Well, it's another example of how sometimes Science Fiction becomes Science Fact as recently, two excellent iOS apps have come across my radar which really show just how much touch interfaces are changing the way we use computers.

Both of them are useful to me as a charity fundraiser and one of them as a general consumer of media on a limited time budget.  If you have an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad then I'd really recommend you try them both, if for no other reason than to see just how slick they are.

Clear iOS App

Clear, by Realmac Software, is a very simple todo list.  It doesn't support images, times, dates, notes, reminders, links.  It doesn't sync to your desktop or Outlook. In fact it doesn't do a lot and it has a one line limit to the number of characters per item.

And yet, I've already paid for it and find it a very useful tool. You see it's designed for one thing only and that thing is to allow you to quickly make short lists. Every command is touch based, so to add an item between two existing ones, you pinch apart.  To delete an item swipe across. To mark as done, swipe the other way. To close a list pinch together. To move an item up or down, drag it. That's pretty much all there is to learn.

Your list can be displayed as a number of themes, my favourite being the heat map, where the most important items are up top in hot orange and red. As the items are listed down the page, they cool in colour.

Clear is not going to replace Omnifocus for me, the granddaddy of productivity tools (although I am in no way using it to it's fullest potential yet) But it is really useful for those simple lists that I usually write on a scrap of paper or an index card. 

Flipboard

I read a number of blogs using RSS subscriptions, as well as keep up with a number of social networks, mainly Twitter. My preferred method of doing so is now through my iPhone or iPod Touch. This has now become my equivalent of flicking through a magazine. Or at least I thought so until I was pointed in the direction of Flipboard which has recently become available on devices other than the iPad.

This piece of software has completely changed the way I consume this type of media. It has improved it by an unbelievable leap. I really mean this, I cannot believe how much of a pleasure it is to use.

Again, it is built around a beautiful touch interface, just like a magazine. Load it up with your subscriptions, Twitter, Farcebook, Instagram feeds etc and it will present the content to you as a beautiful magazine. Stories on Twitter with attached images display as if they were one item. Suddenly tweets have visual meaning.

You can also subscribe to a number of predefined feeds that bring in content on science, news, fashion etc. When Flipboard was first released many people commented on the lack of non-US media. Well this has now been fixed and I can read only UK centric news if I want.

To navigate, I simply flip the pages up or across. It's elegant and natural.

If I return to the home screen I'll sometimes see the app update with newer stories.  As it does, they flip or fold down into place. It is a beautiful thing to watch.

The developers have put a lot of thought into the way the app works and it shows. Click on a tweet and it not only displays the content, but who's retweeted and also the hash tags used.

If you have an Instapaper account for reading content without the guff (which if you haven't, I strongly recommend you stop right now and set one up - you will thank me in the long run!) you can send any item onto it to read properly on your Kindle or other device.

As a charity fundraiser Flipboard allows me to keep up with some special twitter searches I've set up that keep me up to date with a number of topics I'm interested in. It also allows me to catch up with selected third sector sites, thinkers and people who want to change the world, over my morning coffee.

As a general media consumer, it allows me to read and enjoy the content I'm intrigued by in a new, interesting, visual and fun way.

It, and Clear are game changers.

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If the world overwhelms you with its constant production of useless crap which you filter more and more to things that only interest you can I calmly suggest that you just create things that you like and cut out the rest of the world as a middle-man to your happiness?

More on my current thinking regarding Produce or Consume.  An excellent piece by David Tate.

Producers go out, study, learn, refine and create great stuff. Only then, when they have done something, do they blog, tweet, FB, G+ about what they did.

Consumers follow many people. They read. They keep up to speed. They are in the loop. They know a little about a lot of things.

If you're on Twitter go and look at some of your more inspiring feeds from people you really admire. Now look at how many people they follow.  What's their input (following) : Output (follower) ratio?

Producers and Consumers are an OR proposition, not an AND one.

I would not take a job now that required me to commute to an office. Yes, travelling to an office for meetings, to catch up with colleagues, to share some of the water-cooler banter that is important for employees to do their jobs and feel part of a team - I need this too, but not every day. Once or twice a month is just right.

People often assume that working from home is easy, especially those who do still work in a traditional environment. But it's not. I have no one looking over my shoulder, no one who would see those times when like most home based workers, I have been tapping away or having a business conversation over the telephone, whilst wearing wooly slippers and jim jams.

And the biggest difficulty from working at home, comes from the fact that my personal IT equipment is better than my employers. In many of the charities I have worked for, the hardware and software provided for me has been years behind what I would consider acceptable for my personal use.

The result of this is that there are times when I have the luxury to do something my office based colleagues can't. Turn to my MacBook, Pages, Google Chrome and newer version of PowerPoint and get some elegant work done. 

But having this flexibility brings one problem, the never ending rabbit-hole-time-sink that can be the internet. What may begin as research to find new Golf Clubs to pitch a fundraising idea to, can sometimes result in diversions to Twitter, Facebook etc. 

