The thing about useful stuff is

Zipiko - meeting friends made easy Monday, November 10, 2008

Zipiko is a new approach to arranging meet-ups with friends that I can imagine catching on, which is showcasing at Le Web.

In concept it is very similar to Upcoming.org or even Meetup in that it is orientated around the notion of publishing events which your friends can see. The service is free [no ads spotted either] and is entirely web-hosted.

Members set up an event, detailing time and place plus comments. Thereafter friends can either be specifically invited or the event made public amongst your friends who can choose to participate in the open invite. Hence you can see events that your friends are organising and elect to opt in e.g. join your friends to watch the rugby in the pub.

I found that setting up an event was very easy and intutitive, via the simple online interface. Likewise, inviting friends was very easy. Interestingly the service currently send free SMS messages or emails to invite people, as well as notifying you of their responses.

To add friends to your account, you have the option of importing your phone contacts as well as importing contact from Gmail. Any friends you do add have to positively accept your invite to connect. I confess that didn't find either appealing since my address books co-mingle friends and business contacts. I think they should definitely be looking to add the capability to import contacts from services like Facebook, Twitter etc and you can buy code to do this off the shelf these days for less than $100.

The site claims it has been configured to be easy to use via mobile phone and a brief check on my own Blackberry phone browser did confirm this.

Connecting your events to your calendar is possible albeit only 30 Boxes appeared to be supported when I tried.

Whilst I understand that the team behind this are keen that you regularly use their site, I think the service would benefit from creating an ical feed of events from your "crowd" that could be accessible by calendar applications, with entries that link back to the Zipiko site. I say this because Gmail and Google calendar are two webapps I use constantly whereas I am initially less likely to have Zipiko open constantly. Likewise, it would be great if you could "send an calendar invite" to your own Zipiko account from say Google calendar to be added to the events list.

Worth trying when organising your next social meetup.

Labels: gmail, Google Calendar, meeting, meetup, social networks

posted by John Wilson @ 8:43 PM Permanent Link ,

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Making people more accountable with Zapproved Thursday, August 14, 2008

Everyone in large companies can name them - the people who actively seek to avoid making a decision, in case they are held accountable. Or more specifically those who are happy to accept the glory if it goes well, but who've done enough to distance themselves from being party to a decision that didn't turn out well.

Whilst decisions may have been made in meetings they attended, somehow they insist that theirs was the "questioning/doubting" voice that was overruled. Sound familiar?

At the same time, there are plenty of occasions when decisions seem to just simply drag on and it's unclear as to who's holding up the process or even what decision is being requested.

So, I quite like an incredibly simple service from Zapproved, which is effectively a voting service, that records and tracks the decisions made. Is it perfect - no? Could it be easily replicated internally - are you joking, do you know how long it would take to get approval for an internal project that set out to do this, let alone develop it!

I know people who've tried to use voting buttons inside Outlook emails, but they lack the audit trail offered by Zapproved.

The "proposer" sends an email via the service which details the decision required, a due date, the project to which it relates and an importance level. A supporting attachment can be included if required.

Decision makers receive an email detailing the proposal and embedded buttons to "Approve", "Deny", "Comment". This takes them through to a web page, where comments may be added. The results are automatically collated centrally and hence tracking awaited decision is very easy.

There are a few things that I think would enhance the existing service:

Decision-makers can presently see the decisions given by others on a proposal. I think that the Proposer should be able to determine if decisions should be confidential until everyone has voted. Sometimes, people can be too easily influenced by the decisions of others.
The dashboard could be made clearer by highlighting details of who has yet to vote and also sending auto-reminders to people as the decision date approaches.
It doesn't appear to accommodate majority voting on decisions, only unanimous verdicts, which I think it should since this is the reality in many situations

As it stands, there are still plenty of occasions when this tool would be helpful, so next time you are struggling to get a decision or at least highlight who is holding matters up, I'd suggest you make the decision to give Zapproved a try.

Labels: Decison-making, meeting, Voting

posted by John Wilson @ 10:14 AM Permanent Link ,

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Meet with Approval gets my seal of approval Friday, May 09, 2008

Meetings are often held in conference rooms

Image via WikipediaThe welcome page to "Meet with Approval" underwhelmed me, but after trying this meeting scheduler service out I confess to quickly upgrading my opinion of the site.

It has deliberately been kept simple and free of gimmicks, as a consequence of which I anticipate adoption rates will be high, provided people don't mind paying $30 for a year's subscription to arrange unlimited meetings via the service, after using up their two free attempts.

