Tools And Techniques: Curating Content Effectively Coffee Chat

12:37PM Oct 9, 2023

Speakers:

Shannon Tipton

Renee

Stella

Erica

Mike

Noel

Heather

Heidi

Todd

Joyce

Keywords:

tool

feedly

mike

find

curation

onenote

organize

note

put

folder

team

sources

share

chat

tabs

information

curation tool

bookmark

curated

evernote

All right. Hello, everyone to another learning rebels Coffee Chat. This Friday, I am excited to talk to you about curation tools and techniques. The last time we met, we discussed curation, connecting curation with your business goals, and how do we go about that? How should we be doing that? And that we should be connecting our curation efforts to business goals into goals in general. And we also talked about Mike's curated his curated model, which if you haven't seen that, I'm going to put that into the chat right now as well.

Okay, there we go.

Because that's just genius. And I've told Mike that before, I'll tell it to him again, there it is, Stella printed it out. And a girl

is I tell I carry it with me every day I show it to everyone. This is so important. It's fantastic. I use it to raise the awareness to my colleagues, who don't see the time it takes to create something. And I'm always stuck here. And they think we are already here. So this is the best piece if I needed it. And I didn't know I needed it. Thank you so much, Mike. That's awesome.

There you go. My

that's just glowing. And I agree. I, I wrote the blog post. I referenced it there. With this cut with this coffee chat in the last Coffee Chat. I referenced it there and it world again, the universe aligned when I asked Mike to do his learn something new for us here in a couple of weeks of brainwaves. Yeah, then he came out with the model. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you know, you love it when all the different things come to fruition, you know, when the universe just comes knocking? So well, then you might well then. Thanks, you guys just made my day. And then so there's faricy.

Okay, duration tools. Now, the blog post that I put up here, I think it was last week. And I'm going to put that link in the chat as well, in case you all haven't seen it

by I walk you through

what I'm referring to, as you know, this guide, very loose definition of guide as far as your curated techniques and your curation efforts, being sure that we're researching appropriately, and giving you a few tools to investigate and what to do with those tools. You know, the ones that you know, have a little bit of pros, a little bit of cons attached to them. You know, so a little bit of help in regards to

in regards to your curation efforts.

Now, I'm curious here, let's just take a quick in the chat.

What curation tool do you currently use? Let's see that in the chat.

Or if you don't use any then be sure to say you don't use any but let's see what's happening here.

Okay,

loosely feeding Feedly I hear you.

Okay, don't have one. No. All and Dan Joyce. When no note, Rene. Okay. No specific tool yet. Thank you. bookmarks and folders. I do that to

halfhearted Confluence.

Color No, not really. All right. Your spidey senses.

my spidey senses tells me that something's happening on the interwebs today, I'm gonna go check it out.

Ever Note one note?

Way too many. I'm with you, Chris.

Yeah, I would be I'd be appalled if Mike could see how many tabs I have open on my screen right now.

Let's see. That's it. That's the thing. That's the thing for a lot of us.

It is when note bookmarks folder SharePoint, okay, so we've got a we've got a variety here, hubs, tabs are occurs and then even further to the curses that i i figured out how to turn tabs into a group. So now I've got sub tabs, and not just tabs, but groups of tabs. But, but I think that they're all still all organized in a in a way. So I have a group of tabs that are all research related. I have a group of tabs that are all like Google Will doc related? You know, so they're still organized in some way, shape or form, although that doesn't necessarily help me with my curation efforts. Yeah, no, well, yes. 99 Plus tasks good. I'm not alone. I'm you, you and I, yes. Todd? Yes. Absolutely. Okay. So now, let's talk about the different sorts of tools that we can be using. So what are for those of you who are using a tool, be it OneNote or Feedly? Or loosely confluence, you know, what would be a criteria for you when it comes to choosing a tool to help you with your curation efforts? Who wants to start that ball rolling? You know, what would either What are you looking for? Or what do you look for in a curation tool? So Noel, I see that in the chat, automation, yes. Ease of use, and you can go ahead and raise your hand and come off mute if you want to share your thoughts. Ease of use the interface streamlined processes, absolutely. What else should we be looking for? So when you say automation, what? So Noel, if you want to expand on that, if you want to come off? Mute, when you say automation, what are you looking for? When you talk about automation?

There is one of the things that would be great for automation is to be able to connect Smedes to their content that's ageing. And whether it's a tickler to remind them, hey, things are dating. I do have a knowledge base in Zendesk that that does that it can, it can outdate things, but it's not very smart. And I deliver software training with software that changes every month. So trying to keep up with what content is being impacted by releases is not possible. For me with my lack of systems today. Right?

