Shortcuts – Organise Your Digital Life – A Weekly Show from IBM

It looks like lately I have been talking quite a bit about stuff related to IBM and although it is not something that I am actually doing on a very regular basis I am glad to see how every now and then I get a chance to comment on some of the cool things that are going on inside and outside of IBM, and all related to the Knowledge Management, Collaboration and Social Software areas, amongst others. It should not come as a surprise to anyone some of the stuff that IBM has been doing around the world of podcasting, for instance. I have been weblogging about this already several times; however, I thought that you would be interested in a single new initiative that has come out and which I am sure you would be looking forward to it and, of course, subscribe. Let me tell you about it.

Check out Shortcuts (Organise your digital life – A weekly shows from IBM). An IBM external podcast offering where both George Faulkner and Jennifer Clemente (Two of my IBM colleagues) will be providing you, on a weekly basis, with an online show "to help you make the most out of e-mail, IM, blogs and other great tools". I am not sure what you think about this but I feel this is just a superb initiative ! How many times have you wondered about performing a particular task and not having a clue as to how it would work? Then you start working your way through whatever the search engine and before you know it you end up in a web site doing something completely different to what you were supposed to be doing in the first place. Well, Shortcuts is supposed to be helping out in this area by providing you with some weekly hints and tips on how you can get the most out of the IT tools available to you. Pretty slick, indeed !

To get things started they have got a podcast with Rocky Oliver on how to tackle all that annoying spyware that we all get to experience on a daily basis while we surf the Internet. In that podcast Rocky is actually suggesting to make use of two different programmes that I have used in the past myself: Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy, to try to help out with that ever growing problem. They are indeed very good programmes, no doubt, but one other that you may want to consider as well and which I have been using myself quite a bit is Windows Defender, which so far has managed to keep my home computer clean and without any major issues. It is still a beta release but you can already download it from here and take it yourself for a spin.

Thus, as you can see, all these tips coming from Shortcuts actually have got another great purpose, which is also share your own tips and tricks to take control over the tools you get to use on a daily basis and be as productive as ever. That is why they are encouraging folks as well to leave comments or to actually post a question yourself out to the experts. Now, what a better way to build up on the collective wisdom of us all than to share some of the best tips out there and make them available through podcasts and / or comments.so that everyone has got the chance not only to learn from those tips but also at the same time engage in the conversations? Terrific stuff, don’t you think? 

I have already subscribed to the podcast myself and I hope you do, too. I will surely be catching up weekly with some other hot tips. I am certain I would get to learn a thing or two. However, for the time being just, take a look into what other folks, like Rocky himself, Alan Lepofsky or Ed Brill (Three of my IBM fellow colleagues) are saying on this new IBM initiative. I love it when people say that IBM has not been doing enough around the Web 2.0 world and then you bump into offerings like Shortcuts, amongst other others. But more on those later. One at a time…

Tags: Shortcuts, IBM, Tips, Hints&Tips, Productivity Tips, Spyware, Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Windows Defender, Rocky Oliver, Alan Lepofsky, Ed Brill