My Favourite Tipples from a business intelligence publisher
Jinfo Blog

By Yali Friedman

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Yali Friedman, publisher of DrugPatentWatch.com, a global intelligence database. He shares his favourite online tools for better international communication.

Item

More than a decade after the publication of Thomas Friedman's influential book, "The World is Flat", globalisation is in full swing. The 2008 global economic crisis further spurred globalisation, leading many companies to increase offshoring, to reduce redundancies, and to curtail business travel. As a result, it is now commonplace to regularly engage with partners around the globe, without travel.

Here are some resources I use every day to manage international communications:

• Join.me: Webinars don't have to be complicated. Join.me doesn't require meeting participants to install anything (only the host needs to install software), and it has all the bells and whistles you expect - VOIP, screen sharing, and video conferencing. The real differentiator, however, is the price - it's free.

• Synchronize (iOS): Information managers often deal with business units, or clients, in multiple timezones, and memorising the most common commercial timezones no longer applies. To help manage times between multiple timezones I use Synchronize. It lets you pick the timezones you want, and then you can use sliders to set a target time either in your timezone or in another timezone to find compatible times for meetings. (For Android users, a similar app with a different interface is ChronoZone.)

• Streak: Streak is pitched as a customer relationship manager for salespeople, but it can be used for many other applications. Just as sales leads can be organised by progress from lead to proposal, partners in any project can be placed on Gantt-style charts and the email chains for each partner can be compartmentalised for rapid recall. An added bonus is the ability to schedule emails, so you can either set an email to arrive in someone's inbox during their working hours, or you can email yourself a reminder to arrive in your inbox in a few weeks.

• f.lux: Working with people around the globe sometimes means late nights in front of the computer screen. To reduce eye strain, and potentially to help you sleep better, f.lux (available for Mac or Windows) adapts the colour temperature of your screen to cast warmer hues at night. It's a subtle effect, but once you start using it you wonder how you worked without it!

For fun:

• Serious Eats Food Lab: As a former bench biochemist, I see food preparation as a scientific endeavour. The Serious Eats Food Lab has articles and videos on food preparation techniques, with a strong technical angle. Whether you're looking to cook the perfect sous vide steak or an asparagus mushroom risotto, you'll find recipes and guidance here. 

An article in Jinfo which I found particularly interesting:

• I really enjoyed Constance Ard's "Artificial intelligence and the evolving information landscape". As the developer of an information resource built on a core of computer-generated analysis, I am keenly aware of the benefits, and limitations, of algorithms in information processing and presentation. Constance does a fantastic job of describing the capabilities of artificial intelligence and the new opportunities it presents. Importantly, she also cautions readers to evaluate the maturity of AI platforms and separate capabilities from marketing hype.

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.

« Blog