When I think that's important, right? You want your systems to be able to talk to each other. You know, you you want it to really be a set it and forget it type of mode, which I think is what Feedly does for you, right, Mike?

Or Yeah, so for receiving stuff Feedly Feedly, does that lets you consolidate a bunch of sources, the only the sources that you want and says and have things sort of come to you instead of having to go to five or 10 or 20 different places to track stuff down. But then there's, there's, there's another element of that. So there's stuff coming in, but then there's also integrations of, you know, sending it to Evernote or publishing it to LinkedIn or so there's a interconnectivity piece there that automates a lot of that stuff. So you can save things in a click of a button or publish things efficiently.

Yeah, and I think that's the that's the key, isn't it? It's now that I have it. Well, how do I met it? And then once I have it, what do I do with it? Afterwards? Right. And I think, yeah, so I think those interconnected pieces help you make those decisions.

And that's and that and know what's connected to what that's different for everyone. Right? So probably no two of us would have the same setup just based on what we're trying to do and where we're saving things and how we're sharing things and stuff like that. So it's, it's really very personal.

Yeah, it is, isn't it? You know, because we all have different wants and needs and goals as far as what we're collecting, and what we want to share, etc. And I see up to that point, I see Chris's comment here in the chat. So Chris, I don't know if you want to come off mic and expand on your comment here in the chat about using OneNote and how you're collecting information for specific projects, etc.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I pretend I have a system right? So no, no bug, because I'm trying to collect different things, different types of things so they can all go in there. And so that seems nice for that. But Evernote I use as I'm just right Hanging around the internet and reading things. But I think you know, and Mike, I've been here before God bless you, I'm like, Feedly, I should do Feedly. But I, you know, didn't work my way through that basically, I let myself get overwhelmed. And I keep doing the same system. That's not a system.

It's a it's a system. Okay, it is some sort of system,

as you got a nice way of putting that. Thank you so much.

Well, you know, and I think it's I and we say that in jest, but I think it's important that even if it's a loose system, it is some kind of system. And I think that's the important part, right? At least you have something you know, so for those of you who aren't using, for, for those of you who aren't using a tool, I'd be curious to hear from you. How do you collect information? So I'll go back up to the top here. And let's see who admitted. Let's see, Sarah, you said you don't use anything. And Thomas, you said you don't use anything, either. So I'd be curious to hear from either of you. How do you collect pieces of information that's of interest to you? What do you do with it? How do you find it?

Well, I hate to admit it, but as old as I am, I love paper and pencil. So I unfortunately, I like to organize my notes in a notebook or so a lot of my stuff is is, is physically written down and, and categorized and using folders. So again, it's it's real old, but I just sometimes I just can't shake it, I actually am taking a lot of notes with you telling things because I don't have the chance to sit down and kind of explore some of the stuff that you guys are mentioning. So like, one note, I I couldn't tell you what OneNote is. I do bookmark things. Like I have, somebody was saying that I have a ton of those on my right hand side of the screen. But other than that, that's why I'm taking a lot of notes right now. So that's, that's where I'm at.

All right, well, thank you for being you know, honest, that's it. And there's nothing wrong with with the analog system, right? The My problem with an analog system, and I also I keep notes here on my iPad, but I also keep them in a notebook is that you find your notes are everywhere. Right? And so you have a note that you want to trade. So yeah, yeah. So you had that note, you want to read XYZ, or you find that file or whatever, and you put it on a sticky note. And you know, how many of you give me a reaction? How many of you right now have sticky notes, you know, around your monitor? Yeah, you know, of things that you you're either reminding yourself of like a to do list item. But also, I want to check out one note, I want to check out feeling you put it on a sticky note yet There you go down, you know, so it's all right there. And a system is a system regardless of whether or not it's analog, or online, or cloud based or whatever, if it works for you, it works for you. Now, I think why we're here today is to talk about how we can make a system that you have worked for you. But also, maybe if it's not working for you, maybe we can give you ideas to help it work better. What are your thoughts, Mike?

Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of, it's a double edged sword, right? Like, there's a lot of options. But there's the challenge in that. And I think the key is, don't try to get it perfect on your first pass. Just try, you know, one small thing that will be better. Give that a test drive. And then over time, you will naturally evolve maybe, you know, into and out of different tools and systems. But but it's impossible to try to get it perfect right off the bat. So just you know, going in knowing that you're going to change I think helps a little bit.

