On Our Minds

David Pogue's Review of reQall

David Pogue from NY Times reviewed our service early this month in an article titled Reminders from Out of the Blue. Embedded below is the accompanying video review.

reQall in Boston Globe

Boston Globe columnist Hiawatha Bray reviewed reQall in his column today..

Your Memory Jogger Unveiled

Up until now, a better memory came from sleeping well, exercising body and mind, and for some, taking herbs. Those with admirably strong will power have combatted the inevitable daily forgetting by committing themselves to mnemonics, organize-your-life “diets”, and productivity rituals. If I weren’t so busy, I might have time for one of these.

The new reQall Memory Jogger is for those who forget, but don’t want to work hard to remember. We know from decades of memory research how and why people forget. Armed with this, our journey began by asking two basic questions:

• Why are computers, email, SMS, and phones creating digital chaos in people’s lives?
• How can we apply our expertise in memory and computers to build a mobile memory aid for modern life?

Examples of things I’ve heard:

• I write things down, but I never go back and look at my notes.
• When I get to the grocery store, I want something to tell me the things I need to buy.
• If I have a meeting this afternoon, I’d like something to prepare me ahead of time.
• I forgot to call my sister/mother, can it nudge me without nagging?
• I can’t remember all the things I need to do for my kids activities.
• I’m lost without my secretary/spouse reminding me                                                                             

Today’s mobile computer is the smartphone (iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.) and it doesn’t need to be a potted plant while all this forgetting is going on. It should come alive, notice what is happening, anticipate what you need, and whisper in your ear before you forget. The smartphone should make you smart.

That’s where the Jogger comes in. It works by looking at your situation and figuring out what would be the best Jogs for you at this time, place, situation, or because it thinks you are about to forget. It can use your calendar and it can use your location to pick. The more you tell it and the more it detects, the better it works.

You don’t have to do anything extra. Go about your normal day, from home to work and anywhere else along the way. Add things you want to remember into reQall and when the time is right, the Memory Jogger will remind you. No folders, no files, no sticky notes, no piles.

What auto-focus did to cameras and automatic transmission did to cars is what we feel the Jogger will do to productivity, virtual assistance, and memory aids. It makes it a lot easier for so many more of you to enjoy the empowerment and freedom that comes with a strong memory.

Please try it and tell us what you think. Our work is not done and we’d love to hear what your perfect Memory Jogger would be.

Sunil Vemuri

Chief Product Officer

Memories are free. Or at least they should be.

We’re glad so many of you have been enjoying our free service. We’ve enjoyed reading your stories of how reQall has helped you in so many different ways. Some of you have asked us, “Don’t you guys need to make money?” Or, “Are you going to suddenly start charging for your service without any warning?” Or, “Will you one day disappear like some other services?”  We thought we’d take a moment to respond to your questions.

While we’d love to tell you that money isn’t an issue, the truth is that, yes, like everyone else, we do need to make money. But don’t worry: we won’t surprise you by charging you for the service you’re currently enjoying. We have many exciting plans in the pipeline and will keep you posted on these developments.

Will we disappear? We will confess to enjoying reading about Houdini or watching an illusionist make a white tiger vanish, but that’s as far as our disappearing act goes. In fact, we’re currently working on some very interesting new features. And, as always, we love to hear from you about what you’d like to see in the next version of reQall. 

In the meantime, we hope you’ll continue to spread the word about reQall so that people looking for a free memory aid will know where to find it. In today’s web-connected world, it really does make a difference when you post a comment, write a blog entry or reply to an article to let people know that reQall helps you remember and stay organized.  Be sure to friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@reqall) – and we’ll follow and friend you back!

Augmenting and Improving Human Memory

Making it easy for people to store and retrieve their memories was rated by IBM as one of the top 5 innovations that will have change our lives in the next five years.

Dr. Bill Pulleyblank from IBM was interviewed on CNBC this morning, where they again focused on making "Forgetting a Distant Memory".



While we may depart from IBM on the means to the end, we certainly concur with the core vision of building technology that makes it easy to capture memories, automatically organize them, and always deliver the right memory in a contextually relevant manner.

Where Did Our Memory Go?

Our work revolves around helping you remember the important things of life. So naturally when Nicholas Carr raised the question ("Is Google Making Us Stupid?") in his July article in The Atlantic Monthly, I paid attention. The gist of the challenge was this: with media messaging overload, the tools available via technology and information literally at our fingertips, is this perfect storm doing something to our brains, our memory and our ability to reflect and concentrate?

Carr makes the case that as we use the web ”we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.” He notes that because of technology, not only have our reading patterns changed, so has the way our brains appear to process information. We take info faster, don't read deeply, flit from link to link receiving parts of sources; never whole pictures. We're inundated with more messaging than ever, but we retain less. In short, we forage, we don't feast.

Neuroscience research shows that our brain's neurons are actually more plastic, for more years, than scientists used to think. It's feasible that the all-encompassing influence of the computer as our library, clock, travel guide, booking agent, diary, typewriter, scheduler, telephone, calculator and dozens of other things, is indeed doing things to our brains at the biological level.

Whether this is good or bad depends upon whom you ask.

On the one hand, we get more information, from nearly anywhere, faster than ever. This is a good thing. But we're not doing as much thinking and remembering. Maryanne Wolfe a developmental psychologist at Tufts University says “We are not only what we read, we are how we read... becoming mere decoders of information.”

As Carr points out, there isn't time for “the fuzziness of contemplation.” He makes the case that reading by jumping from link to link, “propels you forward,” but doesn't allow for deep memory retention. It uses the short-term, prefrontal lobes of our brains. To become long term, memory needs to be reprocessed in the hippocampus.

