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TOCA 2019 | Ren LaForme @ Poynter | Digital Trends
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Hi, TOCA! If you use any of these tools, please share the results with me. I’d love to see them! I’m on Twitter at @itsren and am always available at ren@poynter.org.

Hello! Here are the resources from my sessions. Keep up on the latest tools on Poynter. Sign up for my newsletter if you’d like more tools. Here’s a PDF of my presentation (sorry the videos don’t work in a PDF). Questions? ren@poynter.org

Last year’s tools: poy.nu/toca2018

TOOLS TO MAKE YOUR WORK EASIER

  1. Otter.ai
  1. Automatically transcribe audio interviews
  2. 600 minutes/month free, $9.99/month for 6,000 minutes
  3. https://otter.ai
  1. Descript (we talked about this one last year)
  1. Edit audio by editing text
  2. http://descript.com
  1. ContactOut
  1. Find contact information using LinkedIn
  2. https://contactout.com/
  1. Station
  1. Keep all of your web apps in one place, easily accessible with shortcuts
  2. https://getstation.com/
  1. Sortd
  1. Organize your inbox with drag and drop columns
  2. https://www.sortd.com/
  1. Calendly (we touched on this one last year)
  1. Makes scheduling meetings a million times easier
  2. https://calendly.com/
  1. Toby
  1. A fantastic modern bookmark tool
  2. Chrome only
  3. https://www.gettoby.com/
  1. Start.me
  1. Another fantastic modern bookmark tool for those who don’t use Chrome
  2. https://start.me/start/us/startpage
  1. Canva (social media tool)
  1. Photoshop made easy! Offers social-optimized image sizes
  2. https://www.canva.com/ 
  1. Headliner (we looked at this last year but it’s been updated heavily)
  1. Make audio shareable and visual for social (super easy to use, no installation)
  2. https://www.headliner.app/
  1. Record your iPhone’s screen
  1. Open Settings
  2. Go to control center
  3. Customize controls
  4. Tap the plus button next to Screen Recording
  5. The button to record your screen appears on the “swipe up” menu
  1. To record your Android’s screen
  1. Try AZ Screen Recorder

EASY TOOLS TO WORK WITH DATA

  1. Infogram
  1. Off-the-beaten-path infographics
  2. https://infogram.com/app/#/library
  1. Datawrapper
  1. Easy-to-create infographics
  2. https://www.datawrapper.de/
  1. Google Dataset Search
  1. Easily find data about all sorts of topic
  2. https://toolbox.google.com/datasetsearch
  1. Data.world
  1. Vast collections of data, with help on how to analyze it
  1. (Bonus help and data if you’re an AP subscriber)
  1. https://data.world/
  1. Tabula
  1. Pull data from PDFs and turn it into spreadsheet files
  2. https://tabula.technology/
  1. CometDocs
  1. Convert file types back and forth
  2. https://www.cometdocs.com/

TOOLS TO SURVIVE THE MISINFONET

  1. TwitterAudit
  1. Are your Twitter followers bots? How many bots follow someone? Find out.
  2. https://www.twitteraudit.com
  1. Account Analysis
  1. Information about anyone’s Twitter account
  2. https://accountanalysis.lucahammer.com/
  1. RevEye
  1. Reverse image search plugin for your browser
  2. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reveye-reverse-image-sear/keaaclcjhehbbapnphnmpiklalfhelgf?hl=en
  1. Google Image Search
  1. Reverse image search (Google only) for your browser. Built in to Chrome.
  1. InVid
  1. Plugin to add context to videos
  2. https://www.invid-project.eu/tools-and-services/invid-verification-plugin/
  1. Who.is
  1. See who is behind a website
  2. http://who.is
  1. Internet Archive
  1. See archived versions of sites or pages that are no longer online
  2. Tip: Install the plugin and it’ll pull up old pages automatically
  3. https://archive.org/web/
  1. Facebook Live Map
  1. Watch live videos from specific locations as they happen
  2. https://www.facebook.com/livemap
  1. Snap Map
  1. Watch live videos from specific locations as they happen
  2. https://map.snapchat.com/

TOOLS TO HELP YOU TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

  1. Nudge
  1. Make it harder to waste your day on social media, etc.
  2. Chrome only
  3. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nudge/dmhgdnbkjkejeddddlklojinngaideac
  1. Boomerang, or Gmail’s new snooze feature
  1. Schedule emails to send later and resend emails to yourself at a different time
  2. http://www.boomerangoutlook.com/
  1. Inbox Pause
  1. Turn off your inbox for a period of time to focus. Part of Boomerang.
  2. http://inboxpause.com
  1. Just Not Sorry
  1. Find and remove self-defeating words and phrases from your email
  2. Chrome/Gmail only for now
  3. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/just-not-sorry-the-gmail/fmegmibednnlgojepmidhlhpjbppmlci
  1. Privacy Badger (we touched on this last year)
  1. Blocks trackers from following you around the internet
  2. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
  1. Digital Women Leaders
  1. Free mentorship for women in journalism
  2. https://digitalwomenleaders.com
  1. Plant Nanny
  1. A cute app that’ll remind you to go get some water
  2. http://plantnannyapp.com/
  1. LastPass (we touched on this last year)
  1. Store all of your passwords safe and sound
  2. https://lastpass.com/

COMING TRENDS IN PUBLISHING

  1. Reverse engineering audience interest
  1. You have to think like your audience would think.
  2. Try googling your topic to see what people are searching for, or using Google Trends to compare topics, or consider what you’d ask Siri or Alexa if you were searching for that topic.
  1. Meeting audiences where they are
  1. Home pages and search and social are the old ways.
  2. Newsletters and text and calendars are upcoming.
  1. Publishing as a service
  1. How are you helping your audience?
  2. Look for topics that are confusing, misunderstood or important.
  3. Or just ones with lots of reader interest.
  1. Taking on misinformation and disinformation
  1. There is an online war for truth.
  2. As experts in your fields, it’s your duty to set the record straight.
  1. Entertaining AND informing AND serving your mission
  1. There’s a war for attention online. If you’re not being as clear, as informative and as interesting as possible, you’re not putting up a good fight.
  1. Platform publishing promiscuity or, more politely, format-agnostic publishing
  1. You have to use text. Images. Video. Interactives. Audio. Social media. Things they haven’t even thought of yet.
  2. Technology is fairly easy to learn. Storytelling skills, ethics, etc. are not.

STORIES FOR INSPIRATION

Turning analytics into action

Why bother?

Something big to keep in mind:

Another something big to keep in mind:

2 Types of Analytics Information