Flexamail is a free app that lets you interact with the web via email. You can use it to get and send Twitter and Facebook updates, perform Google searches, retrieve web pages, store files and more. If you’re stuck behind a firewall that limits web access or if you’re just the kind of person who lives in their inbox then you might find Flexamail useful. I made a quick screencast to show you how it works:

Do you use Flexamail or a similar app to circumvent restrictive firewalls? Let us know in the comments!

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req’d): Email: The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

I’ve been testing out apps that help other people get in touch with me or schedule time on my calendar for a call, demo or meeting. And while I’m blown away by the efficiencies that these applications are affording me, I’m also on the fence about this kind of accessibility. I’m used to living my life online, so it isn’t a problem of online access. But now the tools I’m using channel online access into offline access. Is that a good thing?

Some people have personal assistants scheduling their days. I use a combination of TimeDriver and TimeBridge right now. With TimeDriver, the online personal appointment scheduler, I can create Schedule Books, which are effectively discrete “mini calendars,” or carefully selected portions of my full workday calendar, that I assign to a given type of meeting or call.

For example, if you want to schedule a demo for me to review your application for WebWorkerDaily, you could use my Product Demos link. If you wanted to schedule a half-hour meeting with me at South by Southwest this March to demo your product or be interviewed by me, then you’d use this link. I also have a “let’s Hang Out at SXSW” Schedule Book for friends I want to make sure I see while I’m there. And I have a Schedule Book for my new women’s business podcast to record phone interviews. Each link reveals a discrete number of time slots, and my availability is dependent on my actual Google Calendar availabilities, so if I end up booking time with a client, it automatically removes those time options from TimeDriver’s Schedule Books.

TimeDriver notifies me by email about any schedule additions and inserts them into my Google Calendar. So far, it has been working wonders for me because I don’t have to go back and forth over and over to find a compatible time with people who want to meet with me, and I can designate specific days of the week and specific hours of the day to, say, demos or recorded phone interviews.

I recently reviewed TimeBridge’s Meetwith.me app, and I immediately saw a gap in my scheduling solutions: I wanted to be able to give certain people full access to my calendar to schedule something with me, but didn’t want to share my Google Calendar with them because they just don’t need that much information on a consistent basis. I also really liked the elegance of this calendar-sharing application. TimeDriver still feels like a bit clunky on the interface but the utility is good.

Since I reviewed Meetwith.me, I’ve already had three meetings scheduled through it, and there’s nothing about it I don’t like so far. However, I found that on the side of the person who wants to schedule times it’s not as easy to use as it could be. For example, one person scheduled an hour time slot even though we both knew the call would be half an hour. It just wasn’t clear to them as a new user how to specify a shorter time block.

As my time is more and more in demand for my business and more and more in demand for my home life (three-year-old, husband), I find that I need a work/life manager. While I’ve been working with a personal assistant, right now I’m still not comfortable using an assistant to handle my scheduling. I still appreciate the more personal touch, and even though using TimeDriver and TimeBridge can be a little geeky, I think it gives people the impressions that a) I’m very busy, and my time is at a premium; and b) I care enough to connect with them that I’ll put them in control of the scheduling so we can find something that works for us both.

Am I wrong about opening these “controlled” and secure calendaring options to others? And shouldn’t I be limiting the number of calls or meetings I have a day? Because I sure do feel overloaded. Maybe I am making myself too accessible. Last year, I was only able to carve out a 4-6 hour workday and could never get anything done. This year, I’ve rearranged a few things, spent a little more money on daycare, and have eked out almost a 7-hour workday, and yet I still find I don’t have enough time in the day. I don’t want to expand my workday hours any further yet still want to be productive. All these calls and meetings getting on my calendar are becoming a burden. And that doesn’t sound like a good thing to me.

So what do you think? How accessible is too accessible? And how do you handle your accessibility?

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As an online freelancer, I find myself working for people all over the globe. I consider this one of the perks of web work — how else can I work with such a diverse group of people without constantly hopping on planes? But diversity also comes with some challenges, especially when it comes to language barriers and cultural differences. The good news is that with the right attitude, these challenges can be easy to overcome.

The Language Gap

While I am trilingual, for each of the languages I know there are hundreds that I am not familiar with, so English is the default language that I use to communicate with foreign clients. Though every client I’ve worked with has at least some familiarity with English, a few of them weren’t fluent enough to express clear instructions. When this happens I just look for solutions that will help us communicate better.

My first approach is usually to confirm and repeat the client’s instructions. If I receive an email with a list of tasks the client wants me to do, I send an itemized reply to confirm that I have understood everything correctly. This is good practice even without a language barrier, since it lessens the risk for misunderstandings.

It also helps to encourage clients to express themselves naturally. For business communication most people feel that they must speak formally, sometimes to the extent of sacrificing clarity. If this is the case with your client, encourage him or her to speak conversationally and not worry too much about “sounding professional”.