I totally agree. And I'm looking at the comments here. And you guys have a lot of thoughts, which is great. And then for those of you who are new, you will get this recording that you'll also get the chat box messages. So if you can't keep up with some of the ideas that are going through, that's okay because you'll get a copy of it. Rocket book You know, I haven't thought about rocket book in a long time rocket book. We're next to Evernote. And so, um, you know, Heather, do you? Do you want to come off Mike and talk to us about how you use rocket book?

Poorly, actually, but I have I have a professional one and I have a personal one and that and the personal one actually connects to my Google docs on my you know, in my personal account, I have not connected the professional one into something. So I'll probably I usually scan those in and then move them over. But you can write all your notes for those of us who like writing on paper. And actually care. I'll show you what it looks like because it just looks like a note bar.

So here's my professional one. Yeah. And it's just, it's just a notebook. Yeah. Um, but then. Sorry, I'm trying to get rid of the blur. So you can? That's okay.

Let's see.

So yeah, it's just a notebook. But then there's a QR code down at the bottom. And there's a couple of little symbols. So you can actually set it set up the app to see those symbols. And then when you circle one of the symbols, it'll drop it into the drive or the folder that you have connected to that symbol.

Yeah, that's a very nifty product that they've got going on. And to an eighth point, yeah, the subscription price. I also dropped mine Office subscription, I went back to the free version of Evernote.

Yeah, I'm not fond of Evernote since they did that big update.

Yeah, it's just not. It's, it's, I think, not to put anybody off of Evernote. Evernote is a great tool to use. And I still have a lot of notes in Evernote. I used to keep my blog notes there, it's still a really handy tool. So if you are new to the Evernote ecosystem, you will find it to be very useful. If you're an old timer. You know, who's been using Evernote for a long time like myself, and it sounds like other than you, you've noticed some of the changes, and maybe you don't like some of the changes that they've made. But it's still, it's still a really good tool to use, I highly recommend it. And it's it's great because the subscription model, if you the free model only allows one device. And if you are really only curating from your desktop laptop, then that works just fine. The paid version allows you to connect your phone, your tablet, your you know your computer, and you can share notes directly between each of those devices, which is very handy. You know, so there's so many good tools out there to be able to use that and let's see, Evernote was competing with work notes. Well, actually, it's the other way around. Evernote was before OneNote before OneNote got its act together. And I saw that OneNote copied a lot of the things that were in that was in Evernote. I don't know, Mike, if you would agree or disagree with that. But that's that's the path that I saw it take.

Yeah, I met Shane and that for me, it's like trying to keep personal notes in Evernote, and keeping that note source updated. And then having separate OneNote for work stuff because we're a Microsoft Office, right? I'm just like, you know, I gotta give this up. So, because most of the time if I'm learning, I'm using that learning for stuff I'm doing at work, I'm just going to use it in my OneNote. But no, I agree with you. Because somebody asked about that comparison, I found my OneNote like I liked the interface. And I liked the way that they kind of separate it out. And I thought it had some different things to it. But there's only so many hours in the day. And since everything else for my job is all centered in Microsoft land. I just gave it up.

Yeah, yeah. And I think okay, go ahead, Mike.

I was gonna say I just want a quick comment on what Heidi said there is I run into this challenge to have, especially if you're in like a big corporation that has strict security stuff and firewalls, like trying to navigate I can get to certain things on my personal device that I can't at work and sometimes it's not a big huge deal, but it's just enough to kind of be a pain sometimes where you know where my systems break down or run into hurdles. of navigating firewalls and stuff like that. So the another part of the challenge,

like, what's your favorite tool to use

Feedly for, but like, by far, because it does so much stuff, like, you know, I can save stuff from anywhere I'm at into Feedly. You know, because I subscribe easily to Feedly I can organize stuff. So for me, that's that's far and away. My the, the one that's been most useful for me personally. Note Taking wise I, I'm a big fan of bubble up. It's, it's probably one of the most useful, so you can do notes. But you can also do files and images and you can organize folders. The nice thing about that as you can also sort of take resources you've collected, and then sort of selectively the column, they call them roles. So you can make a role, which is basically like a nice, nicely designed web page. So if you want to share your things with people, it's a nice way to do that, too. So it's got a nice, nice feature.

And how do you spell that?

It's B, UB, one L, up, mobile up?

Yes, I will put that in the

chat all of those. Another thing too is like I've got either you know, a bookmark or a browser add in, so I can just access this stuff. So if I find something I want to save in Feedly, or bubble up or whatever, it's just a click of a button. Maybe I give it a note or a tag. And it's you know, that part's automated too, which is super efficient. And I'm lazy, I don't want to do a bunch of copying and pasting. I hate that kind of stuff. So anything I can do to save me from, you know, having to type or copy paste or that kind of stuff.

