The New Meaning of "Taking Notes"

We all did it in class. At least those of us who had some schooling prior to the laptop computer era. I’m talking about taking notes. You’d save the important information from a lesson to be perused later or employed when test time came around. You see less of it nowadays, but only because the medium has changed, not because the art has fallen out of favor. Link sharing and saving services are in many ways the new manner of note taking. I use Delicious, but Stumbleupon, Digg and Reddit also have similarities. You can also use any of them to act as your online editor, selecting what you should see based on your preferences and friends. A new age news editor.

You can use them to keep a log or use them to participate in a knowledge sharing fashion. Since I already get loads of professional info and story links via those I follow on twitter (my version of inbound editor), I use it more as a way to save what I see to be useful at a later date. It can also be used well among teams who are spread out across the country. That way if there’s some really relevant info on SEO, social, design, PR, branding, or something that’s simply really funny, I can peruse it later when takling that type of project.

The mind can only fit so much, especially a mind that is doing a lot of implementation rather than just strategizing. There are a lot of people out there who are true “experts” in these marketing fields, and for the rest of us who represent business that need to wade through the sea of expertise to focus in on the relevant, it’s all about taking and sharing notes. So if it’s important, but now is not the moment to absorb it completely, just remember to take notes, today’s way.