putting me to sleep even though I’d had only two hours of sleep in the previous 24. I turned it off after only a few minutes and promptly fell asleep.

A key component in my ability to sleep was the suite’s sound masking system. Essentially a giant white noise machine, the masking system’s volume is adjustable by the suite’s occupant. Thanks to this system, I was able to sleep completely unaware that I was in the heart of one of the world’s busiest airports, in a suite 10 feet away from a congested concourse. The only sounds I heard were a few loud bangs that I believe originated in the service area below the concourse.

If all of this sounds like a wonderful way to spend your airport layover, it is. But there’s a catch to this luxury: the luxury price. Minute Suites rent for $30/hr, with a one hour minimum. Eight hours costs $180, since at eight hours a rate decrease of 25 percent takes effect.

But if you aren’t turned off by the price, Minute Suites can be a great place to recharge or get some privacy to do some business on the go.

Would you try a “traveler’s retreat” if there was one available ton your trip?

This year, in an effort to get a better grip on the ways I generate income, I’ve been looking for a free, simple app that will allow me to track my income easily. I should say that this was my first priority; as a second priority, I wanted to track my time more closely as well.

Although I like feeling organized, I don’t want to spend ages learning how to use software, and one thing that really frustrates me is unintuitive systems with poor usability. Generally, I think the simpler things are, the better. So I was excited to hear about 1DayLater, a new time-, cash- and distance-tracking service that is nothing if not straightforward.

For me to put the words “excited” and “tracking service” in the same sentence is a big deal. I decided not to get my hopes up. But using the service lived up to expectations: 1DayLater seems to be just what I needed.

The Basics

1DayLater is a free web-based service (additional premium features will be added as the service moves out of beta). Create an account, and you can use the clear interface to enter the “values” associated with the activities that you do: money, time and distance. You associate that value with a client and a date. Simple. If you like, you can add notes to that entry; my entries identify what tasks I completed for each client. There’s also a auto-timer that you can use to track your work in real time. Very handy.

From this point, users currently have a couple of options. The first is “Analysis.” The system can provide you with charts that reflect, for example, the time data you’ve entered, providing a graphical overview of where all your time’s going. This should provide some very interesting (or is that alarming?) information once I’ve been using the system for a while.

The second is “Export,” which lets you download data in OpenOffice spreadsheet format. You can select to download data about a certain client, “value” type — time, expenses, income, mileage — or on the basis of search criteria that you define.

The 1DayLater team is, of course, working on additional features which will include invoicing and mileage claims; these features are likely to form part of the paid component of the 1DayLater service. The Export facility was released as I was reviewing the service, so hopefully these extra features won’t be too far away.

Equally important is mobile access to the service. Those on the go will undoubtedly be disappointed that there are currently no mobile or desktop apps for this service. While this may seem like a big oversight, the 1DayLater blog explains that the team is now working to develop these (not surprisingly often-requested) apps.

Who’s it For?

The brothers who developed this service, Paul and David King, describe their inspiration for the service:

At the start of 2008 we were working separately as freelancers and realised that there was a problem common to both of us — we found it hard to keep track of how much time we were spending on our clients, and that this problem was reflected in our invoices.

As someone who’s in exactly the same place, I find the service is just what I want; a lot of the other software and services I looked at were too complex and detailed for my simple needs. I didn’t need to share my data with anyone else, except maybe an accountant — so what some would perceive as the limits of the 1DayLater service are great news to me.

OK, so the service doesn’t sync with my calendar; most of my time is unscheduled, so this isn’t a feature I need. OK, so it’s a one-person-per-account system; there’s only one of me, so I don’t need to aggregate my data with others (though if I did, I could probably do it manually through the spreadsheet export).

I do think, though, that the present lack of mobile and desktop apps is a limitation that would reduce the convenience of this service for a large portion of web workers — fortunately, not for long!

See For Yourself

You can view the demo for 1DayLater without signing up, but registration is free, so you might as well go ahead and see what the service does for you.

Have you tried 1Daylater? What other time, cash, or expense tracking services can you recommend?

Related GigaOM Pro Research: NewNet Went Social with Partnerships Galore in Q4

Photo by stock.xchng user D-squared.

Web workers are a busy group, and it can be too easy to get buried in our work while rarely surfacing to keep up with the latest news, trends and other information that we should be learning. While I love my RSS reader and check it frequently, RSS readers have limitations. They are best for keeping up with information that you have added to your reader because you know you want to read it. What about all of that other information from sites that you don’t already read?