Online translation tools can come in handy if your client has a hard time translating a phrase or idea into English. Ask your client to express the thought in his or her native language, then use translation tools like Google Translate and Babel Fish. Keep in mind that with these tools the results might not be accurate. For a better translation, you can ask around in foreign language forums or even visit the language section of Yahoo Answers. Just make sure you receive more than one answer to check for accuracy.

Still, these solutions might not be enough in some cases. Once, I had a client who had trouble with expressing negations. When she would say something like “write a list” she actually meant “do not write a list”. When I realized this problem, I would include graphics in my confirmation emails. I attached check marks for the things I would do and a cross beside any item I would not do. This taught me that it can be more helpful to use visual cues that substitute or complement your discussions.

But if communication becomes truly difficult and a do-it-yourself approach is no longer good for the project, it’s worth considering hiring a translator.

The Cultural Gap

Since what we have with clients is a business relationship rather than a personal one, it may seem like cultural differences won’t matter. But there are cases where there’s a difference in professional culture. The way you approach meetings, calls, and projects, may be a bit different from what they are expecting, and vice versa.

This was what happened to my WWD colleague Pamela when she worked on a startup project in France, which she wrote about in a previous article. Basically, she discovered that her definition of a vacation was different from theirs.

The solution to this is to begin your working relationship with a discussion on your preferred work process. How often do you need to report to the client? Should you be available for support at certain hours of the day? Will any of their holidays fall within the dates of your project? Formalize your work process by coming up with a project milestone sheet together. Discussing your concerns and committing to tasks in writing will help you both adjust your expectations before the work has begun.

Have you worked with clients whose language and culture are different from yours? What was your experience?

Photo by stock.xchng user stoll

My usual coffee haunt is within walking distance of my house. Today, I felt like branching out and went to a Starbucks in the next town over. Downstairs, like my usual place, is full of mothers meeting up with their babies. Upstairs, I was surprised to find five or six people hunched over laptops, quietly working. My usual place rarely has the library like atmosphere there is up here.

It made me think about the times I’ve worked in big organizations, beavering away at my usual tasks, and never looking up. Elsewhere, decisions are being made about new and old products, about keeping and dismissing staff, about emerging and dying markets. Those decisions are often telegraphed: changes in the amount of information, in expenses policies, in new managers and managers not replaced.

The problem is that we’re at our usual place, doing our usual thing and not looking for the signs. That’s why it’s important to read the intranet and the company newspaper, to read the trade and business press, to have colleagues and associates in other buildings and other divisions. Without them, we assume that everywhere is like where we are. And, as this Starbucks proves, not everywhere is like your usual place.

Productivity can seem so elusive at times. It can be hard to prioritize, manage the workload and stay focused, but with a few simple steps and a good dose of discipline, you can be on your way to more control over your days.

1. Plan your exit. Productivity for tomorrow starts today. Set a time to leave the office and stick with it. An hour before that time, have a wrap-up alarm remind you to start wrapping things up for the day, a great tip from organizational and productivity guru Julie Morgenstern in her book, “Never Check E-Mail in the Morning”.
2. Plan tomorrow. Set your intentions and priorities for tomorrow during the last hour of your day so that you hit the ground running.
3. Set your boundaries. At quitting time, turn off the computer (completely off so that you’re not tempted to “quickly” check your email), turn off the light, and shut the door. Don’t return until it’s time to work tomorrow.
4. Honor a bedtime routine. Two or three hours before you want to be asleep, begin a routine of winding down. This will be different for every person, but it might include: no more phone calls or connectivity with the outside world (unless it’s an emergency, of course), no more talk about work, a bath or shower, a cup of hot tea, light reading, journal writing, no television, and lights out at a set time.
5. Start the day off right. Wake up at a set time. Exercise or do yoga for fifteen or twenty minutes, unless you have another workout routine that you prefer. Eat a healthy breakfast (don’t skip this, as it affects your energy levels for the rest of the day). Set out with the right intention for your day by taking care of yourself first.
6. Maintain your boundaries. Don’t immediately go to your office and start checking emails or news feeds. You’ll be at your computer all day. Take some time for yourself and other priorities in your life, or they’re less likely to get done later in the day, especially after work.  Have some coffee, write in your journal, read, or go for a walk. Just take some time for yourself before jumping into your work day.
7. Avoid or limit email time. Avoid checking your email right when you go to the office, or if you prefer seeing if anything important is waiting, at least limit your time to fifteen minutes so that it doesn’t distract you from more important tasks. Email is a huge time suck; if you don’t control it, it will control you.
8. Avoid or limit news feeds and social networks. This is another time-suck that easily distracts from other priorities. Set specific times for keeping up with the latest news and updates, and then be diligent about staying away from the distractions.
9. Start with your list. Jump right to your list of intentions and priorities that you jotted down the previous day. You were probably much more focused and honest about what needed your attention when you were planning it out with a clear head. First thing in the morning, it’s easy to want to procrastinate or give too much importance to trivial tasks and to-dos.
10. Check in often. Set yourself an alarm for every hour or two. Don’t let yourself get too far off base from your intention/priority list. If you do get derailed, at least you’ll not lose much time this way.
11. Work in blocks. In a business, it’s easy to have a wide variety of different types of tasks. There might be client work, writing and publishing, and marketing-related tasks to be done. Groups these tasks and complete them in scheduled blocks of time, say two- or three-hour sittings.
12. Stay disciplined. When you finish with a particular type of task, like work for a specific client, don’t pick up that client’s work again until his/her designated time comes back around again. It’s easy to be tempted to do “just one more thing” for a project, especially when clients are emailing feedback and updates throughout the day, but avoid the temptation. Treat all time blocks with equal importance, whether you’re working on client projects or doing lead generation tasks. It’s all important, and if you don’t maintain a balance between current work and future prospects, you’ll experience peaks and valleys with your revenue as well.

