Joshua Zerkel - Evernote at Work: The Ultimate Guide to Implementing Evernote in Your Business

Once in a while, we're introduced to a toolthat has uses far, far beyond what its inventors had originally created it for.For instance, fire can be used to cook, to heat, as decoration, and to powertransportation. Evernote, while probably not quite as important to us as fire,is similar in that it wasn't originally intended to become the far-reachingproductivity tool it is today - rather, it began somewhat humbly as arelatively simple note-taking application. From those simple beginnings,Evernote has become a very powerful and useful productivity tool that can helpyou centralize and manage many important aspects of your business and yourlife.

Evernote is many things to many people, butthe simplest way to describe it is that it is a very easy to use, yet powerfuldatabase that lets you capture, organize, and share virtually any type ofinformation. Each bit of information you capture is called a note, and noteslive within notebooks to help them stay organized.

Sounds complex? It's not - in fact, it's verystraightforward and works in friendly metaphors that are designed for thenon-tech savvy. It's one of the least "techie" of tech tools outthere - which is one of the reasons why it's so useful - and so popular. YouDON'T have to be a tech expert to get maximum utility out of it - and throughoutthis book, I'll show you specific ways to put Evernote to use.

You may have thought or heard that Evernote isonly a personal productivity tool, and it can be that - but that's just thebeginning of how you can use Evernote. If you're like most people, chances areyou probably spend most of your waking hours at work - and regardless of yourindustry, I'm betting that by implementing some of the strategies in this bookyou'll be able use Evernote to make those work hours more productive and moreeffective. Evernote wasn't originally designed with businesses in mind - butthat doesn't mean it's not an awesome tool to help you and your business. Infact, it's one of the only tools I recommend to almost every single one of mybusiness clients.

I've been using Evernote since shortly afterits launch years ago, and truth be told, like many people I didn't "getit" right away. It took me some time to learn how to apply it to me and tomy business - and then I was sold. Why? My business is small - and I'm alwayslooking for ways to simplify, centralize, streamline, and basically help memake my life, and my work, easier. Evernote has done that in numerous ways - asyou'll see throughout this book.

I've been fortunate in that I get to share theEvernote love with other people. I've helped thousands of people learn aboutEvernote and how to put it to use in their lives and in their work via mywriting, online and in-person training. I'm really excited to share with youthe many different ways to put Evernote to work in your business!

Security is important for everyone, butperhaps even moreso for businesses than for individuals. Why? As a business,chances are you're keeping data not just about you yourself personally, butpotentially you're also storing information about your customers, partners,vendors, and other key business contacts - information like names, addresses,project details, and other sensitive information that you want to keep awayfrom prying eyes.

For this reason, it's critical that you as abusinessperson understand the security and privacy policies of any tool thatyou put to use in your business. Evernote takes the security of your data veryseriously.

Evernote works by letting you captureinformation (on your phone, computer, or elsewhere), send it to your Evernoteaccount over the Internet (via SSL-level security), and access that data fromanywhere, on any device, via your private Evernote account. You can allow otherpeople to access, and if you so choose, edit your data - but whether and whenthat happens is completely at your discretion - and you can revoke access atany time.

Even though your data is stored at Evernote,they do not monitor or "mine" your data. Some services read thecontents of your email and posts, and over time, build a profile about you,which they then use to serve you ads. Or, they use that data and sell it in theaggregate to third-party data miners. As of this writing, Evernote does not doanything with your data - in fact, they are adamant that your data is, in fact,yours.

Concerned about Evernote going out ofbusiness? Don't be. If the Evernote service were to go away at any point (or ifyou just choose to stop using Evernote), you can export all the data you'vestored in Evernote to another format which you could then use in anotherapplication.

As I mentioned, Evernote takes great pains tomake sure your data is safe. Evernote has encapsulated their philosophies onsecurity into their 3 Laws of Data Protection:

- Your Data is Yours

- Your Data is Protected

- Your Data is Portable

Evernote CEO Phil Libin wrote a blog post further explaining thesepolicies. It's worth reading to get a better understanding of Evernote'sperspective on security and privacy.

Evernote comes in several different editions,and which one you choose will depend on your needs and the needs of yourbusiness.

Evernote (free) - Best for individuals

The free edition of Evernote lets you captureand store most types of information (text notes, web clippings, images, anddocuments). Many individuals find that the free edition of Evernote is enoughto meet their needs - at least for a time. But once you start really usingEvernote as a repository for your information, you'll probably find that yourun into the monthly upload limit of 60 MB, or you may find that you want toshare a notebook and collaborate on the notes inside of it. For that, you'llneed