Right. And I think that goes back to the automation part. Yeah, and I and with the tools with the abundance of tools that are out there, it's a matter of deciding what is it you want it to do for you? Right? Right, Erica?

Good. On that point, I was curious maybe to pick also, then Mike's brain on if I was hearing well, like Feedly helps Mike to if you're wanting it to scrub the internet, and you're telling it that you want to learn, you know, or capture information in regards to you know, generative AI tools for learning and development. I don't know if I'm totally out of line here. But then what do you do to make sure that you're checking or then going through and seeing if what it captured is, again, to our content curation standards that Shannon was mentioning, you know, oh, is this something I want to keep? Or is it something that I think needs to be deleted? And I want to get rid of it?

Yeah, so I think there's two to two parts to that. The first part, which I think you might be referencing is sort of the process of like discovery, like, how do I just discover new sources or emerging sources. So for stuff like that, you know, you can put in the criteria, you want to monitor and use something like a Google alert, or a service like Anders pink, if you're familiar with that, you can put in keywords, and it will bring you a bunch of stuff, wherever it finds it. So that's sort of the scouring the internet, that's, that's one piece, I don't really do very much of that. The second piece that sort of goes along with that is once you find a good source on whatever topic it is, is sort of plugging into that and subscribing to updates. So that's what I use Feedly for. And so I think I'm, you know, I'm old enough, I've been around a long enough, I know what I want to find and what I'm interested in. So I don't do as much discovery, I feel like I've built a process now where the people and sources that I'm following if there's some new development, that I'm interested in that it'll find me. So there's kind of two parts there sort of the just pure discovery versus sort of keeping up with your interest. Does that make sense?

Yeah, and I think you bring up a good point that you just kind of glossed over, which is tools like Google alerts you know, so if you have a topic or or a company that you are a person that you want to keep track of Google Alerts is a good way to do that.

Yeah, but if it's something that's like super time sensitive, it's you know, financial industry, you know, you need to keep up with things like, like, real time, you know, that stuff maybe is more important. Whereas, you know, my interests aren't that time since sensitive. So that's, you know yet another factor to consider.

Chris?

Yeah, thanks. I'm going to ask Mike this question. How many things are coming at you and you're feeling? I mean, I think we may have talked about this last time you were on because I'm still struggling with the whole how do you discern or decide what it is that you want to get?

Right? So obviously, it's it's personal, right. And that's the, one of the things I like best about Philia is I can control and organize what I'm consuming and when. So I've basically got three categories of stuff. And Feedly. lets me set it up this way. So I have my a list stuff, which is some small number, maybe 20, or 30 sources, right, that's the stuff that I know is the best of the best. And if they publish something, I want to see it relatively quickly. So that's the stuff I look at every day, I look at my alias sources every day. If I have a little extra time, I'll drop down into my sort of be list stuff, which is still good stuff. But that's not the you know, top shelf. And so if I don't get to that every day, it's okay. But get to that couple times a week. That's cool. That's a bigger bucket. And then there's everything else, which is a much, much bigger bucket. It's sort of a little more random, a little more diverse, a little more far afield. And if I don't ever see that stuff, I don't care, I can just go hit mark all as read and start over. And so that's me sort of segment things into priorities like that, which is really nice.

Yeah, I just, I'm just like, how do you do? Hey, have you 20 or 30 sources? And do client work? And do

Yeah, but so some 30 sources or so in Feedly? I think I subscribed if he'd be like, seven or 800 sources, but that doesn't mean I'm reading that every day. That's the beauty of this is those 20, let's say on my a list is 20 sources, they're not publishing stuff every day. And so 20 sources, is really not very much, because it's coming to me, and I don't have to go 20 places to look for it. Right. And I go half of those, there's nothing new, so it's wasted time. And so I'm, I'm keeping up, keeping up. I'm keeping up with those 20 really, really well. I'm keeping up with that, you know, bottom 700. Man, maybe I see it, maybe I don't. But again, I feel like if there's something that's big or important that it will find me through multiple ways, so I'll see it one way or the

other. And I think that that's important to it's important to acknowledge. And that's why having these tools to help you organize things becomes critical. You know, and having a technique around it, having a process around your curation efforts becomes even more critical. Because you feel bad. I mean, I'm trying to wrap my head around seven or 800 pieces of information coming to me, in of itself. But But imagine having that many sources all hitting you with no organizational structure, or process around where it's going. Now that makes your mind go wide. And, but if you knew that those pieces of information were coming in and automatically being sorted and automatically being put into folders into the things that were priority for you. It's kind of like email, isn't it? It's like, that's why we use filters for email. That's why we use labels for email, you know, to help us to organize everything that's coming in at one time. This process is to me it's it's it's the same that's you know, the way that you organize data in your email bots could be the same way that you organize information that's coming into your curation feed

