Useful tools: Delicious

In the second of this (very) occasional series about things I use to help me work, I want to talk about Delicious. It’s been around for a while, and indeed I’ve been using it since I started up as a freelancer. Its staying power can only be a good thing!

It’s ideal for keeping track of all those handy articles I find and read (or intend to read…), as well as sharing them via my websites. However, it was only at the weekend when I had a bit of a fiddle around with it that I discovered some handy features.

From many to one

Previously, I had a Delicious account for each of my blogs (which proliferate faster than I can keep up), with a different log-in for each. In addition, since Yahoo bought Delicious, many of these now have Yahoo log-ins instead.

Fed up with all these different usernames and passwords (plus I don’t use Yahoo for anything else), I decided to bring all my bookmarks (both public and private) under my original account. Delicious offers an easy-peasy import and export tool for doing just that.

Tailored link rolls

However, I don’t want all my bookmarks to show on each website; they’re very different topics. So, I created a tag specific to each one, which I apply as relevant to the saved article. Delicious’ link roll tool then allows me to specific that tag when creating the each feed.

In addition, there’s an option to bundle articles and pages with specific tags (like Gmail’s labelling system), to help you quickly see articles once in your account (rather than searching by a specific tag).

Keeping things private

Of course, some pages are not for the general public, and there’s a simple ‘private’ option (which also appears as a tag) to make sure these are kept hidden. I’m sure there are other tools still to discover too.

And, hey presto, one account with a single username and password, but tailored for each blog. Now I just need to remember to use the correct tag (the one possible source of error!). Follow me on Delicious.

Social Media Day, Palma – 30 June 2010

Last Wednesday I pottered into lovely Palma de Mallorca to be part of Mashable’s Social Media Day. There’s not a very big local networking scene locally (except for TwittPalma) so I thought I should make the most of it.

Of course, it was a Spanish event that also attracted some English speakers like myself. And herein lies the problem with lots of networking events – it’s scary speaking to new people. And if they speak a different language you’re not fluent in? Even more so.

Love people, dislike networking

I’m not really a fan of networking; it all feels a bit unnatural and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a necessary evil. But conversely, I love meeting new people and talking with them. But not about work. And especially not in a forced way…

So, as often happens, people kept to the groups (of very lovely people, of course) that they knew. Next time, I think the ‘social’ aspect of the event should be harnessed, maybe in a ‘speed dating’ way.

Make friends, maybe influence people

Everyone who attends receives a number. Then they pick a number out of a hat and have to speak to that person for five minutes, at the same time swapping Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook details. Repeat…

After maybe 30 minutes of this, everyone will have met 6 people and, hopefully, have enough people to speak to for the rest of the evening.

Where’s [the] Wally?

Check out this brilliant timelapse video of the event – can you spot me? I’m in a blue shirt and jeans, and am stood for quite a while on the right-hand side of the frame…