What are the tools that you as a communications professional use every day in your work? The tools that you just couldn’t live without?

This week on Inside PR, Martin WaxmanGini Dietrich and I talk about the top apps and digital tools that we use and that we recommend should be in every communicator’s toolbox.

First up: Evernote. An amazing app for taking notes, for organizing your ideas, for developing to do lists. It’s an app that syncs across all your devices – desktop, your table, and your phone. Evernote has a range of plug ins and extensions that make it even more useful. Gini has a Moleskin notebook that she uses to handwrite notes, which she then scans into Evernote to make them searchable. I use Evernote’s Scannable iOS App in place of a traditional scanner. Just point it at a document and Scannable will capture the document and import it to Evernote and enable you to share it via the channel of your choice. If you are still taking notes in Word and saving the notes as separate documents, consider trying Evernote. Your thoughts, ideas and images will always be a search away.

Next, Gini tells us about Zoom.us. We recorded this podcast on Zoom.us. It provides great HD audio plus HD video. (Yes, the quality of our audio is not all that we’d like it to be. That’s not Zoom’s fault. That’s because we are using WiFi to connect to the Internet. Clearly, we need to use wired connections if we want the highest quality audio and video.) Zoom.su enables users to set up meetings and invite participants, who can join simply by clicking on a link. Participants can connect to audio via the Web or the phone.  We’ve found this tool to be a far superior user experience when compared to something like WebEx or even Skype.

Finally, this episode, we talk about Feedly. Feedly is our RSS reader of choice. Feedly delivers the content from the sources that matter to us as soon as it is published. And unlike earlier RSS readers, it makes the act of subscribing as simple as copying a URL into the subscribe window. This is important to people who need to follow a specialized subject or a set of experts and who cannot rely on their social networks to tell them about something. Martin looks at Feedly as a “personal subscribe button” that delivers content to one inbox.

We want to know what you think about the things we discussed on this episode.

Leave a comment on the blog, send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the FIR Google+ Community, join the Inside PR Facebook group, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini DietrichJoseph Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

And we have a favor to ask: If you like this podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

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Thank you to the people behind Inside PR.

Our theme music was created by Damon de SzegheoRoger Dey is our announcer.

Inside PR is produced by Joseph Thornley.

Comments

  1. Marce

    I LOVE feedly just as much as you guys, and for the same reasons. Curious if you guys are using the free version, or the paid one with the fancy upgrades?

  2. thornley Author

    Hi Marce, I have a Pro subscription to Feedly. I’m not really conscious of which features come with that. I just want to support the people behind Feedly and give them the means to keep the product viable. Cause if Feedly went away, I’d be lost.

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