Taking Note: Conversations with Evernote

"Taking Note" has reached its end. What's next? An all-new podcast for 2019 called "Focus Culture," available right now.

When Evernote decided to refresh its brand after 10 years, it was about more than tweaking the logo or adopting a new color scheme. It was about distilling the company’s essence, clarifying its purpose and point of view.

In this episode, Francie Strong and Jonathan Woytek walk us through why Evernote undertook this effort, what's changed and what hasn't, what it means for the company and its customers, and what other brands can learn from the experience.

People can work from literally anywhere now, but that freedom brings serious challenges. How can you set a remote team up for success?

Sales organizations have been dealing with these questions for years, so we sat down with two global leaders to get their perspectives. Dave Mattson is CEO and President of Sandler Training. Norm Happ is Evernote's Senior Vice President of Sales, Customer Success, & Partnerships. Together they offer a blueprint for building and maintaining a remote team that works.

We’ve all heard about “dream teams,” collections of individuals who somehow become more than the sum of their parts and achieve extraordinary things. We celebrate them, mythologize them, and even build pop culture franchises around the idea (superheroes, anyone?).

But where does that synergy come from? What can we learn from the teams that have it? And how can we apply those lessons to our own work? To find out, we asked Shane Snow, author of the new book Dream Teams: Working Together without Falling Apart.

Shane reveals the hidden traits that separate ordinary teams from dream teams, shares tips to enhance any team, and tells us how he used Evernote to create the book.

Every idea, no matter how grand, starts in the head of a single person. And most businesses, no matter how large, started out the same way. Growing a small business takes a solid foundation of tools and talent. But time and resources are limited, so how can you find, evaluate, and manage the right people and the right tools to get more done in less time?

In honor of Small Business Week (April 29–May 5, 2018), leaders from Evernote and Upwork get together to share trends they’ve seen in the SMB space and their favorite tips for helping small businesses scale up faster.

Too often, we let life become something that happens to us, rather than something that comes from within. We forget that we can be in control of ourselves. And we forget that the people around us can help, if we just take the time to build strong relationships.

So how do we break out of our ruts and regain clarity? How do we reclaim those dusty, forgotten goals we might have set back in January, or even decades ago? And how do we build the trust and influence that will get others on board, so those goals can become a reality? In this episode of Taking Note, we’ll hear from two experts who can guide us there.

First, we invited leadership mentor Michael Hyatt to tell us how we can reconnect with our goals and have the best year ever, no matter what month you start counting from.

Then, we’ll hear a conversation with Marvell Allen, a coach who helps people discover their leadership potential in the office, regardless of experience or job title.

SXSW is coming, and Evernote has two speakers set to take the stage in Austin this March. Chris O’Neill, Evernote's CEO, talks about how societal trends are leading businesses to change the ways they build bring products to market. And Anirban Kundu, CTO, examines the implications of artificial intelligence for the way we work. Don’t miss these two insightful conversations.

Productivity isn't only about our jobs and our to-do lists. The same concepts that help us produce work in the office can also help us tackle personal creative projects.

Just ask Grant Faulkner, the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo. Every November, hundreds of thousands of writers commit to creating a 50,000-word story in just 30 days.

In his role with NaNoWriMo, Grant has heard all of the excuses we have for not acting on our creative impulses, from lack of time to the notion that we simply aren't creative. He demolishes these myths and offers a way forward in a new book called “Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights & Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo.”

In this episode of Taking Note, Grant discusses the challenge of NaNoWriMo, the ways we sabotage our own creative impulses, and how to conquer our inner obstacles to unleash our creative potential.

Jay Acunzo is an award-winning podcaster and dynamic keynote speaker. Before creating the popular podcast show Unthinkable, Jay was a digital media strategist at Google and head of content at HubSpot.

But realized he was unhappy, and that this highly sought-after path was simply not for him. This experience sparked an interest in intuition and unconventional thinking that we explore in this episode.

On the show, Jay discusses why our intuition plays a huge importance in our happiness and well-being. Everyone has unique experiences and unique perspectives, which means that the status quo may not always be the best path for us. But it’s not about trusting your gut or following a muse. It’s about using self-awareness to empower ourselves to do more. You have infinite access to the tools that reveal what direction you will find most fulfilling and meaningful in your work, so use your intuition and unconventional thinking to get yourself there.

Key Takeaways:

[1:35] How does Jay personally define intuition?

[3:10] How did Jay first get introduced to the subject of intuition and unconventional thinking?

[4:10] When working for Google, Jay felt like he was not unleashing his full potential there. He was unhappy and searching for more.

[5:20] What makes everybody different is their intuition; the ability to think for themselves, and that’s the key to how they can unlock their full potential in life.

[5:35] There are infinite roads and paths you can choose from. You don’t have to rely on conventional wisdom for you to figure out ‘What’s next?’

[6:15] With the increase in technology and how-to videos, the focus is no longer on expertise. It is on self-awareness. We need to be conscious of which direction we need to take in this fast-paced world.

[7:15] How can we be better at becoming more self-aware?

[8:55] How does intuition help you be more productive?

[9:45] Does Forrest remember the formula for calculating the slope of a straight line?

[11:50] What’s so wrong with following the best practices/traditional advice in your business?

[14:45] Use conventional thinking and the status quo as a jumping off point, but it should never be considered the solution. Everybody’s case is different. What works for them, might not work for you.

[15:15] How important is looking at beyond your social circle for inspiration and new solutions?

[18:40] How does Jay figure out if an idea is worth pursuing?

[23:30] Why did Jay decide to create a podcast?

[27:30] What has been Jay’s favorite episode so far?

[31:15] What does Jay’s daily routine look like?

[34:15] How does Jay like to structure his Evernote notebooks?

[36:50] Who inspires Jay?

Learn More:

Unthinkable.fm

Unthinkable.fm — Grado Labs

Unthinkable.fm — Merriam Webster

Sorryformarketing.com

Jay on LinkedIn

Deathwishcoffee.com

Tettra.co

Trello.com

Calvin and Hobbes

Anthony Bourdain