Zukmo is in the process of revolutionizing how we manage our information sources, documents, files, and media. Today, bookmarks are stored in our browsers, documents are strewn across desktops or cloud-accounts, friends and coworkers are encountered more on social networks than in person, and RSS updates are handled just about everywhere. Zukmo is taking aim at the traditionally scattered means by which we access our information, bringing it all together in a lightweight cloud-based app that is becoming drastically more powerful and versatile with each new week’s release. As someone who has benefitted greatly from using it, I’ll take this opportunity to explain a few of the features that help me become a more effective marketer here at Zukmo – But first, a little background.
Starting at Zukmo last month was actually a bit of a culture shock for me. We’re a pretty early phase company and I was making the shift from the structured, pampered, everything-within-arm’s-reach corporate environment, to working in a globally distributed start-up. This meant doing anything and everything needed to get the job done, and required a personal stake in the search and development of resources to handle my workflow, communications, projects and deadlines. Probably the largest part of my job as a marketing student/analyst/associate/strategist (hey, I said we’re a start-up!) was and still is research, and without a formal content management solution, that endeavor started out less ideally than I would have liked it to, putting things lightly.
With hardly a week’s passing, a plethora of spreadsheets, Word documents, Web pages, and emails littered both my computer’s desktop and my desk’s top (ha!). It’s a natural part of hitting the ground running: adapting to a new set of demands and a new organizational structure. Still, the speed at which this is done matters, and not adapting quickly enough could mean serious efficiency issues down the road. It probably didn’t help, that the level of commitment and talent within the Zukmo team is nothing short of extraordinary, and the pace at which most people work here sometimes still leaves me short of breath. Needless to say, I was already experiencing the growing strain of my resources not being up to par and thus had to quickly decide on systems to manage each aspect of my work. For handling my research, I chose Zukmo.
Now, it’s fair to accuse me of being biased; I do work here, after all. But I didn’t choose Zukmo because I had someone breathing down my neck. On the contrary, my direct supervisor is 7,500 miles away. I chose Zukmo because internal discussions convinced me that it was slated to be one of, if not the most powerful and versatile information management tool around. When I first created my library not even the notes function was fully implemented. In fact, most of the features we now tout weren’t implemented at the time. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in such a short time, but even back then there was still one feature that worked like a charm: Bookmarking. This actually served as the ideal tool to start building my research database, seeing as most of my research (and, thus, most of my problems) came from the Web.
When starting to use Zukmo to help me fill the gargantuan shoes I was handed, virtually everything was new to me. I decided that my first step should be to familiarize myself with Zukmo as a product, so I downloaded the Firefox toolbar and bookmarked every Webpage that seemed like it might help me wrap my head around marketing.
From SEO ideas and analytics, to blogs and related products like Historious, Delicious, and Readitlater, I found that, even using Zukmo as a place to store my growing content, it was rapidly becoming unmanageable. I found that each content piece had quite a defined use, from SEO to Blogging tips, interesting notes, and the like. Using Zukmo’s tagging feature enabled me to further segment my library for easy content retrieval, allowing me to derive even greater utility from what started out as a single mass of information.
I could even share important content with my coworkers right from Zukmo, which continues to help me in disseminating interesting research.
I’m confident that no matter how large my library gets, with Zukmo I’ll easily find what I’m looking for.
Zukmo continues to serve me well as a research library, but one important new feature even enhances my own effectiveness as a marketer with little if any upkeep. Zukmo’s RSS feed handler acts as my own personal research assistant. Once I’ve vetted that an RSS feed is relevant to me and choose to track it in Zukmo, all of the feed’s post history and future updates are automatically imported into my library, indexed, and become a part of my search queries. The RSS feed handler makes staying up to date, and more importantly, being more effective in my job, much easier.
Zukmo’s power and versatility as an information management tool has worked wonders for my effectiveness as a marketer by enabling me to organize and access all of my content in one place; it even keeps me up to date with the subjects and information that I find important. Whether you, too, are looking for something to make you more effective in the roles you play at work, school or home, or are merely looking for something to improve the organization and accessibility of all of your content, you may be surprised by what Zukmo can help you accomplish!
Leave A Comment