and I hate email for keeping up with stuff by the way so I yeah, I even email newsletters you can send to Feedly also, there's some easy ways to do that. So email I want to sort of keep minimal amount of stuff in there because it's it's too hard for me to manage even with folders and email I like it's just it's just more effort for my brain to sort of remember what's where and stuff and so, you know, I don't get email newsletters in my email, I send them to Feedly

not Smart. That's probably a process that you'll walk us through in your in your learn something new. Okay, excellent. And I see the question here from Joyce, what do you do if you're in a department where everyone does their own thing? And I noticed? Oh, was it neon? No, it was Michael, I think, Michael, you mentioned something about, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it wasn't you, Michael, you mentioned something about putting information into teams.

Let's see. That was Michael. Was it mike on and I don't see Michael, Michael must have left desks, I don't see him in the list anymore. I would like anyone else using teams for this sort of information. Rene

so my role or my team of learning development people, is to keep us organized. And one of those things is just to be ruthlessly committed to doing it. So when you put something in there, put it in the right place, or if it needs a place created, create it in the right place. And then if you see somebody put it somewhere wrong, let them know they did it wrong, and then put it in the right place. I think the key is to be very efficient, and and keep up with your systems, whatever they are.

Why, and I think that having a an agreement. Right, Rene. So here's our agreement, that as a team, we're going to use XYZ tool, you know, for our information. And even though people go rogue, we are rebels, right. And so even though you go rogue, you know, you pull those people back in. So I think it's important to start with that kind of an agreement in the first place. Right?

I would agree. And it was sort of forced on us by our company. They said, This is what you put in teams, and this is what you put on our intranet. And that's how we're going to do it going forward. So that's how you do it.

Right? And sometimes there's got to be, you know, mom or dad that says, Okay, here's where it's all going to go whether or not we like it. Yeah,

it was that way back then. But I, you know, I appreciate the the the collaboration that you can do on TV. And so it does make it a lot better, because emailing documents back and forth to collaborate on them. Was it serious pain? And you just eliminate all of that? So I mean, I think it is I think they were right to do it with did they do it in the right way? That's another question.

The thought behind it was was the right good? Yeah. All right, Erica.

Yeah, I have responded to Michael's comment that one of the things that I tried to do when it wasn't something that could be pulled down as a natural document, and then be catalogued, like Michael was talking about maybe inside of a topical folder system inside of whatever that team channel was, I was starting to play with the wiki tab, that's a part of teams to be able to, to catalog and group than URLs. Because if it was, you know, just again, a source that didn't allow you to be able to pull it down nicely into Mike's comment about like trying to copy and paste it and make it a Word document or something like that. Like, who cares? Like that's a waste of my time, let me just grab the URL, then there wasn't a way that I found that had the ability of a central repository for URLs. And you know, you don't want to lose it in your chat thread, because then you're like, Oh, didn't we share that thing? And so that was something that I had attempted to do as a part of content curation. And in that manner, and then to the point that I think, not Rene, but the question that was asked by Joyce, you know, there's that buy in, like, do we buy into this? So whoever your team is, and the size of your team, Do we all agree to do this? And I loved how Renee was saying, you know, being ruthless to keep that commitment, then on whatever that choice was?

Yeah, absolutely. And tools like teams, you know, where you can create channels for certain pieces of information, if you wanted to segment that out, you know, would allow you to do that. The, I think using Mike's curated mod All as a blueprint for your curation efforts for everyone, then is a great way to start. So if you come together and you pick a tool that's going to do the right things for you, and automate the things that you need it to automate, and then put behind it, this foundational curated tool, then, you know, maybe you've got a recipe for success. And the you know, I've never used the team's wiki, you know? So I don't know, I love wikis. I'm a big fan of wikis love them, you know, but I've never used their particular tool. Anybody. Noel, do you want to expand on that? Or Mike, do you have any information about Yeah,

I think somebody who can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think there's been a recent update, where you can put shared one note in a Microsoft team. So it was one of the tabs on your team, it can be a shared OneNote. And there is a browser add in so you can sort of clip things from the web into your OneNote that then automatically gets shared to teams. Okay, so that's a that's, I think, relatively recent thing. That's a big improvement in the the flow of how you can capture and share stuff in teams.

