I held a lecture on Social Media last week for the communications department at LSH, the authority that runs the Royal Armory, the Hallwyl House and Skokloster Castle.

In one of the part of the lecture, I ran through what my daily use of digital communications and tools looks like, and I thought I’d share that part with you (for now).

I communicate on a number of platforms, different ones for different people.
Most of these I use daily, others I use just about every day..

Here’s the list:

1. Email
Used mainly with family and business. (not so much with friends and close colleagues/project groups)
I also get a number of notifications here, when something is happening in other mediums such as direct messages via Facebook, Twitter etc.
I get my email (multiple accounts) pushed to all my devices (mail on osx, iphone and ipad).
I keep my inbox empty as I sort all emails as they arrive, first into one of two categories; “now” or “later”, as soon as the email has been responded to, I put them in a folder that belongs to that project or subject. (customize for your own need)

2. Facebook
I have my friends here. I rarely add people that I have never met in real life. One absolute criteria is that we have communicated in some way and have had an exchange of ideas, interest etc.
I have a few services that do auto-updates to my status on Facebook, other than that I check in no less than a couple of times a day, depending on workload.

3. Twitter
An incredible resource! Imagine being able to pick the brain of your heroes every day, all day. Follow the right people and have direct access to all the things that interest you in real time! Tweet what interests you, your findings, your thoughts on the things that interest you and your network will be a natural part of your life.

4. SMS/MMS
The way I normally communicate with people close to me, whether it’s with friends making plans or with colleagues getting stuff done right away.

5. Skype
I rarely use the calling function, and even more rarely the video function. The messaging and sending files, I use all day, every day.
A very useful tool when you don’t have the patience to wait for someone to check their mail.
(and if you’re seding someone a file, you don’t have to worry about maximum file sizes etc, like you have to do with email).

6. PBWorks
A tool I often use in projects. The basic setup is like a wiki, where you can write your own pages collaboratively. You can really go crazy with the setups here. Each project gets 2 gigs of space for whatever uploaded material you need to keep there, which normally stays pretty much unused since you can also embed anything into the pages from outside sources. (PBWorks is free for educational use)
[used to be called PBWiki back in the day..]

7. Google Docs
You really don’t need word/excel or pages/numbers on your computer anymore. This will take care of most of your document needs.
And you can collaborate with friends/family/project group or whatever. And since they are stored “in your google account”, you will never lose these documents, plus you will be able to access them from any computer at any time. A must!

8. Dropbox
Incredibly useful tool for sharing files (large or small) when working together. Invite each other to share one box and you will have access to them as if they were on your hard drive.
You start off with 2 gigs of space using a free account (that you can upgrade of course), then for every person you invite that uses that invitation to start an account, you get an additional 250 megs up to 8 gig total. Good stuff! (let me know if you need an account and I’ll send you an “invite” =)

9. Teux Deux
A minimalistic to-do list that is available for free online. It also has an iPhone application that syncs your to-do items on the fly.
Not very flexible, but clean, simple and minimalistic. Does the trick!

10.  Evernote
For all my notes. Another tool that syncs to your account whether you’re using the desktop application, the online (website) interface or the iPhone or iPad app.
Written notes, spoken notes, pictures, whatever really.. Always at your fingertips.
I use this a lot while listening to lectures, and after the lecture (if I have access to the slides of the presentation), I complement my own notes with images/notes from the slides.
You can also choose to share notes with others..

11. Flickr
I’ve had my Flickr account for a few years now, but I recently upgraded to a pro account so that I can start putting my whole (vast) backlog of pictures there instead of on an old external hard drive where they sit now.
Organize them properly and you will never need to worry about that hard drive crashing and you losing all those memories in the form of pictures. (and of course it’s a great way to share these images too..)

12. Blogs
Not only do I read a number of them daily (mostly through my RSS feed, which is another tool I should have put on the list I guess), but I also write this one, which I kind of use as a tool to keep all my thoughts, learnings etc..
I also use blogs for other purposes. For example, I decided to get rid of all the notes with recipes laying all over the place, so I put them all in a blog so I can have them in one neat place.

There are a number of other tools, such as MobileMe, del.icio.us, etc, etc, that I could go on about, but I think I covered the ones I use the most and have grown more or less dependent on. (until a better service comes along)

I appreciate tips, if you have them..
What tools do you use regularly?