The site uses a simple form to capture meeting information in text form from the organiser, allowing them to specify multiple dates/times options for the proposed meeting from which invitees can signify their availability.

Invites are sent via the service and email address may be manually entered or imported from a range of services/locations like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo which is catered for [most sensibly] via Plaxo's address book widget.

You can also send reminders to non-respondents, a process which has to be manually initiated within the site.

Once responses are in, the organiser confirms a meeting slot and all invitees notified automatically.

Pros
- very simple to use
- suitable for meetings involving many people
- allows people to indicate all the times they can attend
- highlights most popular meeting time automatically
- attendees may leave comments
- paid-for service includes ability to apply your own corporate branding
- subscription cost is trivial
- excellent log-in, which avoids passwords and simply asks you to provide the answer to a memorable question you determined at sign-up

Cons
- Meeting Duration is shown in the comments to the meeting
- Comments are the only way for invitees to suggest alternate dates/availability
- Unfriendly error messages

Unlike Timebridge which limits you to 5 time slots, I didn't hit a restriction on the number of time slots that could be offered to invitees.

Just to note, in testing I did hit "Runtime Error" screens when I attempted to cancel a meeting, which would scare unsophisticated users. However, this is an early version of the service and I hope such wrinkles will be attended to quickly.

Overall, it is simpler to use than Timetomeet, a free alternative, and the use of a list of options rather than a calendar display that needs to be scrolled through, will certainly be easier for most people to immediately comprehend. In my [painful] experience, when presented with a calendar view on these types of service, many people fail to appreciate that they need to scroll through the displayed weeks as some options offered may be out of sight. In contrast, a list view shows them all options in a concise and complete fashion.

Labels: gmail, meeting, Microsoft Outlook, plaxo, Timebridge, Timetomeet

posted by John Wilson @ 8:42 AM Permanent Link ,

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Jifflenow - Another appointment scheduler Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Following on from my look at Presdo here, I also took at look at Jifflenow which was renamed from iPolipo and is not to be confused with the Jiffle [a Norfolk term apparently].

This service is much more in line with my aspirations for a scheduling service, albeit its' functionality is designed for one-to-one meetings rather than those involving many people.

Hence, you mark up your free/busy times and assign these as being available to selected contact groups that you create e.g. clients, vendors, consultants. You assign individuals to these groups and send them an email notification that you have given them access to your calendar and can select times to meet with you. Permission to view your can be time boxed with a start date and duration that they can have access.

Once a contact requests a meeting slot from your available times, it is immediately removed from the slots that others can see, thereby avoiding double booking problems. If you are happy to accept the appointment, Jifflenow both updates your actual Outlook or Google calendar and sends an email confirmation to the other party.

Your privacy is protected because contacts only see Available/Free timeslots, not scheduled meetings. However, entries in your Outlook or Google calendar made independently of Jifflenow do not update your available slots and so you will need to make manual updates.

A very neat feature is that the calendar view for your contacts includes automatic time zone translation, allowing them to see their local times once they have selected their timezone on the calendar screen.

Jiffle is free for up to 10 meeting confirmations per month, after which you either have to upgrade or stop using the service! Importantly contacts don't have to subscribe to Jifflenow or install any software to schedule meetings with you.

I do have four gripes about the offering

- To send one-off meeting ad-hoc invitees is overly complex and should be simplified. Presently you need to highlight times you wish to show as available and nominate which pre-defined groups you are wishing to share this calendar information with. Hence, it appears that to arrange a one-off meeting, you either need to direct the invitees to your public version of your calendar [assuming you've made one available], or create a one-time use group for the meeting.

- Invitees can't propose alternate times via the service e.g. the following week or different times. Whilst this may encourage you to put all your free times on show, some professionals may not like to show a calendar with lots of free time, as it looks bad e.g. similar impression to seeing an empty restaurant.

- I'm not sure how easy it will be to maintain the permission "windows" if you have a large number of clients, unless you simply give them all permanent access to the calendar rather than say a month ahead. It will be too easy to exclude certain people simply because you forgot to renew/extend their access period.

- The integration with Google calendar only extends to your main calendar. Hence if your Google calendar consolidates multiple calendar subscriptions in one view, these other entries will be missing within Jifflenow. It may not affect many people, but I am one of the few!

Other than that, I like the service and can see it being very valuable to a number of professionals who offer one-on-one consultations.

Labels: calendar, Google Calendar, Ipolipo, meeting, Microsoft Outlook, Presdo

posted by John Wilson @ 4:04 PM Permanent Link ,

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Presdo - a disappointing way to schedule appointments Monday, April 28, 2008

As someone who arranges countless meetings, I'm well aware of the disproportionate amount of time they can take to arrange. It's for this reason that I am always on the lookout for tools that make the process more efficient.