So unless they've changed it, one note does have some limitations about like, it's works better if there's one person putting information, the one note, and everybody else on the team is consuming the information. Because editing it in teams is difficult, if not impossible.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so I don't think it's a great place. But it's a better option now than what it used to be. Oh, with the old with the old wikis, because that was really manual stuff.

There's a comment in here from Heidi. So Heidi, what, what

just happened because my team, we use a couple of things. It's up on my kind of our admin team around Mr. LMS, in that, and I clicked on the wiki one, and it says team's channels no longer support wiki tabs, yeah, that your content is saved, you can either export your content to the OneNote notebook and the channels Notes tab, or access the content on the wiki app. You know, Microsoft is doing a lot of stuff in those separate app, kind of things we had played with, with the wiki tab on there, but then we kind of, we moved away from it and didn't really move much. We do have a OneNote. That's a shared notebook as a team. And then we also, we love to Trello as a team previously, but our organization encouraged us to embrace the free tool provided by Microsoft. So we use a planner board, I use that, you know, it just doesn't have some of the bells and whistles and some of the nice things that Trello offers. But that planner board is right inside of our team. And so when we meet every week, we go through our tasks and other stuff. And we keep one of those lists for links to resources and stuff that the team needs. So that's kind of how we started using the wiki tab. And then we got away from it. And I guess that's a good thing, because now they don't support it.

Yeah. I love Trello, too.

Sorry. Microsoft does a lot of good things. But usability is not really one of them usually.

Yeah. Which is why I hesitate. Google also does that, which is why I hesitate to get invested in a Google tool, because as soon as they figure out that it's not working, they just they have no, no issues with pulling it back.

I'm still I'm still recovering from them killing google reader for that was the best thing ever. Yep.

For sure, and when it was easy, and it was free, and you know, so now you have to use work arounds in order to use Google Reader. And I agree Trello Yes. So we that's something we haven't talked about our project management tools. You know, our curations are adjacent. You know, so Asana, Trello, you know, which kind of work that Kanban type of user blocks. And so if you had blocks for different content sources, then you can put the content within the blocks, right? And now, whether or not you can set it up to automatically feed into that. That's kind of iffy, you know, but still, it's a great storage place. So if you find information and you want to categorize it in such a way you can do that or attach it to so certain projects, or if you're working on, let's say, an elearning course, or a regular course, for that matter, on, I don't know, Ladder Safety, and you want to curate all of these different sorts of data sets and articles around that you can put it into that Trello board. So you would have all the information in one place, right? So project management tools like that. Like I said, curation tool adjacent, I think it works really good for things like that. So what anyone using a tool like Trello, or Asana, or Monday, you know, to help you with sorting information.

I use Monday. And I experimented with Trello. Personally, I've recently started using an AI tool called reclaim, which is primarily right for scheduling and task task management that all feeds in Monday is where I keep my content request for and my high level projects. Then I put the details of those projects in discovery, etc, into Confluence organized by project. Oftentimes the artifacts from that if I do skill mapping, design, Docs, whatever that is that that ends up being my my company's a Google Suite company. So I'm still using spreadsheets. So I've got a long line of systems along the way. And that's not considering how I would deploy and build. I don't have an LMS. Or were really a CMS unless you consider Confluence that but yeah,

yeah. And I think it's great for like you said, gathering those artifacts, it's a great way to do that and have those organized, and especially if you need your subject matter expert to find them. Right. So it gives them that one stop shop for that one piece of information. Right, which is what curation is all about is giving people the information they need at that moment, or sharing information is the other part of curation, right? When we think about curation, we think about finding, synthesizing and sharing. And you guys heard me say this last week, you know, if we've got all of this information, we don't share it. We become information hoarders, and that's not who we want to be. Yeah. So how can we then gather it in such a way that other people can find it later? And I think what Noel is saying, is a really great way to do that you can help put your subject matter experts in contact with information that is important to them. Right, then that makes you useful and helpful. And that's what we all strive to be. Let's see. Good. bookmarking tools from Rene Rene asked the question about bookmarking tool. So if you use what marking tools you're using, put that into the chat. I I bounced between regular, you know, Chrome bookmarking. And I used to use the Evernote Web Clipper, a lot. That used to be my my bookmarking. But I also use Diigo. So di Geo. So I use that a lot, too. I use that a lot for some of my more formal research driven. So I put it in detail. For some reason my mind has categorized it that way. You know, Diigo is for formal stuff. I don't know why don't ask me why. That's just what that's what I've used. But like I said, Evernotes got a nice Web Clipper. And then of course, you know, the good old fashioned chrome star it. There's that Mike, what are you using for bookmarking?

