WEEKLY WHEATIES #2522
Automation Software, AI, Apple, Google, Couch Travel
In this newsletter:
📝 Post: The Power of Automation Software to Upgrade Your Workflows
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: AI Updates
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Apple App Store Updates
🗞️ In Case You Missed It: Google Accessibility
😎 Pick of the Week: Travel From Your Couch
📦 Featured Product: Vertical Laptop Stand
📝 The Power of Automation Software to Upgrade Your Workflows
Anyone using a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer who interacts with any software or website has probably subjected themselves to some sort of automation. Email applications filtering emails, reminders on calendar or To Do apps, notifications, and much, much more. Many of these are disguised as processes or features, but at their core, they are performing an automation.
A basic automation can be disguised as a process following basic computational rules. In computer software, this is known as an IF-THEN statement. Essentially saying, “If [X] happens, perform [Y].” The [X] can be an input, time, setting, status, or any other term that may describe some type of digital condition or trigger some event. Generally, the [Y] is the output - a change in any of the above, a task to complete, or something similar.
While many of your normal and day-to-day softwares may have automations built into them, they may be limited in use. Microsoft Outlook and Excel are probably some of the most known softwares with some type of automation tools available. Outlook has a ton of rules that can be put in place on incoming mail, and Excel even has an entire library of formulas to help modify or automate your data.
Where things become tricky is when you try to move data from one program to another, or change something in one program based on a change in another. Typically speaking, these types of automations do not function properly outside of the app or program itself. Microsoft Office 365 and the Google Suite of products are beginning to build out internal programs like Microsoft Power Automate and Google Apps Script to help users automate their workspaces, but they only work within the family of products they are built.
Enter APIs (Application Programming Interface). An API is essentially a pre-determined set of rules and structures of code that allow softwares to communicate with other softwares that is built by another company, developer, or team within the same company. These are typically limited in their ability to modify the code of programs, and help communicate on more of a ‘top-layer’ of data from app to app. A developer can create an API for their software that allows another piece of software to make any change to their app that a user would have the ability to do.
The kicker here is two-fold. If you have two apps that you want to communicate with each other, depending on which app provides the input and which app provides the output, you would need one to offer an API, and the other to be able to read and manipulate that API. And let’s face it - with the amount of softwares available, it’s all but impossible for every software to communicate with every software. Or is it?
In the last few years, a new type of software has become popular. These are known as Automation Platforms. They are sometimes described as “no code” or “low code” because, for a user to implement them into their workflow, they are typically plug-and-play. There’s no coding or programming expertise needed in order to make the APIs connect and begin communicating with one another. These systems are built out to work with the APIs for as many softwares as they can find (we’re talking in the thousands), and connect them with the other softwares through their API.
While there are many more I’m unfamiliar with, I wanted to share some of the popular automation tools available, or some I’ve personally tried (and continue to use). They include:
Now, the automations you can build with these are essentially limitless. You can use AI to brainstorm workflows, or use any of the hundreds of built-in workflows already set up - just log in to your accounts and click through the choices. Alternatively, think about your current workflows. What tasks are repetitive for you? What things do you do that you believe to be mundane and fairly basic click, copy, paste, or the like? Again, there are tons of automations and workflows that software exists to help make your life easier. While these automation tools are advertised as a much quicker (time-saving) perk, they also help verify data integrity — making sure the information moved from one place to another stays intact and accurate.
When using an automation tool, you aren’t limited to the one piece of software as mentioned, but you also now have the ability to complete multi-step tasks, or workflows with numerous steps involving just as many softwares. There are tons of examples available on all of the tools listed. Here’s a list from IFTTT, Make, and Zapier. I’ll share a pretty crazy example for sales or leads.
Let’s say you have a form on your website that asks potential customers for a time and date they are available for a call. Once they complete the form, you could: automate creating and sending a calendar invite to a Zoom call; take their email and add it to your weekly/monthly newsletter; send them an FAQ/facts sheet of the product(s) they noted interest in; create a call prep sheet for you and/or sales member on the call; find them on LinkedIn and ask to connect; send a reminder email or two before the Zoom call; add their info to your CRM; and literally anything else you can think of.
All of the tools mentioned above can be pretty pricey as more and more workflows are built, but most of them offer free tiers or free trials to let you verify they will do what you think they will do.
What kind of workflows have you implemented in your personal or business life?
🗞️ ICYMI: AI Updates
In a somewhat interesting investment, xAI to pay Telegram $300M to integrate Grok into their chat app. With X.com trying to become the Everything App, I’m not sure if this is just a marketing tactic or if, at some point, they will try to buy Telegram, too.
With AI ever-expanding into the workplace, let this stand as a reminder to verify all responses you receive from any AI model. Just in the last week, there have been 5 documented cases where AI was used falsely in the courts. If you’d like to keep up with these, Damien Charlotin, a research fellow out of Paris, built the AI Hallucination Cases website. This site is essentially a database that “tracks legal decisions in cases where generative AI produced hallucinated content.”
🗞️ ICYMI: Apple App Store Updates
There’s been a lot of Apple leaks in the news this past week, but I won’t comment on anything until they announce it. However, what did get shared publicly is two-fold. First, Apple’s US App Store topped $400B in developer billings and sales in 2024. While I talked about this last week in Weekly Wheaties #2421, this number is still crazy to fathom. One thing I didn’t talk about was how they prevented more than $9 billion in fraudulent transactions over the last five years.
🗞️ ICYMI: Google Accessibility
Google I/O has come and gone, but Google hasn’t let up! They have a team of developers always coming up with new and innovative apps and systems. One thing announced last week is SynthID Detector, a new portal to help identify AI-generated content in images, video, and audio. It is now being rolled out to testers and will be available more broadly at a later, undefined date. Another really unique and niche product is SignGemma, a model for translating sign language into spoken text, coming later this year.
😎 POTW: Travel From Your Couch
How about some fun mixed with your educational picks this week:
Niantic unveils Quest app to explore 3D images from around the world
Smithsonian Open Access - view, download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images
touch grass - An app blocking screen time until you touch grass
Touch Grass - Special edition electronic covers made of real grass
Travel worldwide - interactive map for Villages - Best Tourism Villages
📦 Featured Product
For those of you who have a laptop and need a place to store it when not in use, consider the Omoton Vertical Laptop Stand. It is adjustable to fit any size laptop (up to 17”) and has a non-slip covering on the base to keep from sliding on tables. It also comes in 4 colors to blend in/match your desk or laptop of choice. My only caution is to be careful using these when your laptop is also your workstation. Most laptops allow connections and use when the lid is closed, but that could cause overheating issues if used like that over long periods of time, with no other way to cool.