One of the best ways to find this news and interesting information is by using sites that provide smart ways to aggregate content. In some of these examples, the content is curated by real people, but in others, it’s generated algorithmically in that the posts being linked to or discussed rise to the top. Here are a few of my favorite ways to discover new and relevant content to get you started.

Techmeme

Techmeme is probably the most well-known way to find the hottest tech industry news. It uses a combination of human editorial input and algorithms to find the posts that people are talking about and linking to. My favorite thing about Techmeme is that it has an excerpt of the main story along with links to many of the other bloggers who are discussing the same topic. It’s easy to get a quick understanding of the story, while getting a look at how different people are reacting to the news. These reactions can be particularly fascinating for some of the more controversial stories. I use Techmeme to keep up with the news that all of the rest of the bloggers are discussing so that when I go out with my geeky friends in the evening, I’ll be ready to talk about the latest news.

The Twitter Tim.es

My new favorite content discovery site is The Twitter Tim.es because my personalized page is curated by the people that I choose to follow on Twitter. It takes the links posted by the people you follow and links from friends of friends, and puts them into a newspaper-style layout with the most frequently tweeted links at the top with larger headlines. Since I only follow people on Twitter that I really want to keep up with, the content that appears on my Twitter Tim.es page is highly relevant for me. It usually contains a mix of general technology information and Portland news, which is my perfect mix. You will need to sign into Twitter to create your pages, but as it uses oAuth to authenticate with Twitter you don’t have to give up your Twitter password.

Lazyfeed

I’ve just started using Lazyfeed, but it shows some real promise. You pick any topic that you want to learn about, and it provides real-time updates on the most recent content in your topic. It has a couple of features that make it particularly useful. First, it is really easy to add or delete topics, which makes it a great way to keep up with a hot topic temporarily (like a product launch) and then delete the topic after the buzz dies down. It also suggests related topics, which can be helpful when you are starting research on something new or to pull in some additional information.

What are your tips for discovering new and relevant content?

Every December, I sit down to write my business plan for the upcoming year. Invariably, however, the lure of pumpkin pie, the razzle-dazzle of holiday lights and the continuous playing of Christmas music take me off track. I find that I’m just too distracted to seriously focus on the business planning at hand.

Instead, I set my sights on January. The merriment is over, and I’m ready to get a grip on my work world again. The only problem is that my inbox is so backed up, and my to-do list has grown so long, that it takes me most of the month to process through the open items that have congregated while I was mentally away for the holidays.

So here I am in the beginning of February, finally ready to knuckle down and work on my business plan for the year. A process that — while I’ve gone through it dozens of times over the years — is always a bit daunting at first, but greatly worthwhile.

I find that my productivity during the year is always enhanced when I have a road map to follow in my business. Even if all the gaps aren’t filled in or the fine details sorted out, just knowing the major stops along the way, and how I plan on getting there, empowers me to be more on purpose and more productive during the year.

Now that I finally have the breathing room to sit back and reflect on my business plan for 2010, I have found assistance in a great new book titled “Passion, Plan, Profit: 12 Simple Steps to Convert Your Passion into a Solid Business“ by Christy Strauch. Here’s her take on creating a business plan.

Karen Leland: First off, why did you write this book?

Christy Strauch: I wrote this book for creative types (like web workers) who are in the business world, but haven’t necessarily had a peaceful relationship with making the business side of their business work. Because of that, the first step in any business plan process is to connect with your purpose for being in your business — whether you’re self-employed or working for a company. It’s easier to persevere through some of the challenging times if you have a purpose to pull you through.

Karen: Well, once you know your purpose, then what?

Strauch: You need to determine who your perfect clients are. Take the knowledge that you already have about who hires you and who works with you, and then talk to your clients to gather the rest of the information. You need both the demographic information about them (things like their age, where they live and their level of education) and psychographic information (what they like to do for fun, their attitudes about technology, what they read, who else they go to for help and so on).

Karen: How does knowing who your perfect clients are help you to build a business plan?

Strauch: If you understand how people find you and why they are drawn to you, you can better determine the best way to reach out to them. Is it through a networking event, advertising, cold calling or writing articles? People often choose web workers because a colleague has recommended them.

Karen: In the book, you talk about the importance of looking at the competition as part of your planning process. Why is that so important?

Strauch: Well, to begin with, you need to figure out what you’re best at. What is unique about you? What do you offer that is distinct from your competitors? By taking a look at your competitors, the economy and your own business, you can find a way to position yourself to your clients. That positioning becomes part of the strategies for your business that you pick and put in your business plan.

