Helen Crozier

So many to choose from but I love the protection and good looks provided by the Haul Sleeve. They also offer a folio. Made from recycled material in an assortment of stunning colours. Next day shipping from Melbourne. $69.00AUD.  Nice.

What to use when I need to place it landscape to get some  serious (typing) work done? Well I'm seriously considering the Compass seen here. $39.00 US. Delightful.

What are your iPad working solutions? Do you compromise looks for practicality or try to achieve both? I'd love your answers in the comments.

On Friday Google announced the following on their blog.

"Earlier this year, we announced that we will be closing the Nexus One web store. This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google."

Interesting news. Does it mean Apple really do have the strongest market?

I have not laid hands on a Nexus One myself - who has one and how do they feel about Google no longer selling them?

Sadly reminds me of when I was 'ahead of my time' and ordered a Xircom Rex 6000 PDA in 2001 thinking IT was the next big thing. Not much bigger than a credit card and with a massive 2MB memory, it contained my address book, calendar, tasks and notes which synchronised to MS Outlook 2000. I was pretty impressed - this was before the days of Palm. I was not impressed however when it fell from my purse and shattered along with my dreams at the time of being super organised. I never met anyone else who owned a 'Rex' either. Did you?

Diigo is a smashing research tool that I have been following since it's beginnings four years ago. Delicious is a more substantial source of links however Diigo lets you add more information about those links. For some a combination of the two tools will reward users with a more productive web research experience.

Diigo lets users:-

1. Highlight areas of text on your bookmark in up to four colours.
2. Collect and annotate screenshots and pictures.
3. Automatically save to  Delicious.
4. Access all bookmarks across a variety of devices including iPhone, iPad and Android. 
5. Send a bookmark to your blog.

In the process of gathering content for my soon to be released "Productivity Academy" I decided it was important to be able to quickly create ebooks for people to read on their iPads or digital reading devices. Just think about all those iPads being sold with empty iBook shelves!
It doesn't seem too difficult a process - a great subject for an e-course on my new academy!

If you are 'addicted' to iPhone apps and can't bring yourself to delete them set up a series of meaningful folders to group them. 

After installing the iOS4 update (allow at least an hour - click on 'update' inside iTunes with iPhone plugged in) you will be able to drag an app icon onto another one and at the same time create a folder. 

More instructions to follow if you get stuck but in the mean time here is my setup. It's much speedier having just one page!

If you have a 'page' you are out there in the open and not behind the 'locked' doors of Facebook. What this means is that you don't need to belong to Facebook to be able to view a 'page' and that accordingly the page is far easier to find in google.

The other positive aspect of creating a page is that people might just want to know about your business expertise they might not want to know how great your kids are at soccer or whatever. This is understandable. By creating a 'page' you can keep it professional and anyone who 'likes' your page will learn from your posts but not have to be your 'friend.

Try to keep it professional - there will be times when the lines are blurred but this is why I have created  www.facebook.com/businessproductivitygenius and slowly I'm getting the right people following the posts there!

Today I had a pleasant surprise. While viewing results in google analytics I found that I was number 1 ranking for the search phrase 'business productivity consultant'.

This is by no means a 'permanent' thing but it is something to celebrate. We all strive for such results and seeing as I had not employed a SEO consultant or service I was very happy with such results.

What could have contributed to this result?Most likely it is a combination of three important factors to do with the three 'key words' business, productivity and consultant.

1) 'Business' and 'productivity' are in the url or domain.

2) 'Business productivity consultant' was specifically placed in the title of the website after my name. 

3) 'Business' and 'productivity' were mentioned in the site description.  It's strange to think that other sites might not have done the same thing but for the moment I'm not even thinking about that but will just enjoy the position while it lasts!!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to escape to the Hunter Valley for two days 'away from it all'. The last few months have been somewhat intense with a lot of time spent online so I made the decision to do a digital detox. Taking the commitment somewhat seriously I even removed social networking applications from my iPhone. The iPad was left behind in my sock drawer (just to stop my son from kidnapping it but I did have my camera with me.

As it's battery was low I placed the  iPhone  in the Sony clock/radio/dock to charge. Blissful sleep came quickly in the luxurious five-star bed but was prematurely interrupted by the voice of non-other than Tom Peters giving me his five cents worth about kindness in business. The only 'music' I have is Tom's brilliant audio book 'The Little Big Things' and it appeared that the alarm clock had decided to 'go off' with Tom 'going off' ever so pleasantly at midnight!

Thanks Tom for your persistence! I listened to a few chapters in the car on the return journey home and made a promise to buy the paper version. The material in this book is just too good to not be able to write notes next too or quote from or read during my soon to be cyber-free sundays. Old fashioned values abound in Tom's material. It's thought provoking and great for anyone in business. You can even download excerpts from the website. Enjoy!

My colleague and astounding business development advisor Robin Dickinson (@robin_dickinson on twitter) wrote this post 5 weeks ago as a result of a conversation with another colleague and good friend Iggy Pintado (@iggypintado).

What exactly is it about and why is this post looking at becoming one of the big phenomenona of 2010?

1. Sharewords are the essence of what your successful business is about - a far sexier elevator pitch that is easy to remember and therefore spread.

2. The blog post which has over 750 comments has generated an incredible community without any fancy logins or memberships and from this  serious transformation is happening for anyone who has been 'given' their 'sharewords.

3. Robin and several other highly skilled facilitators look at the posts on a daily basis and ask pertinent questions of the person asking for help.

There is talk of a book evolving. An entry into the Guinness Book of Records too. If you need a change of how your promote your business don't delay in heading over and requesting 'help'. You will be amazed.

My 'sharewords' evolved very quickly - in case you haven't seen I transform technology into productivity!