I Google places I want to go or need directions to or want to research on my phone constantly, so I'm really digging the newly-launched Google Hotpot, a ratings and recommendations engine for Google Places. Most iPhone-toting tech writers will miss the killer app in this whole product: the Android homescreen widget, which lets you rate the place you are currently in with one tap, no application launch required. The downside to Hotpot's social component is that you have to build a whole new friends list of people whose recommendations you want to see. Gawd, I'm tired of making friends lists. Here's my entire writeup at FastCompany.com: Google Hotpot Powers Local Recommendations (Watch Out, Yelp).
I'm in Washington, DC this week for work so I got to attend the first ever Open Developer day at FCC headquarters yesterday. While it was pretty different from Hack Days I've attended at Yahoo! and Twitter (think: classical music versus Beck), it was a fantastic opportunity to meet a lot of people deeply interested in civic hacking, public collaboration, and open government. My full report is over at FastCompany.com: Field Notes From the FCC's First-Ever Hack Day. Update: I also got to do a video interview with Alex Howard on Open Developer Day. Thanks, Alex!
When you have lots of ideas for things to make, how do you choose which projects to actually work on?
In this episode of Work Smart, idea guy Bryan Serven asks the question every entrepreneur has wrestled with; I offer a way to reframe the question and weigh your options, and author of Do More Great Work Michael Bungay Stanier weighs in with a great tip. Press the play button below, and then check out part 2, which covers how you know when to kill a project you're already working on.
Working remotely is so liberating--you get to do what you do best, in a location of your choice, sans commute, maybe even in your pajamas, without your co-workers or boss always looking over your shoulder. But telecommuting also requires a lot more effort when it comes to maintaining relationships and connections with people back at the office. In this week's episode of Work Smart, IBMer Rich Edwards asks about the best practices for staying connected and building relationships from afar. I share some advice based on my own work-at-home experience, and then I ask author of Telecommuting Success Michael Dziak for his. Hit play on the video above to watch and check out the accompanying mind map over at FastCompany.com.
The perennial question we always got from obsessive Lifehacker readers: How do you actually be more productive if you spend all your time looking for new ways to get stuff done?
In this week's episode of Work Smart 2, I got to give my best answer to that question. Bill Clark asks how you can actually work smarter when you spend a lot of time learning new productivity tricks. I share my favorite tool for keeping yourself honest, and then asked author of productivity bible Getting Things DoneDavid Allen for his thoughts. (In short: there are worse ways to waste time.)
Press play on the 2-minute, 30-second video clip below.
I've travelled to 9 different cities already this year and I've got 4 different major work projects going on, so keeping on top of everything on the go is something I've had to get good at out of necessity. This week's Work Smart video is a question from Daniel Beck, a work-at-homer like I am, about how to not let your whole organization system fall to pieces once you leave your (home) office.
I was lucky enough to get none other than David Allen to agree to be my expert in this segment. I was pretty nervous talking to David, as his material has been an inspiration for me for years now. Hopefully I didn't come off as too much of a dork on Skype with him.
The second season of my Work Smart video series at FastCompany.com premiered yesterday, with a question from Suhasini Kotcherlakota about how to take better meeting notes, and some answers from me and Brad Isaac, who wrote a great piece on mind-mapping meetings at Lifehacker a few years back.
Despite the fact that I still can't watch and listen to myself on film without cringing, I am so pleased with the results. Adam Barenblat at FastCompany did an amazing job on the art and design, which is based on a fun new webapp: Popplet.
Maintaining your privacy online isn't as simple as Pirillo puts it, but his tweet made me laugh, because it's such an important point. Awareness and prudence are more critical than any piece of software or privacy setting when it comes to protecting your personal data. Over at Fast Company this week, I took a stab at the most important things you can do to protect your privacy online. It's common sense, worthy of repetition. Online Privacy: Check Yourself (Before You Wreck Yourself) [Fast Company]
In the past three months Anil and I have been to events in six different cities talking about Expert Labs and how the White House used ThinkTank to compile feedback on the Grand Challenges initiative. At Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored event in New York City last month, Anil absolutely killed it in a 12 minute presentation that hits the nail right on the head. Press play to check it out.
My latest two videos are up at Fast Company: one's on firewalling your attention with time blocking, and the second is on three ways to use Google Wave in your business.
The time blocking piece is actually a personal confession about my hermit tendencies. Sometimes I just shut everything off, fall off the face of the planet, and have some uninterrupted me-time. I've had co-workers say to me, "Um, where did you go today?" and the answer is usually "To my happy place, a distraction-free zone." As you'll hear in the video, at my last office job, I actually used to schedule a meeting with myself complete with a conference room to get away and focus on something for awhile. Here's the 2 minute, 37 second clip.
My FastCompany.com video series continues with two new installments: one on reducing multitasking, and the other on claiming your name on the web.
The singletasking bit is timely, as I've been on a mental deep dive working on ThinkTank these past few weeks, surfacing to see what I might be missing on the internet very minimally. When your brain sinks its teeth into something worthwhile, time and space cease to exist--the key is getting to that special state of flow, the zone. Singletasking is one way to help yourself get there.
My latest FastCompany.com video segment, shot several weeks ago, is about managing your social media updates, partly by funneling them all into one place (like your email inbox).
Then Google Buzz launched.
So, here's my social media productivity two-punch: first the video, then a walk through Google Buzz's more advanced features.
When you have lots of ideas for things to make, how do you choose which projects to actually work on? 
My latest two videos are up at 
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