From the desk of Mr. Monk

Digital Workflow

How do you work? I find myself with my mac or iPhone most of the day and because of this I always have a connection to the cloud. My workflow pretty much reflects this, with the exception of my moleskine notebooks; sometimes there is no substitute for pencil (or a biro) and paper. When I say workflow, I guess I mean general organisation and staying up-to-date rather than my graphic design stuff because you could just say “CS3” for that.

My digital workflow has been refined by growing up with computers. Now I think I have a very reliable solution. Google is a big factor in my ‘flow. Google Apps for your Domain is brilliant because of its centralised storage. Some worry about its privacy, but Google just seems so cuddly. Bless my naivety eh! Here we go then;

• Gmail - Solid, great storage and accessible from anywhere plus trusty imap (psst, google, we want push!)
• Google Calendar - With the introduction of CalDAV, I can sync with iCal, which means Ive got native access from my iPhone too. Perfect.
• Google Docs - Its all about the collaboration, and perfect platform for distribution.
• Picasa Web Albums - Online photo storage, great for picking and choosing photos as a team.
• Dropbox - Online file sync, bye bye memory stick.
• Twitter - Pushing out those ‘news’ updates (Mainly for Smile, I just use it to collect tid-bits).
• Tumblr - Reflect on my work and thoughts.
• Google Reader - Need to be up with the news.

These products seem to integrate into a pretty straightforward solution that works in teams as well as an individual. This list comprises of services that I use all the time, not just fly by stuff like Google Talk. There’s the usual stuff like mail for actually getting the emails and address book etc but you know all that.

It might look like I’m pumping out loads of nonsense at the moment but if I don’t get this out, I could be blocking my creativity? Maybe? Probably not. Still, it’s all reflection.