Adroit repetition can help move things you want to remember into your long-term memory; Mom's new cell phone number; the words of a poem, the steps for your company vision. If you haven't tried out the reQall Memory Jogger function, we hope you do. You may not have time for “fuzziness of contemplation,” but using technology to build a better memory? Smart!

N. Rao Machiraju
CEO

The Five Most Important Things to Know About Productivity

The word “productivity” gets thrown around a lot; it's the “holy grail” of our over-scheduled lives. What does productivity mean? Society's definition is business-oriented, the result of early 20th century creation of assembly lines and industrial measurements: “The amount of output per unit of input.” Most of us seem driven to pack 9-day weeks into 7-day time frames. We owe some of the urgency to the fact that the real meaning of being productive was hijacked.

Society's definition of productivity is ridiculously narrow. Webster's definition is broader and richer. Yes, to be productive is “the creation of economic value” and “to produce effective results.” It is also “to be abundant and fertile.” Put that way, productivity is also about quality of life, which is what reQall is about.

Underlying our broader definition of productivity at reQall are five things to improve the quality of your whole life, not just your scheduling system:

1. Have a plan. Life feels more “abundant and fertile” when you decide what you want in life. This is true both short term and long term. What do you want to happen this week, this year, five years from now? What relationships do you want strengthened? Without a plan in mind, most of us drift. As the Cheshire Cat said in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, “If you don't know where you're going – any way is fine.”
2. The right tools. It's hard to sail around the world without a boat and navigation gear. It's harder to be productive if you don't remember what needs to get done, what's important about a chance meeting, how to coordinate reminders with your “other” anywhere you are. The right tool helps.
3. Focus. Multi-tasking – trying to get everything done at once – often we don't get much done at all. Decide what's most important. Do it first. Then move on to the two-handed juggling act. Skip doing 10 things at once. You'll do none of them well. Some don't need doing.
4. Improvise. Don't overlook the serendipity of life. While you're staring at a long “To-do” list, the best thing ever to happen to you might go by. Look up or you'll miss it.
5. Refresh. Life needs people and perspective. A dynamic life plan includes better relationships, important things and time for what matters Better memory plays a big part in a productive life. Understand that and you've got a plan!

'Til next week,
Sunil

Remembering numbers – 888 versus 866

Quick update. reQall’s phone number in the U.S. is 888-9-REQALL (888-973-7255).  We were mentioned in the New York Times today (which was great) but there was a small typo in the number.  We’ve had fun getting 866-9-REQALL to work.  We’ll tell you more about it later.  For now, please remember, it’s 888!

What Better Memory Means

Here at reQall, it's a given that we're fanatical about memory. We exist to help you improve your memory and, through it, your life and your relationships.

Our interest in memory is of two kinds – one is capturing the most important bits of things you need to not forget and then providing well-timed, automatic retrieval. These bits and pieces can't stay top-of-mind because you need your reason and memory for other critical things. But often they make the difference between remembering that your wedding anniversary is Friday - and the doghouse. With reQall you're given the luxury of forgetting things until you need to remember.

There's another kind of memory that excites us and drives us to constantly improve reQall capabilities.  It's the role reQall can play in keeping "organic" memory (much prized these days) strong. Tamin Ansary noted that the days are gone when we can lie idly beside a stream and memorize the entire “Iliad” in Greek.  We need our minds for many other things - generally all at once. Time is our new luxury.  Organic recall is becoming a new, necessary, status symbol.

When a thought is fresh in our mind, our memory is stronger.  reQall's patent pending "memory jogger" capability can work in the background to keep our "organic" memory strong, automatically delivering nuggets of information to exercise our brains.  The "memory jogger" anticipates memory needs by looking forward to the things that are coming up in our lives, identifying associations among the various data given to reQall, and factoring in how we've used reQall in the past.  In the end, it’s like having a discrete personal assistant whisper in our ear the things we need to know before we need it.  

Unless someone finds a way to return to the time-stretched days of the “Iliad,” I'm thinking that the organic memory enhancement of reQall will continue to be one of the best ways to gain a better memory.  What do you think?  What tricks and techniques do you use to improve your memory? What are the hardest things for you to remember?  How have you used reQall to meet the challenge?

'Til next week,
Sunil  

reQall and What Really Matters

The other day a statistic jolted me, although it didn't surprise me. We spend most of our lives (80%) focused on things that are not important.

We make to-do lists as if our lives depended upon them. We doggedly work our way through our calendars as if we were planning D-day. (As a working Mom, my lists might save my sanity, but frankly, the things on my lists would not save me or the world.) Some of us gauge our worth by the fullness of our calendars, not by the value of our actions or the important things we can do to make our own lives healthier or more fulfilling.

You've heard us say that reQall is not just a productivity tool, although it can help you be more productive. I love being more productive with reQall. But, there's a side of reQall that can help you transform your life to begin to address the important things you want for your life. You could call it transformational reQall. Transforming begins with intention - you have to want to change your life. Then you need a tool.

That tool is the reQall memory jogger function. I've found a way to use it to help me remember my long-term goals and life aspirations. It's a simple tool. I've set up a second reQall account and directed it to give me regular phone and Yahoo Instant Messenger jogs (you could set it up with AIM too.) These messages are all about the important things of my life; my goals for health and fitness, my intention to be more present in the “now”. There's a regular jog to stop what I am doing and take more time to be with my daughter; reminders to smile more . . . laugh more . . . to do one kind thing each day.

I'm no mystic. I'm probably not going to change the world by using reQall Memory Jogger™, but with it I am changing myself. And just maybe, by using it, I'm changing the lives of those around me simply by getting a little help to transform myself as a person. What about you? We'd love to hear about ways you've found to use reQall to help you get more from your life.

Here's to transformation!

Deb