Which is where self control comes into play, or more accurately SelfControl. I stumbled upon this little gem recently and have found it to be a brilliant boost to my productivity. Essentially I run the app, list the websites, IP addresses or email servers that I find most distracting, tell it how long I want it to block those listed (on a convenient slider) and then start it going.

Until the timer runs out, all these sites will be blocked. Opening a different browser will not change things. I can even try a full restart but still, until that little timer reaches zero, I will not be able to access them.

I can add more sites to the blacklist while the timer is running, so as I'm working, I can further refine my mindfulness, but I cannot remove any. This little piece of open source software is a huge boost to my effectiveness, concentration and ability to stay on track. 

Mac only, though my friends. 

Despite Onmifocus, various Excel spreadsheets and even an !Action folder in Outlook, there are times when I still find the most useful tool to just Get Things Done is a small stack of 3x5 index cards held together with a binder clip.

I love the way that things can be moved, played with, and just thrown away.  It can be sat on, chewed by the dog, left in pockets and it's not a problem.

And it's simple.

Anyway, mine was looking a little dogeared, so with a template from D*I*Y Planner and some iPhoto fun I have now revamped the front cover with something that helps remind me why I go to work each day.

For a number of reasons I then decided to move away and try a Blackberry.  The argument for this was that the battery lasted over a day, I wanted a smartphone that didn't distract me with the ability to fiddle about on various apps and also BBM.

Well, over the months I've had it, I gradually found my Blackberry experience in terminal decline.  Too many things about it began to annoy me, on a regular basis. So I am now considering going back to an iPhone.

But I don't think it will be an iPhone 4s. I'm starting to weigh my decision against cost and the "good enough" factor.  The iPhone 4s has a better camera and lens and is able to shoot in HD.  But the iPhone 4 has a good enough camera, a good enough lens and can shoot in 720p video which, yep, again is good enough.  Even six months ago people were still raving about how high-end the iPhone 4 was. Please someone tell me what suddenly changed?

Which brings me on to the other marketing reason compelling people to buy the 4s - Siri.

Marco defends it in this post. But taking a wider and UK-centric view, I fail to see how it can be anything other than an (albeit very cool) gimmick at present.  In the UK it cannot yet find you your nearest restaurant or other item, because this service hasn't been rolled out as it has been stateside.  Yes it can send texts, add diary entries etc, which is all well and good, but it's not a good enough reason for me to spend £130 extra on. Also, if you dictate a text and Siri get's it wrong, which Marco states is at about a 50% hit rate, AFAIK you can either repeat the whole message, or edit it manually, with a digit...

Here are the current cost comparisons of the iPhone4 and iPhone4s from O2 (as of 27-1-12)

The iPhone 4S is a lovely piece of kit.  Siri hints at a brilliant piece of software in the future.

The iPhone can already be a brilliant tool in the charity fundraiser's arsenal - I'm sure if I do take the plunge that there will be a future post on this very subject, but for me, the best value is still the iPhone4.

A Canadian rock guitarist who had once rolled on stage in broken glass with Iggy Pop was now setting up a voluntary organisation in the UK to manage forums of volunteers for the NHS.  He was looking for a Project Manager.  He gave me my first job in the charity sector.  

In my first week I asked him why he gave me the job when I knew absolutely nothing about the voluntary sector.

He replied,

"I gave you the job because you know nothing about the voluntary sector!"

This proved to me that there are people out there who, like me, want to do good work, have fun and shake the world up a little.  I will always be grateful for that chance I was given.

Scott Harrisson was a nightclub promoter who now provides drinking water to those in need.  This line from his website explains that "We're not offering grand solutions and billion dollar schemes, but instead, simple things that work."

Jon Smallwood stands on his head around the world in order to raise money for cancer charities.

The world does not need more boring fundraisers.  They are ten a penny.  They do a great job and I applaud them but surely we can do better. In order to get a buzz from your work, think how your event would feel like if the idea not only worked but that at your signal uneashed hell.

In order to be energised by a new project choose to look at what you can do, without the limitations of what is already expected in your organisation.

The phone chord that is twisted, you know, the one that every time you pick up a call, pulls the rest of the phone towards you.  It's annoying.

"I must untwist that in a minute."

End of call.  Replace handset.

Another call, and the annoyance repeats.

I have a desk drawer that has too much stuff in it.  You may have a process in your charity that isn't elegant. Every time you process a payment or fill in a form or complete a report with boxes that are wrongly formatted you get annoyed.

But you and I tolerate this.  And every time we do, it takes away a little more of our energy and creates more of a resistance to doing the work.  This energy drain matters and it builds up over time.

Imagine that thing you are tolerating not being there any more. Imagine doing that task without the resistance.  Imagine being able to apply that extra energy that was not used up in tolerating to make the next task just that little more exciting, fun or wow!