How to Tame the Google Reader Beast
I cannot live without Google Reader, but I've heard from quite a few of my rss-friendly friends lately that they are overwhelmed by their reader. Fair enough. It's not easy when that tab in your browser is taunting you with "Google Reader (1000+)". On top of all the responsibilities we have, the last thing we need is to feel guilty about all the reading we have to get to.
While I have had the cursed 1000+ appear, I am not daunted by this. Here's how I cope without simply hitting the "Mark All As Read" link.
1. Make sure feeds are organized in a way that makes sense to you, so that you can go to what you need to/are most interested in, most quickly. I work for an education nonprofit, responsible for web marketing and production. So, here's my list: "education", "marketing", "nonprofit", "search", "web" and the very important "life" category.
2. Always make time for the feeds in your "life". For me, this folder includes Bostonist, Mint.com, CNN Political Ticker and (I'm not ashamed to admit this) Pop Candy. I think it's really important to take a break from the constant web work and have a little fun or even just deal with the other priorities in your life, be it finance, politics or pop culture. Yes, I know we should still go for a walk, but sometimes it's more convenient to go for a mental walk instead.
3. Skimming is necessary. The beauty of the Google Reader is that it's designed for skimming. It's amazing the way our brains can adapt to bits of information rapidly flying through the screen. I've managed to go through hundreds of feeds, finding the ones that are really relevant to me, or that I want to learn more about, pretty easily. Now that I've fully converted to Mac, I've found that one of its wonderful features is the two-finger touch scroll. Wow. Talk about skimming. I can fly through TechCrunch feeds like Evelyn Wood.
5. You can still hit Mark All As Read, but be selective here. Go through your feeds in each folder, by each website. See the ones with the big numbers? Be honest with yourself. If you've got 400 posts from this website, will you ever really go through all of them? If you think you will, great. Set aside some quality time and do it. It's really important to you, so you'll make the time. If you think you won't, hit Unsubscribe. It's better than hitting "Mark all as Read" all the time, because the chances of you getting to 1000+ will lessen. Also, chances are if you're subscribing to similar web sites, you'll get duplicates anyway. Choose your favorite(s) of the similar ones and unsubscribe from the others. If you want to delve deeper into a post you read about, do a blog search and you'll likely end up finding more good stuff. And who knows, maybe you'll find out about some other great blogs!
Another Boston Nor’easter!
We're getting socked with another Nor'easter. I love Boston, I really, really do -- as long as it's not winter. Is that fair to Boston? I'm not really sure, but that's what it is. I'm annoyed that I can't go to work today. I have lots to do. Fortunately, I can do a lot of it online, and as much as I'm a fan of the idea of telecommuting, I think face to face meetings are so critical. But I can't really do those meetings in my pajamas. Pluses and minuses, eh? Pluses and minuses.
Good help and software is hard to find and assess
My head has been spinning this past week. I've been on a mission to help my org sort out a technology problem. Can we get a one-stop-shop hosted, yet fully customizable (i.e. template mods and form field additions) transaction platform that includes event registration, donations (one-time and recurring, preferably) and a store? Oh, yeah, and it should be affordable and not lock us into a contract. We're a nonprofit, so we can demand these things... right?
Well, the good news is that there are options, but it's been so difficult to find. GiftTool seems to do what we want, but I'm nervous that there hasn't been much use and we can't play with it ourselves before signing on the dotted line (only remote demo from a sales dude). There's Click and Pledge, Shopify (doesn't really do events), NEON, MemberClicks and some others. But how are we supposed to know who to trust? What's good? What have others used? It's an incredibly labor-intensive process.
Well, I've got a few thoughts on the matter and am hoping to help implement something that will solve this problem, so I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you've got any thoughts on these tools, they're welcome!
Oh, and one more thing. After sending out feelers about this problem to some tech listservs, I also sent out a feeler for a freelance developer. Surprisingly, no one responded to this call either. I'm wondering if my delivery's off, I haven't hit the right group of people, or there's just a lack of flash developer freelancers out there. The hunt continues!
Major web survey findings complete
A List Apart conducted an extensive survey of web professionals. I was disappointed to see the gender disparities, let alone the ethnic ones, but I guess it's not too much of a surprise. It's nice to know that my new job title has added another woman to the small amount of female "web directors".
Roar
Get the A List Apart survey... be warned, it's huge. I only skimmed it.