It’s not always easy to stay on track. Time flies, distractions can beg for your attention, and deadlines loom, making you feel pulled in one hundred directions and unable to keep up with the demands, but by approaching your work with purpose and discipline, it’s a lot easier to get things done and feel great about what you’ve accomplished.

What steps do you follow each day to stay on track and productive?

Photo by Flickr user SC Fiasco, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Some online meetings seem to drag on forever. You can’t even start edging for the door to get the point across to a particularly long-winded speaker, since he’s not going to be able see that subtle gesture. What can you do to keep a meeting moving along when you may not even be in the same country as everyone you’re talking to?

1. Choose a meeting space with a timer. One of the problems with many online meeting tools is that there isn’t a built-in clock. A few, however, do display the time that a meeting has been going. Just having that ticking timer can help keep people on the agenda, especially if your agenda offers attendees a set number of minutes to talk; one such app is MeetingMix.
2. Don’t wait for late or missing attendees. If your meeting is set to start at noon, it starts. As long as you either assign a notetaker to keep in-depth notes or use a tool to keep track of notes, people who miss the meeting can catch up.
3. Tell the other attendees that you have to log off at a certain time. While there are some meetings that you can’t just leave any time you want — when the boss is attending comes to mind — setting a firm end time that can’t be moved can help keep the other attendees moving along.
4. Make an agenda and enforce it. Having a clear agenda for a meeting can help a lot, but many meetings have trouble actually sticking to that agenda. People want to bring up issues that have occurred since the agenda was set or even just socialize. It can be tough to be the bad guy, but telling your group that new issues need to go onto the next meeting’s agenda and that socializing can happen after the meeting can cut out a lot of wasted time.
5. Chop the guest list. For many meetings, our first inclination is to invite everyone along who has a stake in the proceedings — after all, the meeting’s online and it’s easy to get everyone in place. That approach only adds more people who can slow down the meeting. Limit the guest list to people who actually make decisions about the matters on the agenda. Anyone else can listen in if they want to (as long as they don’t try to add to the meeting), but it’s best if you can just pass along notes if someone’s really interested.

There are other issues that can make a meeting seem to last forever, of course.  But by keeping the meeting on track, you can help get it finished so you can get back to work (or go to bed!).

How do you keep online meetings on track?

Photo by Flickr user Jessica Mullen, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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TimeBridge is working hard to become your one-stop solution for every aspect of meetings management. I’ve written about the company’s web app and iPhone app previously; today it announced the new Meetwith.me feature, out to give Tungle, Doodle, TimeDriver and other calendar coordinating apps a run for their money.

The new feature provides users with a page where they can publicize the times that they are available for meetings. Visitors to the page can then use the interface to propose meeting times. Here’s mine as an example.

One handy feature that I liked was that I was able to limit meetings to “business hours” based on my timezone so I wouldn’t get meetings scheduled at 9am EST or 5am Alaska time. You can set your calendar limitations under “My Settings/Account Settings.”

Your Meetwith.me page is public; one thing I couldn’t find was a way to make it private, and only allow access to the people I have invited. Given my very crammed days, I’m a little hesitant to open up the entire calendar like this; however, I could always block certain days and really narrow down my available “business hours.”

To test out the new Meetwith.me feature, I sent out invitations to access my calendar to several people with whom I’ve been trying to coordinate a meeting. If they share their calendars with me via TimeBridge, then we can easily find compatible meeting times across all time zones.

TimeBridge is hoping that once you confirm meetings, you’ll up your subscription to take full advantage of its “Plus” features, including  enhanced “meeting rooms” with free teleconferencing and premium web conferencing that rivals WebEx and the like (it licenses DimDim’s software, which I find to be pretty good). The idea is to bring all elements of your meeting management into one place, including a collaborative agenda, shared files, meeting notes and action items.

Another New Feature: The LinkedIn Widget

TimeBridge has also added another new feature that adds some important flavor to your meetings, especially ones with people whom you don’t know very well. In your enhanced meeting room, you will now see the LinkedIn profiles of other meeting attendees if they are subscribers to TimeBridge and are also on LinkedIn. The company says that a majority of people using TimeBridge are also on LinkedIn.

The LinkedIn widget lets you pop up key relevant information about each meeting attendee, such as their current occupation and educational background. Besides being useful business intelligence at your fingertips, it is also can provide good icebreaking fodder when speaking with someone new.

What are you using to schedule and manage your meetings?

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