Karen: Do you recommend any particular tool for this analysis?

Strauch: Yes, I suggest every businessperson do a yearly SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. It will help you, along with knowing your purpose and your customers, to choose business activities that make the most sense in the current year — to serve your current customers and attract the right new ones.

Karen: How important is including financial information in your business plan?

Strauch: It’s critical. At a minimum, you need to have a forecast of your income for the next 12 months and projected expenses for the same period. You also need to choose three or four measurements that you can watch regularly to make sure everything’s on track in your business.

Karen: Is there anything else people should do to stay on top of their business plan after it’s written?

Strauch: Yes. Do a monthly and quarterly review process. Because things begin to change right after you remove your pen from the paper, these reviews help you keep up with (or even stay ahead of) the inevitable changes that happen to all businesses.

Do you have a business plan for this year?

It can be hard to remember to routinely clean out your computer — whether that means running virus scans or organizing your files. That’s why having a day devoted to making sure that your computer is working well and that you can find anything you need on it is a good idea. The Institute for Business Technology originally sponsored a National Clean Out Your Computer Day several years ago, assigning it to the second Monday in February. It’s a holiday well worth adding to your calendar.

Clean Up Your Operating System

It seems to be a fact of life that the longer your operating system has been installed on your computer, the slower it gets. I recently had to back up all my data and reinstall my operating system, and the difference it made is incredible. Even if you aren’t prepared to completely wipe your system, there are some things you can do to speed things up.

Microsoft recommends running built-in utilities, like Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter, on a regular basis. There are comparable utilities in every operating system. You can also use an external tool, like Iolo Technologies’ System Mechanic, which can fix common problems and reduce demands on your system, like unused background programs.

Clean Out Files

Even as hard drives keep getting bigger, we keep coming up with files to fill them up. While sorting through all your files may not be necessary, doing a little spring cleaning can make them easier to manage. Personally, I try to get the files I don’t think I’m going to need again off my main computer and on to a separate hard drive every so often, if only to make sure that I have space for more.

It may not be a bad idea to go through what you have on other storage media. I recently ran across a stack of floppy disks, only to realize that I didn’t have access to anything that could actually read them at this point. There are a few files there that I’d like to have, but otherwise, there’s no reason to cart around old floppy disks.

Don’t Forget the Hardware

Even if the only part of your computer that you can actually see is the monitor, it’s worthwhile to occasionally knock the dust off. We’ve discussed cleaning laptops before, and cleaning desktops isn’t too different. Wipe down those monitors, clear out vents and maybe even clean your keyboard and mouse while you’re at it. Just getting rid of the dust can extend your computer’s life.

Make Your Progress Permanent

Once you’ve gotten your computer cleaned out, it’s worth taking a little time to make sure that it stays that way. One of the best options is to make sure that any tools you’re using are set up to run automatically — virus scanners, backups and so forth should be running regularly without you needing to remember to start them up.

Don’t forget to mark Clean Out Your Computer Day on the calendar for next year!

Photo by Flickr user PhotoOptik, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

As Twitter has rapidly risen to dominate the real-time web, related applications and services have also come to prominence; many in the field of URL shortening. Foremost amongst these is bit.ly, which today released a Pro edition of the service.

bitly.Pro is, in essence, a “white-label” edition of the public service, where a short URL such as http://bit.ly/bHRDfP can now be replaced by one with a custom domain, such as http://imrn.me/bHRDfP.

As well as the ability to utilise a custom domain, bitly.Pro also provides a dashboard view, enabling users to view analytics on all the links shared from your custom domain. I put bitly.Pro through its paces today by registering my new domain — imrn.me. Setting up the service is surprisingly easy; here’s how I did it:

1. I registered imrn.me with GoDaddy.
2. I changed the domain’s nameserver settings to point at my own MediaTemple-hosted server.
3. I altered the DNS records (A and CNAME) for the new domain to verify and redirect to bit.ly.pro.
4. I logged into bitly.Pro with my standard bit.ly account details to link both account histories.
5. Used the standard bit.ly bookmarklet to generate my first custom shortened URL: http://imrn.me/90mM9Q

All in all, the entire setup process took me around 10-15 minutes and the new real-time analytics dashboard will prove useful in tracking the “virality” of my shared links. Sadly, your shortened URLs still share their namespace with other bit.ly users, so your domain will still be suffixed by a five-character reference.

