My Favourite Tipples from a Digital Workplace Consultant
Jinfo Blog

By Shimrit Janes

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Shimrit Janes, a freelance researcher and consultant who specialises in the use of social technology for knowledge sharing. Shimrit shares the tools and sources she's currently using to keep up-to-date with developments in her field.

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As I was looking back on the last time I shared My Favourite Tipples, from almost two years ago, what struck me was how my practices have changed, even though the need is the same.

The pressing urgency of making sure you're tracking the latest thinking, best practice, but also the practicality of clients' concerns is still there. What's changed are the sources I rely on for that information, as well as the tools I'm using.

Twitter and LinkedIn now feature less heavily in my arsenal, while the tools I'm using to curate what I want to read have become more personalised.

• Medium: Medium has quickly become my go-to source for reading more in-depth thought leadership and reflections from many of the people and companies I also follow on Twitter, as well as discovering pieces from people I wouldn't necessarily have normally come across. As it integrates with my Twitter account, I can see pieces from accounts such as "postfuturist" Stowe Boyd, as well as track curated collections of work on topics, such as work futures.

• Trello: I moved from Pocket to Trello (free) as my reading list builder a few months ago, simply because I found I needed a more sophisticated way of categorising what I wanted to read, what I'd read, and also taking notes from those pieces. I'd previously used Trello for project management and realised it would also fit my curation need better than Pocket. It means I can easily email articles to different lists, depending on which topic they relate to, and in my quieter moments find a whole raft of interesting content waiting for me.

• Newsletters: An oldie but a goodie. There's a daily digest from Medium of content that its algorithm has identified as of interest to me, updates from Deloitte covering their technology research, Post*Shift, and a number of others. I make time to go through them, and add anything of interest to my Trello boards.

• Canva: This is a fantastic online, free tool for creating graphics and imagery. There's a huge library of free shapes, icons, and images and they also have lessons and a blog to help you learn graphic design 101. If you're creating images for your blog, presentations, social media, or anything really, but you're not a professional, this is the place to start.

For fun:

• IanVisits/Londonist: Being a born and bred Londoner, there's so much going on around the city that it can be hard to keep track. These sites are fantastic for finding out about events, exhibitions, talks, gigs, and things to do when Netflix won't just quite cut it.

An article in Jinfo I found particularly interesting:

• An article I recently enjoyed was "Delivering the Right Employee Experience Through User-Centred Design", by Davina Gifford. The importance of a UCD approach can't be underestimated to make sure the technology you're developing is moulded around user need, and actually usable. Davina does a great job of setting out the concept and giving you enough information and resources to get started.

Contribute Your "My Favourite Tipples"

Would you like to share your "My Favourite Tipples" with the Jinfo audience? For contributor guidelines email catherine.dhanjal@jinfo.com or visit the Publish with Jinfo page.

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