Gmail lab feature “Multiple Inboxes” allows you to have more than one ‘inbox’ in your default Gmail view. You can have up to 5 additional panels and set them to display labels, your starred messages, drafts or any search you want next to your inbox. Here is how to start using Multiple Inboxes and 7 great things you can do with it.
Enabling Multiple Inboxes and setting panels
First, to enable Multiple Inboxes go to settings > labs > enable multiple inboxes
Iain Barker explains why you should consider more alternatives when solving a problem (in his case, user interface design) rather than trying to optimize the first reasonable solution found. As illustrated in the image below, jumping too quickly into the iterative phase (the phase where you refine a given solution) might prevent you from seeing a better solution.
As to answering the question “how many alternatives are enough?” The somewhat obvious answer given is that it depends on the specific constrains that are imposed upon you, such as time and budget.
Checklists help to deliver high quality outputs by recognizing routine procedures and must-have attributes of these outputs. Checklists have several more benefits and they are easy to create and use. Here is how to get going:
What is a checklist
Checklist is a list of items (names, characteristics, tasks etc.) you check or consult when performing a task. It is used to make sure that the output is complete and consist, that no mandatory attributes has been forgotten. For example, you can use a checklist of activities you must take before publishing new content in your website. This might include spellchecking, review by others, adding tags, adding picture, writing an extract and so on.
Some Benefits
Using a checklist provides these benefits:
Standardization – it helps keep outputs standard when more than one person is involved or when one person produces many items over time (for example, blog posts).
Prevent cognitive overload - it frees your mind from the the routines so that you could think about the main activities and process innovations.
Continues improvement – as new insights, activities, and attributes are added to the checklist, your outputs will improves.
Collective learning - people who are new to the process can use the checklist to learn it and to avoid reinventing the wheel.
If you’re interested in social media in corporate settings, this post is for you. A paper by Deloitte, presented in a Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations, briefly reviews the design and deployment of social networking tool, D Street, in the company.
D Street is a web-based application created with the goal to increase the points of connectivity among Deloitte’s professionals. The tool allows them to create profiles that share their professional and personal brand.
D Street is described as “a ‘mash-up’ that takes data from human resource systems and combines it with employee-generated content.” It is comprised of selected elements of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIN, which were applied to the specific business environment of the company.
What does it offer?
The following are a sampling of the data included on each personal profile (see screenshot):
Firm directory data including geography, contact information, service areas, service lines, function
People affiliations
Personal interests including hobbies and personal favorites
Suggested restaurants, things to do and places to see when visiting
Blog module
Presence awareness
Resume, publications and content
Work interests including affiliations, certifications and specializations
Deloitte programs, community and affinity group participation
I strongly recommend watching the following presentation at least two times. The first is now, so that you know it exists. The second is when you'll actually need it - before building an important presentation.
Why? Because it easily explains and illustrates how (and why) should good presentations be built.
