In Scott Belsky’s new book, “Making Ideas Happen” (full review coming soon!), one section that struck a chord was the bit on how effective creative people organise their environments to ensure their ideas are put into action.  One recurring theme is the use of the Post-it note  - we all know how useful these gems are to jot down snippets of inspiration and things to remember, and keep them firmly in view.

But when you don’t share a physical space with your collaborators, is there an online equivalent?  How can those titbits of information be shared with the whole team and displayed visually so that they’re not forgotten?

Stixy is a flexible, intuitive and free tool that allows individuals to create online boards and add to-dos, documents, photos and notes, which can then be shared with team members.  The board’s design can be customised and the ‘widgets’ moved around and organised easily.  A great way to get started.

A tool with more sophisticated functionality (but needing a bit more of an induction) is Evernote.  Evernote allows users to store anything – images, websites, text notes, sketches  – in an online space or  ‘notebook’, to come back to later.  Although primarily designed to help individuals to remember stuff, they have added functionality for notebooks to be shared with others (although a Premium account is needed for them to edit and add to the notebook, otherwise they can only view).  Once downloading the various applications and plug-ins (such as the web clipping tool), your Evernote account can be accessed from your computer or the internet.  Install it on your mobile phone and you’ll also be able to store bits of information on the fly – for example,  take a snapshot of something that inspires you and add it to your shared notebook for your team members to see almost instantly.