The Omni Show

Our world is constantly changing, and each year we have to be prepared to adjust our plans based on what we encounter along the way. On July 8 we published an update to our 2020 Omni Roadmap, and in this episode of the Omni Show we talk with Ken Case about some of this year's twists and turns and how we've adapted.

We've shipped Omni Automation in all our apps. A great resource for learning more about Omni Automation is omni-automation.com.

Here are links to some of the referenced news from Apple, announced during WWDC:

You can find Ken on Twitter @kcase and on our Slack group. You can also find @omnigroup on Twitter.

Thorsten Grantner is a founder of OmniCert, a German company which is a certification body for sustainability management systems. He joins the show to talk about how he and his employees use OmniFocus to keep up with their many processes and clients.

That business may sound dry, but don’t be fooled by how it sounds: it’s a critical part of helping turn our world safer and greener. And, as vitally important detail-oriented work, it’s exactly the kind of thing OmniFocus excels at helping with.

You can find Thorsten on the web at omnicert.de.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

Dr. Lyle Skains is a researcher and practitioner in the field of digital and interactive fiction. She writes and creates interactive stories and then writes up her research. How did it go? How is creativity and process affected? How do audiences react? And — she uses OmniOutliner to organize this research.

We met Lyle via Twitter, when she posted some screenshots of her use of OmniOutliner: here’s a Twitter thread with some of them. She keeps notes, projects, and bibliographies in OmniOutliner.

Annette Fuller, Support Human at the Omni Group and fiction writer, joins this episode as co-host. This episode runs a bit longer than most because both Annette and your host were absolutely enthralled by Lyle and the subject matter.

You can find Lyle @lskains on Twitter and on the web at lyleskains.com.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

Scotty Jackson — Manager, Information Services at Large Telecommunications Company and co-host of the Nested Folders productivity podcast with Rose Orchard — joins the show to talk about how he uses OmniFocus.

We talk about Scotty’s shortcuts, his custom Next perspective, how he integrates OmniFocus with other apps, and hamburgers.

Our special co-host this week is Aaron Cherof, Support Human, who wrote the theme music for The Omni Show, and who we welcome back to the airwaves.

You can find Scotty on Twitter @heyscottyj and on the web at heyscottyj.com.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

Alex Lindsay’s company Pixel Corps does livestreaming for companies, organizations, and governments — and they use OmniGraffle to design and document their (necessarily) complex setups and to communicate with clients. Alex tells us how.

If you listen to podcasts, you probably know Alex Lindsay from MacBreak Weekly. You may not have known that Alex worked for Industrial Light and Magic back in the day — and, yes, he worked on a Star Wars movie. :)

This episode is kind of a party. Brent is joined by two co-hosts: Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group, and Mark Boszko, the intrepid producer of this very podcast.

You can find Alex on Twitter @alexlindsay.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

On January 29 we published the Omni Roadmap 2020, where we look back at 2019 and look forward to all the good things planned for this year. Ken Case, CEO of the Omni Group — and author of the roadmap — joins the show to go into further detail.

We got a lot done in 2019! We introduced OmniFocus for the Web, improved performance in OmniGraffle, added support for Omni Automation to OmniPlan, and adopted the big new features that Apple announced at least year’s WWDC: Dark Mode, context menus, multiple windows on iPad, and more.

Our plans for 2020 are ambitious, too: we’ll have Omni Automation support in all our apps, including OmniFocus. We’ll add a new, simpler sign-in licensing option. We’ll publish OmniPlan 4, with great new features such as interval tracking, so you can track your costs over time.

We’re also going to continue to review our user interfaces to make navigation easier. The roadmap says “We want easy navigation, so everything in the app feels like it’s right at your fingertips — whether your fingertips are using the mouse, touch screen, or a hardware keyboard.” So, yes, that includes better keyboard support on iPads. :)

And, like every year, we expect that Apple will announce new features at WWDC, and we will have surprise work to do. Which we don’t mind — it’s part of the fun of making apps! (We love those new features as much as you do.)

You can find Ken on Twitter @kcase and on our Slack group. You can also find @omnigroup on Twitter and on Micro.blog.

Previous roadmap blog posts:

2019 2018 2017 2016 2015

Jason Atwood is COO and one of the founders of Arkus, Inc., a Salesforce consulting partner. He’s a long-time OmniFocus user — and everybody at his company uses OmniFocus. Jason’s view is that standardizing on a premium productivity platform is as important as standardizing on an email system.

Jason says, “This is the best-of-breed productivity tool. Because I want people at Arkus to be able to satisfy our clients, to be on top of it, to be extremely good at what they do, I want to give them the best tool.”

The Arkus Boot Camp for new employees includes OmniFocus training — but it doesn’t stop there: education continues, with new tips, ideas, and even podcast episodes about using OmniFocus.

This is a key part of the system that leads to his clients asking, “How is it you guys are so good?”

You can find Jason on Twitter @jasonmatwood and at arkusinc.com.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

Eric Bowers — mortgage loan officer by day, novelist by night — talks about using OmniFocus to help people buy homes and to keep up with writing his novel. As a recent Florida transplant, he also uses OmniFocus to keep up with pool maintenance — a perfect case for recurring tasks.

OmniFocus is Eric’s centralized brain. He uses it everywhere, and he’s customized it a bit — he has his own Next perspective, for instance. But he’s also mindful of his favorite advice: keep it as simple as possible so that you can get your work done.

Eventually we start talking about music, because of course we do. Eric plays bass and sings, and he loves grunge. :)

You can find Eric on his website: bowersvoice.com.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

John Gruber, professional blogger and podcaster, has been using OmniOutliner for just about as long as it’s existed. His main use is for planning projects — for instance, he recently moved servers, which is something he’s rarely done, and he used OmniOutliner to keep track of the many details and things to check.

He also uses OmniOutliner to collect certain kinds of information. An example is his long-running “Hacks” outline, where he collects and organizes bits of scripts and command-line incantations.

You can find John at his website Daring Fireball, his podcast The Talk Show, and on Twitter @gruber.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned:

Jim Correia — OmniFocus engineer, man-about-town — joins the show to talk about some of the things he and the team have been working on since WWDC: Dark Mode, multiple windows, and Shortcuts.

We also talk about his humble beginnings with his trusty TI-99/4A by his side, his search for exotic mesons, and his work at Bare Bones on BBEdit and Yojimbo.

Jim’s also a runner and dog-partner to Rosie (who’s widely recognized as the best dog). You can find Jim on Twitter @jimcorreia.

Some other people, places, and things mentioned: