i’ve been testing out a few products of late to improve my organisation. i have too much scattered about… in my phone, in my email, on a to-do site, in word docs, and on & on. i’d like a easier way to find info from those notes i took in a class 4 years ago that surprise surprise, might be useful now. or find some data from an article that i knew i’d want to refer back to.

my rough criteria:

• mind maps would be great
• the ability to reference/cite (site, book, audio, video, etc) and maybe pull those into a list (for when i decide i need to go back & get a PhD…)
• an easy 1 click way of pulling that cite info into the system (info being author name, title, url, etc)
• some tagging functionality
• note taking (of course)
• good search
• portable – online & offline. computer & phone. able to export into a usable format.
• to-do checklist

my top runners are evernote, zotero & personal brain.

personal brain wins in the visual mind map criteria. or rather visual folder/mind map combination. i’m really digging it. in a lot of ways this is my fav. or maybe i just really want it to be my fav since it’s the only visual tool that seems to work for me. unfortunately it’s pricey, doesn’t have a phone version & i can’t figure out if there’s any citing abilities. you can only export your data if you buy the high end version (holding data captive is pretty shitty brain folks). oh, and their website is fairy horrid.

zotero is focused on the academic referencing and does a good job. there’s 2 things that annoy me… the promise of sucking citation data from a page doesn’t work as well as I’d hope & the UI isn’t as responsive as I’d like. I need to use the mouse A LOT. also, it doesn’t have a phone version. otherwise it’s a great tool. and open source gets bonus points.

i’ve spent the least amount of time with evernote but i think it might take over from zotero since i’m not writing academic papers. Very easy to use, good UI, desktop, tons of phones, web, good sync’ing! and the only one of these 3 that has to-do functionality.

What tools do you use?

(other tools i looked at include SciPlore, Buzan’s mind mapping, several web2.0 mindmaps, some other referencing software that i can’t think of the name)

a couple new tools i’ve found recently

skrbl is a within your browser whiteboard. you can sketch or do text in a limited range of colors and print or email it. i couldnt figure out how to erase a scribble which was annoying. good for when you need to share a quick sketch.

a new GTD tool, nozbe lets you run 5 projects for free, list your to-dos & next stops and categorize them. nice ajax interface.

teamwork is a web based collaboration project management software. it has calendars, file sharing, task assignment and tracking, etc. they mention communication but i think it’s all web based w/in the system and not tied into email. definitely worth a look if you’re looking for low cost/free team sofware.

i’ve been using zone tick for several years & really like the program. it runs in your task bar (um, yes, windows) and lets you have multiple time zones. i have nyc, london & melbourne in mine but you can customise with more. there’s also a world map, converter, calendar & more i haven’t played with much.

recently they sent out a promo where paid folks can offer their friends a fully functional version that runs til october 1st. if you’re interested in trying it, u can get it for the next few days (promo only runs til the 9th i think) but u can always download the trial version.

in the ‘huh? how does this happen?’ category… blackboard patents.

for those of you who aren’t in the academic or elearning space, blackboard is a company providing web-based course management software.

my most recent uni used it (although not all the functionality available). it was used as a document repository (where professors dropped their lecture notes, the syllabus, where articles or article links were stored). i think one professor once had our class list up there with individual contact details but 99% of the time it was only used for document/link sharing (by profs, not by students. very 1 way communication).

the software has more to offer including message boards, chat, ability to post grades, etc. recently they were granted at patent on their e-learning software. this has caused a bit of an uproar. blackboard is already the largest company of this sort and once you look at what they’ve patented, you realise they could shut down any software company that contains really basic items. the best explanation i’ve seen is michael feldstein’s explanation of the 44 patent claims. these include things like the ability to have async chat, sync chat, assigning different levels of access (ie student vs prof), students being able to upload files to the prof, etc. REALLY basic stuff. amazing how stuff like this can be patented.

for more info, see the collection of images from the patent and stephen downes site. in fact, read the great post on stephen’s site and special section for much more complete details. plus small blurb on smartmobs by howard rheingold .