Digital post its 📝
Each week, I deconstruct ideas on product, growth, and building the future.
Hello friends,
The world deserves a better note-taking system. There are dozens of great note-taking apps…
Evernote
Google Keep
Apple Notes
Notion
Roam
…with one issue in common—they’re standalone apps.
Spatial interfaces:
Human beings experience life in relation to space.
With their spatial relationship to context, physical notes are reminders and markers for important information.
But there isn't a digital note-taking tool that mimics this spatial relationship.
Analog inspiration:
Post-it notes serve two important functions:
Highlights: Additional context in a book without having to flip to another page
Reminders: A shopping list on your fridge to ensure you always add new items
Post-its are a layer in our life that augment the real world.
Comments:
Specialized apps created features like “comments” to mimic post-its inside their apps.
Google Docs
Salesforce
Figma
But you must open each app to understand every comment in context.
Communication tools:
Tools like Slack aimed to unite us:
“Check out my doc”
“Here is my feedback”
“I made the edits”
But these tools add more noise (not less) and offer less context (not more).
Digital post-its
Why isn’t there a spatial note-taking layer integrated into our digital OS?
Take and consume notes
Across any app
Without context-switching
Is it possible for technology like this to even exist?
Cross-app @mentions
At General Collaboration, we think the solution is simple:
Single Chrome Extension
Integrated w/ all of your favorite apps
Unite cross-app @mentions
We’re currently in Beta and onboarding users as fast as we can.
If you liked this thread, you’ll love Julian Lehr’s essay.
Thank you for reading,
Elliott
👋 Hi, I’m Elliott, founder of General Collaboration, a Chrome Extension that interconnects apps like Notion, Google Docs, and Jira so you can @mention anything from anywhere and see all your @mentions in one place.