Tools
Regular readers of Field Notes will have noticed that most of my articles are explorations of ideas in the search for meaning. As important as ideas are, my work in local government administration and consulting often requires a practical approach to translating ideas into workable solutions to real-life problems. To that end, I am always on the lookout for tools I can use to be more effective.
This article, then, is very different than most. It offers brief descriptions of a few software applications that I have found particularly useful lately. With one exception, they are narrowly tailored to do one thing very well. Unlike many apps these days, they are valuable even when not working in a team setting. Particularly appealing to me is that the free versions offer a lot of functionality.
I am not compensated in anyway by the developers of these applications so my biases regarding them are based solely on whether they were helpful in solving a problem I faced. That does not mean that they will be helpful to you, but they might. At least, these descriptions give you a starting point for your own explorations.
One of the challenges any city manager faces is keeping track of all of the things that need doing. I stumbled upon the KanbanTab Chrome extension recently and found it to be a very effective task manager. Those who have used Trello will be familiar with Kanban's stacks of cards or sticky notes: to do, doing, and done. KanbanTab can duplicate these but it can be tailored in any way that makes sense, including adding additional stacks. Individual cards can be text paragraphs, bullet points, or checklists. They can also be color-coded. Cards can be moved easily from one stack to another. Stacks are present on the desktop so that they are a constant reminder of what needs attending to.
There is one minor annoyance with this app; it appears automatically as the default page whenever a new tab is opened in the browser. On the plus side, this characteristic ensures that I am reminded what it is I am supposed to be doing instead of whatever else I was thinking about doing when I opened that tab.
I tend toward frugality. When I serve as an interim manager, I never ask to have business cards printed for me. It seems like a waste of money since I will only give out a few. On occasion, however, the lack of business cards is an inconvenience.
It occurred to me that there might be a smart phone app that would allow for giving someone a digital business card. That is when I discovered HiHello. The free version allows me to create up to four distinct business cards with the typical contact information and more. I added a headshot and links to websites. On the iPhone, the cards are stored in the Wallet and can also be accessed from a home screen widget.
When someone wants contact information, I open a card and display a QR code they can scan with their phone. In the alternative, I can email or text the card to them. They can choose whether to add this information to their contacts.
I wear a lot of hats. As a consequence, even with four distinct business cards, it can be a challenge to share easily information about my digital footprint. To address this, I have created a simple landing page through Biosites.com. My url -- bio.site/gregg -- is on some of my HiHello cards and on some of my social media sites. I list titles of positions I hold and links to LinkedIn, Field Notes, and my business site.
Sometimes I need help organizing my thoughts for speeches, presentations, or projects on which I am working. There are a variety of tools available for brainstorming and mind mapping but none I have found is simpler and more fun to use than Bubbl.us. This is a browser-based application so it can be used on any device. For complex topics, though, I find I need the display space on my desktop to realize the full advantage of graphically displaying my thoughts.
The beauty of this tool is that it allows for quickly jotting down ideas -- each of which appears as a colored bubble -- and then deciding what the relationships are among them. For example, I used Bubbl.us in one community to describe for council the challenges associated with unfunded liabilities for pension and OPEB, sources of cost savings, and alternatives for funding. It made for an impressive presentation.
The free version of Bubbl.us limits the user to three mind maps. For individuals users, unlimited maps are available for $60 annually.
There is a completely free alternative to Bubble.us, with no limit on the number of mind maps, available from Diagrams.net (formerly Draw.io). What is more, this site can be used to create a wide range of diagrams of all types and has a number of templates available for mind maps, flowcharts, and many other purposes. I used it a couple of years ago to sketch a site plan for an addition to our house. It is not quite as user friendly as Bubbl.us for mind maps or Microsoft's Visio for flowcharts, but there is a lot of useful instructional information available online.
Mind maps and flowcharts are handy tools to have on hand but are not appropriate when managing a lot of detailed information. That is when I turn to Airtable.
Unlike the other applications I have highlighted, Airtable is not intended just to perform a single simple function. It is a cloud-based database program designed for people more accustomed to working with spreadsheets. Despite having been around for about a decade, I am surprised how often I encounter people who have never heard of it.
I have used Airtable to track multiple data points for 350 individual attendees at a week-long government simulation, to analyze responses to surveys, to record input from strategic planning sessions I facilitated, to list contact and meeting information for regional manager groups, and for my weekly grocery shopping list. Various views of data are available including spreadsheet-like grids, calendars, Kanban cards, galleries, and lists. Gantt charts are available but not in the free version of the application. Data can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet if desired.
There is more to Airtable than I can meaningful address in this short review. Let me describe one particular example to give a sense of its functionality. I collected open-ended responses to questions on an online questionnaire I had prepared for a client's community visioning exercise. Answers were received from nearly 90 respondents and entered into the database. Each of the responses to every question was then analyzed and descriptive code words assigned, also in a column in Airtable. The application then allowed for sorting the code words in terms of frequency, from those used most often to those used the least. This was done for every question. This proved to be a very efficient way to analyze a large amount of qualitative data before preparing my report.
Of all the applications I have highlighted, I think Airtable has the greatest general utility. Particularly for individuals and small teams, the free version, which offers unlimited bases, is a real bargain.
Let me sum up by making this observation. The most effective managers are those whose toolboxes contain the largest number and greatest variety of tools which they are skilled in using. At least a few of those tools will be software applications. The challenge is to find those that provide utility sufficient to justify the investment of time required to become proficient in their use.