bubble up and x tiles. I have some else. I have some old stuff. Still in Vigo but I haven't used it for a long time. I used to use it more than I do now.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

And the the one thing I would say about keeping them in your browser is a only you can only put them in like one folder. Like if you have something like Diigo has tags they can you can it's easier for me to find. Because when I when I save stuff, if I'm limited to one folder, for whatever reason, my brain thinks a different way when I go to try to find it then when when I thought it was obvious when I saved it. Plus, you know, if I save it on one device, I can't access it from my guess I guess Google bookmarks up probably syncs. So that's the other consideration of where you're Saving, can I get to it from multiple places?

For me, Google bookmarks are more temporary. So I'm using it at that moment, or I'm using it for a current project or for current research, and then I move it into something else. Heidi?

Any question for Mike? Because I think, I think actually, I started using pocket because he you? Yeah. I'm sure that it was you. Most of my tools have probably come in from stuff that you've shared. Why do you like no bubble up, or tiles better than when you previously used pocket?

I'm sorry, so I think it. So pocket to me is just, it's just a bookmark, I just save it, and I can get back to it. But I can't as easily share with those. So if I've got a group of things in pocket that I want to share, I kind of got to do something with them, copy and move them, paste them, whatever. So I think with with the thing with those other two tools is I can save stuff in there. But then I can also then turn around and share it back out in the same tool. And so that's that's one of the things which you can also do with Feedly. By the way, you can bookmark things in Feedly. And I do that that's when I'm collecting stuff for my newsletter every week. Philia something called boards. And so I can I have, I have one specifically for my newsletter, and I find things as I'm reading, and I stick it on that board then when it comes time to put it all together. Everything's in one place, I just pick and choose and, and write it. So that's what that's why I don't really use pocket anymore.

Okay, I like pocket, but it's not my it's not my go to Feedly is more my go to then than pocket. But I obviously, again, I think it all goes to what are we talked about this last week? Or last chat, which is what are your goals? Everyone's going to use their own curation tools differently, and why do you use it, and then find a tool that's going to help you meet those goals? You know, so if you are research driven, maybe you need to use something that's going to help you find or dig deeper to find the research that you need. Or if you are looking for you know, lots of input about a specific thing, then a certain tool might be better suited for you. So it's all about understanding what your goals are for you. But also, like we said before, whether the goal is for your organization, so if you're doing this from a professional standpoint, what does your organization require? Right? Let's see.

Or more likely, what does your organization allow?

Well, the Yes. And then there's that right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, how can you make that work? And sometimes this is why I, I tried to encourage you all to, you keep it in one pocket, you keep HR in the other pocket, you know, because you're going to need something from either of those groups of people at some point in time, you know, so buy it, or pizza every now and then to, you know, get in with them not to not not for bad reasons, but to get to know them, right? Because sometimes we only go to it only when we have problems. Right? You know, and that's not right. You know, and if you can have it help you to find tools that are going to make help your job be better and smoother and faster and more efficient. And you want them on your team. Okay. Budget. No, actually, I used to pay for that myself. I used to go to it is fantasy football on my the last company that I worked for. The IT department was really big a fantasy football and I used to buy the pizzas every draft day. And let me tell you, I got to play with a lot of tools. Because they were always like, oh, yeah, she's cool. All right. Thank you. Not everything. Not everything they approve, too, but at least they let me play with it, which is what's important. Okay, um, what else? Any other question while we have a few. Well, we've got a few more minutes. So are there any other sorts of questions that you all might have for Mike?

I like pizza is too by the way.

It's in the mail. Oh, oh. print these in the mail for you. There we go. All right. So anyone have any favorite, favorite techniques or recommendations or best practices, I hesitate to use that word because you know, your best practice isn't necessarily my best practice, but something for you, that you like doing. You know, what's a habit that seems to work for you too? So Todd,

I actually have a question for money. Have you come across any image catalog type programs that can make it easier to view or look through all the images in a particular course, like a viewer?

There's one, it's a Windows software, it's right on the tip of my tongue. That helps you sort of organize and catalog it was in my newsletter few months ago. I'll have to I'll have to go. I have to go look it up. Yeah, that works pretty well. Otherwise, that's also kind of one of my eternal challenges is managing 8 million things over time, right? We use them for so many times. And I don't know, if I had to have something that was in an old course or something, I'd be able to find it other than just taking it taken out of the course. So I that's probably my, my worst, least organized thing is, is digital assets like that, for course creation stuff. Although I now I would probably there's so much stuff available. Now I'd probably just go and you know, find something different. And it'd be faster than trying to find the original. Okay. But I wish I could think of that. I'll see if I can find it before we hang up here. If not, I'll share it.