Timetomeet has been my favourite for sometime, albeit services from Timebridge and Whenisgood amongst others have much going for them. This week, I came across Presdo.

Whilst it's simple to use and has a stylish UI, I was disappointed with the service.

First the positives
- the ease of entering proposed times to meet is reminiscent of Google Calendar's quick entry and it successfully interprets different ways of entering dates/times.
- the invites to proposed attendees are quick to send and there is no requirement for invitees to sign-up for the service
- Presdo does offer integration into Google Calendar in the sense that it will put the appointment into your calendar

Drawbacks
- you can only propose one time to meet, which the invitees accept/reject or propose alternate arrangements. This is no better than email, other than the fact that it keeps track of acceptances and much worse when you consider that for a one-to-one meeting, you would typically offer a selection of times to the other person
- If there are multiple alternate suggestions from different invitees, the service doesn't help identify an optimum time
- the invites have to be sent from within the service and can't be sent from within your own email. This is understandable since the service sends a unique link to each invitee which is created "on the fly"

Overall, this one scores a "miss" for me.

Labels: Google Calendar, meeting, Timebridge, Timetomeet

posted by John Wilson @ 9:57 AM Permanent Link ,

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Doodle - lets vote on when to meet Tuesday, April 01, 2008

I came across Doodle this week, which offers a variant on meeting time planning. You nominate a series of dates/times and then invite participants to vote yes/no on the various times. The online service, which is free, highlights the most popular time amongst respondents.

Creating the meeting slots for people to choose from is very easy and entirely text based, thereby avoiding concerns about java or flash incompatibility problems that you can experience with some services.

The organiser emails invitees a link to the schedule from within their own email client, rather than from within the service, and invitees submit their votes for the meeting times shown.

Pros
- very simple to use for the organiser and invitee alike
- free

Cons
- I couldn't edit the times of the poll once released, even if it was prior to anyone participating in the vote
- it wasn't possible to hide the votes submitted from others. Whilst this isn't always necessary it might be required in some situations
- participants had to fill their name in when adding their vote, rather than receiving a personal link that would track who had voted and not. Obviously this would have added complexity to this very simple app, but saved much time for the organiser.
- allowing free format names to be entered by participants on submission opens up the possibility of confusing the organiser e.g. multiple John's invited who only enter their first name when voting

As such I will stick with Timetomeet, but Doodle represents the simplest solution I have seen to the problem.

Labels: meeting

posted by John Wilson @ 8:43 AM Permanent Link ,

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Timebridge finally opens up Tuesday, August 14, 2007

A long time ago I registered to trial Timebridge, an online service designed to help you find times to meet others that are mutually convenient in a single hit, rather via a series of email-exchanges.

Well, some 9 months on they've finally opened up and dumped their tight integration with Outlook that they initially planned and ran in the private beta.

Techcrunch covers the launch here.

Having registered, I'm impressed with how slick it looks but two things are irritating
1. no ical integration. Whilst most of the world probably use Outlook or Google calendars which Timebridge does support, I'm delighted to be using Airset which is ical enabled.
2. you are limited to suggesting 5 times for a meeting. That may seem a lot, but when you are suggesting an hour or two here and there, it's a painful constraint.

Both are these irritations are absent from my current service Timetomeet, which I think I shall probably be sticking with. It too is free to use. Whilst it would be easy to move, I've gotten used to the equally excellent interface they offer.

I'd agree with many who suggest that this sort of feature should be embedded within calendaring applications like Google calendar or airset, but as they are not here are some others you may care to also try

http://www.diarised.com
http://www.timetomeet.info
http://www.doodle.ch
http://www.ipolipo.com
http://tungle.com
http://www.biz-e.com

UPDATE

Yori from Timebridge kindly left a comment on this post and drew my attention to one EXCELLENT feature I hadnt spotted and which will probably swing me over to Timebridge as soon as they add ical integration, namely automatic slot management enabling you to offer the same time slots to multiple meetings/people, without fear of conflict. To repeat his illustration, suppose you are to interview 5 candidates on Monday. You can offer the same time slots to all five candidates, and the system will confirm their times automatically and cleanly. This is a big win and a feature I've asked Timetomeet about repeatedly. Without it you end up having to remember to withdraw slots from the calendar offered to people - thankfully because it's held online, you can adjust it before they accept. BUT IT IS A PAIN.

Labels: calendar, meeting

posted by John Wilson @ 10:42 PM Permanent Link ,

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