However, other than vanity and analytics, there are good reasons for employing a custom domain for your shortening your URLs.

Why use a custom domain?

In recent months, there’s been much discussion on the impact short URLs are having on the long-term stability of the web; notably by weakening the web with centralised hyperlinks, reducing transparency, introducing unwelcome interstitials and providing opportunities for phishing attacks.

Delicious creator Joshua Schacter suggests some publishers should offer their own shortening services to mitigate some of the negative circumstances of shortening.

Indeed, we’ve recently seen brands such as Flickr, TechCrunch, WordPress and Google offer short URLs such as flic.kr, tcrn.ch, wp.me & goo.gl.

For such prominent brands, content publishers and even prolific Twitter users, bitly.Pro offers a useful form of transparency and trust to users clicking on shortened links.

Though the service doesn’t address the problem of centralization of links, it’s a step in the right direction. For those who demand more control, installing a hosted URL shortening app may be more appropriate.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

Here are some interesting posts from around the ‘Net to catch up with over the weekend:

• Mashable: “How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans”
• ReadWriteWeb: “5 Simple Twitter Listening Tips Every Marketer Should Know”
• Marketing Shindig: “How to Respond to the Most Overused Objections in Using Social Media”
• Inc: “Going Virtual”
• Inc: “How to Manage Virtually”
• VentureBeat: “Analyst: Email will lose ground to social networks”
• Entrepreneur: “Freelancing? Think Like a Business Owner”

What are you reading this weekend?

I saw Mel Gibson on a talk show last night. He was there to promote a new action flick he has coming out, and the host asked him about his “Three E” approach to movie making. He responded that there are three things he tries to achieve with his movies: first entertain, then educate, and then, if possible, elevate.

I instantly thought these were admirable objectives to shoot for in almost any kind of communication, though the order of priority would vary depending on the type of communication and its purpose. It may seem like I’m stating the obvious, but what came to my mind right away was how appropriate these three objectives would be for a content development strategy.

Then it occurred to me that in this context, there has to be a fourth “E,” one that is pretty critical in the social Web: engage.

I wrote about content strategy not too long ago. It’s a hot topic and a rising career field. So if you create content (and who doesn’t these days?), you might want to ask yourself if your content satisfies any of these four criteria. Think of them as a kind of quality control standard.

The content you create — from animated demos to blogs to tweets to videos on YouTube — all influence your clients’ and peers’ perception of you. As a professional, you understand the importance of the quality of your product, and you should consider your content as one of your products.

Think about the people you follow on Twitter or whose blogs you read. Chances are your favorites provide a lot of Es. I looked at the tweets of one of the people I enjoy following, and found that most of his tweets qualified:

Just for fun, take a look at what you put out there and do a quick analysis to assess the quality of your content based on the four Es. What do you see?

If you want to learn more about content strategy, don’t miss “Content Strategy Forum 2010,” two days devoted to the topic in Paris in April.

What guidelines do you use for the content you create?

“If ease of use were the only requirement, we would all be riding tricycles” — Douglas Engelbart

Have you noticed that many web-based services advertise themselves with the premise of “less,” or being “simple?” They say their programs reduce the time and energy that your team exerts using unecessary and distracting features, functions and options, letting them focus instead on just doing their work.

Many people appreciate the loose structure of these tools. We use terms like “agile” and “flexible,” and for a lot of use cases this sort of framework can indeed be very appealing.

For example, let’s look at the typical web-based project management tools. Most are essentially designed to be warehouses for all data pertaining to a project. They integrate basic to-do lists, messaging and milestones and provide a framework to hang our project upon and to make sure nothing gets lost. Their open nature and lack of structure make them capable of accommodating a wide array of projects, and you can essentially make them work for just about anything or anyone.

Conversely though, and what concerns me, is that often the lack of features and perceived overhead can actually introduce more real overhead to your process. At what point does their simple nature become a hindrance to the work that actually needs to be done?

Yes, incorporating something like dependent task assignment adds complexity. Yes, introducing advanced message routing can require some thought and set up time. But these features provide value and are worth it in some instances, because working around the lack of some useful functionality causes users additional real — and ongoing — overhead.

The concept of overhead in this context was introduced to me in a recent chat I had with Hamid Shojaee of Axosoft, developers of bug tracking/project management tool OnTime, which I’ll be reviewing in the next day or so. His comments really got me thinking about the way that web applications are developed and marketed.

