Webable Marketing's Blog

In the recent article "The growing productivity divide" , author/blogger Seth Godin points out a number of simple tasks that can significantly increase the productivity of individuals who spend a large part of their day interacting with computers and the web.

Here is the list of tasks:

• Can you capture something you see on your screen and paste it into Word or PowerPoint?
• Do you have a blog?
• Can you open a link you get in an email message?
• Do you read more than five blogs a day?
• Do you have a signature in your outbound email?
• Do you have an RSS reader?
• Can you generate a PDF document from a Word file you're working on?
• Do you know how to build and share a simple spreadsheet using Google Docs?
• Do have a shortcut for sending mail to the six co-workers you usually write to?
• Are you able to find what you're looking for on Google most of the time?
• Do you know how to download a file from the internet?
• Do you back up your work?
• Do you keep track of contacts using a digital tool?
• Do you use anti-virus software?
• Do you fall for internet hoaxes and forward stuff to friends and then regret it?
• Have you ever bought something from a piece of spam?

Now don't be worried if you were only able to check one or two of these tasks off this list because as Seth points out "it is not hard to find someone who will teach you". In my next few blog posts I will help you learn a number of these tasks.

Many of you may have heard of the term Web 2.0 and might even be regular users of Web 2.0 and Social Networking sites like Facebook, Linkedin, or Digg. If you do not understand any of the first sentence than you should do a little research and read what Wikipedia has to say about (Web 2.O , Social Networking, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Digg).

One of the main problems with the new web is that most users are under the impression that it is only geared to solve minute problems in your personal life. This is due in large part to the high profile sites like Facebook that in most cases are time-killer sites that offer very few real productivity benefits (besides making spying on friends a lot easier). The reality is that the new web can in fact solve almost any problem you can think of and the quicker you learn to use its tools the more productive you will become in both your personal and business lives.

In the following blogs posts under the "Learning The New Web" category I will be discussing how to leverage the new web and its many tools to increase your productivity and become a more efficient web user.