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What are the tools that you as a communications professional use every day in your work? The tools that you just couldn’t live without?

This week on Inside PR, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I talk about the top apps and digital tools that we use and that we recommend should be in every communicator’s toolbox.

First up: Evernote. An amazing app for taking notes, for organizing your ideas, for developing to do lists. It’s an app that syncs across all your devices – desktop, your table, and your phone. Evernote has a range of plug ins and extensions that make it even more useful. Gini has a Moleskin notebook that she uses to handwrite notes, which she then scans into Evernote to make them searchable. I use Evernote’s Scannable iOS App in place of a traditional scanner. Just point it at a document and Scannable will capture the document and import it to Evernote and enable you to share it via the channel of your choice. If you are still taking notes in Word and saving the notes as separate documents, consider trying Evernote. Your thoughts, ideas and images will always be a search away.

Next, Gini tells us about Zoom.us. We recorded this podcast on Zoom.us. It provides great HD audio plus HD video. (Yes, the quality of our audio is not all that we’d like it to be. That’s not Zoom’s fault. That’s because we are using WiFi to connect to the Internet. Clearly, we need to use wired connections if we want the highest quality audio and video.) Zoom.su enables users to set up meetings and invite participants, who can join simply by clicking on a link. Participants can connect to audio via the Web or the phone.  We’ve found this tool to be a far superior user experience when compared to something like WebEx or even Skype.

Finally, this episode, we talk about Feedly. Feedly is our RSS reader of choice. Feedly delivers the content from the sources that matter to us as soon as it is published. And unlike earlier RSS readers, it makes the act of subscribing as simple as copying a URL into the subscribe window. This is important to people who need to follow a specialized subject or a set of experts and who cannot rely on their social networks to tell them about something. Martin looks at Feedly as a “personal subscribe button” that delivers content to one inbox.

About Joe Thornley

Joseph Thornley, co-host of Inside PR, is CEO of Thornley Fallis and founder of 76engage. He is a past Chair of the Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms. Full bio

About Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communications firm. She is the lead blogger at Spin Sucks and is the founder of Spin Sucks Pro. She is the co-author of Marketing in the Round and co-host of Inside PR. Full bio

About Martin Waxman

Martin Waxman, MCM, APR, is a digital, social media, and communications strategist and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He conducts AI research, leads social media workshops, and teaches digital strategy. He writes a Digital Marketing Trends newsletter on LinkedIn, is one of the hosts of the Inside PR podcast and can be found on Twitter @martinwaxman. Full bio