I certainly recognize and accept that some products and services naturally offer too much or too little functionality and that a single application won’t work for everyone. Needs, goals and requirements vary across the board and I’m glad that there are the multitude of options available to us. Being mindful of our decisions when choosing these applications and accepting the trade-off that “simple” may bring with it other consequences down the road when your needs change.

I always say the best thing about doing what I do is having the chance to interact with smart people, and talking with Hamid and others is always a fascinating and enlightening process. It is my pleasure to also have occasional chats with self-proclaimed “interface radical” Amy Hoy, designer for the Freckle time tracking service. We rant about the state of user interface and interaction design, and I always appreciate her candid comments.

In our most recent chat we talked about the concept of “simplicity,” and how as a mantra it provides a nice warm fuzzy feeling and a compelling argument for use, but is “less” or “simple” really the issue? She says an application can be complex, or introduce complexity and still be powerful, enjoyable and surprising. “Way too much of the usability talk on the web focuses on first run experience, says everything should be obvious, but that’s oversimplifying the issue.”

So what concerns me is if this quest for creating simple software is hurting us. Are we creating a culture of users that require a dumbed down experience, at the expense of the increased efficiencies and productivity gains we can realize with more complex tools? Are we also stifling the creativity of the designers and developers who are afraid to provide useful features because of the fear that they may be complex or not immediately obvious?

Hoy says, “A tool you use a lot should offer opportunities to grow and learn,” and I love this concept. We as business owners, entrepreneurs, web workers and freelancers are smart, naturally inquisative, resourceful and creative. We are capable of using software that challenges us; in fact, I believe we could benefit from it.

Are you afraid of your software doing less?

Just in case you missed any of them, here are the five most popular posts on WebWorkerDaily this week:

• 7 Ways to Find Your Focus

Karen shares seven techniques to stop co-workers from interrupting your focus.

• The Importance of Buffers

Amber recently suffered through a stressful, overly busy week. In this post, she explains why buffers are necessary for some breathing room.

• Public Speaking Demands Productivity

Karen explains why productivity can be something that you give to others; which is why if you speak in public you should make sure your presentation is productive and professional.

• My Dirty Little Task Management Secret

Dawn’s problem? She marks everything as “urgent.” In this post, she explains her new methodology

• Could the iPad Be My New Travel Computing Device?

The launch of Apple’s new iPad coincided with Nancy’s return from a hectic trip. here, he speculates whether the iPad could replace her MacBook as her “on the road” computing device.

bzhive, a new coworking space in San Rafael, Ca. that I mentioned back in December, is to hold its opening party this Monday, February 8th at 6PM — you can RSVP for the free event here.

bzhive will serve Marin County and its neighbors, and has a conference room and parking available. Membership costs from $215 per month; if you’d just like to try out the service, access for drop-ins is free, as long as space is available.

If you’re involved with a new coworking venture, let us know about it in the comments.

In the old days, it was traditional to get up, get dressed, and read the newspaper — or listen to the news on radio or television — over coffee and breakfast.

These days, though, I’ve been getting up at 5 or 6 a.m. In a lot of ways, the early morning hours are a great time to write and do projects that require uninterrupted effort. But I find that it’s way too easy to get sidetracked. Since I work at home, I’m tempted to sit down at the computer first thing in the morning to “check my email.” Unfortunately, too often, I find that “checking the email” has turned into a marathon session of “checking the email, responding to email, reading online news, and catching up on Facebook and Twitter…” and the next thing I know, it’s already 9:30, and I haven’t yet eaten or gotten dressed.

So I’m going to try a few things to regain my mornings:

• Turn off my computer at night. Not only will I save energy, it will require an extra effort to turn it back on in the morning.
• If I must leave my computer on for some reason, I plan to shut down my mail software, web browser, RSS reader, Twitter client and anything else that’s likely to send notifications overnight. I’ll probably leave my IM client on, but will set my status to “away” or “not at desk.”
• Route my business email accounts through a service like AwayFind. I used this a while ago, but haven’t tried it since Thursday wrote about its new features.
• Use a VoIP service like onSip to set my business phone lines to take messages, or forward calls to me in an emergency. I’ve found that most clients are quite understanding about what’s really an emergency.
• If I do turn on the computer in the early morning hours (for instance, if I get an idea that I want to write down), I won’t fire up my email client or my browser, but will instead go directly to my word processor or to Evernote.

It’s going to be a challenge to follow these recommendations, especially since I live on the U.S. West Coast, and most of the rest of the world is already working by the time I get up. We’ll see how I do.

How do you keep your mornings to yourself?

Photo by stock.xchng user swissboy