I like this, Heidi, set an appointment with yourself to clean out your saved stuff. Yeah. And I think that that could kind of go to, you know, organizing your assets. You know, one of the things that I learned from Kevin Thorne A while back, was the importance of filing away your assets and different project folders. You know, so as soon as you start something, you have that folder for those particular assets and all those assets, you know, and I think that, for me, that was like, wow, why I used to keep my pictures in a picture file, and then all my assets in another file. But he's like, nope, keep them all together. And you'll always be able to find them. You know, it's like, oh, well, that was a forest of the trees kind of idea. You know, so I liked that. And Joyce, if I pull a document out of a folder, I leave a breadcrumb with directions. Oh, so Joyce talked to me about that. What What does? What does that look like?

Joyce, you're on mute if you are talking. Yeah, I can hear you. Now. There you go.

So we have a lot of files that are all over the place. And I don't like taking files away without, you know, getting an idea where it's gone. So people who search for it aren't like, where did this thing go. So I started leading, like, basically, like a Word doc or something like files that have been moved from this folder. And I say, this is the file that was moved to the old file, like not, should not be used anymore, like old, say, one OTL. So I go, this is the file has moved, who moved it, that's me. And where this is going? Now, here. So I didn't really delete a file, but it just kind of houses ways for people to use it again. So that's kind of why I have to do because right now, there's not really a set system or whatever, like what you guys already these files, here are these files there. But this is kind of what I'm trying to do too, so that you can clearly clean out the old documents that are not used to keeping you safe.

But does and I'm sure that's that's helpful, especially if you work in a larger organization or have larger teams, and people are constantly moving things around. So that's a very smart way of doing it. And that's a way that we can also manage some of our curated efforts, you know, is if we have to move or reorganize, you leave those breadcrumbs if you will, to let people know where things have been stored. And so Mike, you found something.

Chris found it for me. Okay, thank you, Chris. So it's called Eagle cool is what I was thinking of. It. It's a Windows image asset management thing.

Ah, Okay, we'll see it's called what again?

Eagle dot Cool. Is this?

Eh? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah,

I'm putting it into the chat now. There we go.

Okay, let's see. Oh, yep. You're gonna

work? Oh, that's cool. And I had to smile. So when before we head off because we are at the top of the hour, I had to smile when you said images. Because Mike and I have been on a hunt. Well, I have been on a hunt and I have been relentlessly bugging Mike for the last couple of months is that I have an image file of certain images. And I did not say where those images came from. And all I know is that it came from a link that Mike had sent in one of his emails months ago. And I'm like, Mike, you have to find this for me. And finally, I was able to least narrow down the months in which he sent the emails and we finally found it, didn't we? Yay. So now I can stop emailing Mike about please help me find these images.

You can email me anytime you want, Shannon, about anything.

Thank you. I think that that just goes to show the importance of an organizational structure, right. So I was able to narrow it down at least and say, that email came between the months of January and March, and I'm looking for these graphics, and he was able to find it. You know, so if you if you have your stuff in an organized fashion organized for you in a way that suits you, then that's the beauty of it. Right? Okay, well, we are at the top of the hour. So thank you, everyone, once again for joining me today. And don't forget, you know, if you want more of this sort of thing from Mike, we've got our Learn something new, which is in two weeks, where he is going to take us through these deeper dives of how to do all of the things that we're talking about today. You know, and if you are part of the community, you know, part of the community, the learning rebels community, you get, you know, percentage off, you know, so you get the for those of you who are part of the community, you get a certain percentage off for those of you who are part of the community Plus, you get it for free. So there you go. And you can't argue with at least I hope that you can't anyway, and here is the link to the community. And I hope to see you all there. Now, anyone got special plans for the weekend? No, my daughter is getting married next week. And for those of you who are regulars on the coffee chat, you'll notice that this is a different setup. And that's because I had to switch rooms because my mother needs a place to sleep when she comes into town. So I needed to switch where everything is located in my house. And so that's my big plans for this weekend and next week. So hopefully you guys have a good weekend. And thank you for joining me as usual. And we also have to give a shout out for Mike for spending some extra time with us today. So you guys, stay curious out there. And I hope to see you while at the next Coffee Chat, which is about what the instructional design role is today. What's the future of instructional design people? That's our next chat. All right, thank you, everybody.