On Our Minds

Information Overload

Much of what comes at us these days – every day – comes at us fast. And it goes right past us. I don't know about you, but there are days when my age (not old), experience (not shabby) or even my education (major) cannot save me from information overload!

On average, a person is bombarded each day with around 3 million messages. I'm not kidding! It's a jumble of impressions that flies at us as words, pictures, advertising, building signs, books, news media, work documents, school documents, conversations, meetings, conference calls, snail mail, email, sticky notes on the fridge and the mint on your pillow during your latest out-of-town trip. If you're like me, there are just days you're inundated with – well – life! No wonder we can't remember things.

At reQall, we're interested in the point where life meets memory.

It's for this reason that we designed reQall as a whole life memory tool, not as a productivity aid, although it certainly can help you be more productive. (Plenty of companies are focused only on that task.) We decided that our memory strategy would be life itself. Our product's goal would be to help real people, living real lives, improve your memories and your lives at the same time. And the way to deal with those millions of impressions? Simplicity itself -- starting with your voice and your phone, linked across technologies.

We're rather proud that reQall is the only memory tool that works across so many mediums. Use reQall on cell phone or landline, email, text, the web, instant messaging, even Google Gadget. ReQall integrates them into a centralized and personalized memory-jogging system to keep you on top of life.

Life comes at us fast. We think reQall does the best job at integrating memory into your life. What do you think?

'Til next week,
Sunil

What do you fear most?

I have a friend who has a terror of spiders. He's 6'4” tall. They give him the creeps, he says. Me, it's the recurring student nightmare...the one where I'm sitting in front of the class. The professor hands out the exam that will be, like 90% of my grade. I have no memory that there was to be an exam. I see the page and my mind goes blank. Sound familiar?

We fear losing our memory more than losing our physical abilities, according to Martha Weinman Lear, author of “Where Did I Leave My Glasses?: The What, When and Why of Normal Memory Loss.” And why not? Memory, a characteristic that separates us from the animal kingdom, connects our past and our present with our future. It makes an ordinary person extraordinary upon entering a crowded room, greeting person after person, recalling the name of a spouse, a pet, a golf outing two years ago, the preference of another for vacations in the Canary Islands. Recall like this builds relationships and cements business deals.

It's an exceedingly rare person who has, as Brad Williams, a Wisconsin man does, what is called “superior autobiographical memory.” He can remember what he was doing and what was happening in the world on any given day in history; even where you sat in the restaurant where you met and what the weather was like that day.

Most of us can't remember where we parked the car in the airport parking garage after a three-day business trip. Let alone remember which second cousin attended last summer's family reunion or the exact comment made in the elevator by your boss about focus group #3, as you left the sessions. Frankly, we all need reQall.

I'm particularly excited about reQall's ability to store richer content. We can now put more of what you want to know and remember – even import web content and photographic images – into your personal memory system. I like the real memory-jogging “just-in-time” capability of reQall on instant messenger. We'd like your feedback on a “quick thought” function we're developing. It works like this: if a web page reminds you of something you want to remember, try adding a quick thought to reQall right from your browser toolbar.

What do you most fear forgetting? We'd like to know! How are you using reQall to help you remember things better?

'Til next week,
Sunil

Real reQall

I have vivid memories of the day we founded reQall sitting on an idyllic California beach. (Which shall remain nameless, as we'd like it to stay that way.) We mapped a vision for an entirely new approach to memory. We didn't envision cadres of sophisticated workers producing vast productivity schedules. Or for that matter techno geeks reading complicated reQall manuals. Our goal was more ubiquitous: to help real people, living real lives, improve their memories and their lives at the same time.

Developing reQall, we set out to put more of the things you need to know and remember into one place, accessible through whatever medium is nearest or easiest at the moment. The idea was – and is – to keep it “humanly simple, brain-fast and powerful.” We based reQall on the easiest, most natural communication – your voice. As technology goes, it's hard to get much more simple than that – at least for the user.

There has been a lot of buzz about productivity products lately. Frankly, reQall is not a productivity tool, although you can use it to be more productive. reQall is bigger than that space –it's about how you feel about life, how much more of life you can access, how much stronger your relationships can be, when your memory gets some help.

We're real people. We know that life doesn't happen in neat segments. In the middle of work, you can have a sudden inspiration about your class reunion. In the middle of bathing the baby, you can get an idea about how to solve the engineering problem at work. I don't know about you, but I'm not big on little pieces of paper stuck all over the desk – and they really don't work well near a bathtub!

So new reQall 2.0 is ready. We hope it gives you even more memory, allowing you to share thoughts and tasks with others. New keyword recognition capability sorts your memory additions into categories like tasks, thoughts, lists and due dates. It allows you to create richer reQall content and jog your memory in new ways, including AIM or Yahoo Instant Messenger. As you use the product, get even more information about our new features, at http://www.reqall.com/reqall_help/help_web.html.

We appreciate your feedback so we can continue to improve reQall. Please add your thoughts to this discussion!

'Til next week,
Sunil