The Eric Mack Company Privacy Policy
WEBSITE PRIVACY POLICY
1. INTRODUCTION.
The Eric Mack Company (“us,” “we,” or “Company”), is committed to respecting the privacy rights of its customers, visitors, and other users of the Company Websites (e.g. IntentionallyProductive, eProductivity, or FasterAtWork), (collectively referred to as the “Site”).
We created this Website Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) to give you confidence as you visit and use the Site, to explain the types of personal information we collect from and about you and how we use, disclose and protect the personal information as well as your ability to control certain uses of it.
2. TYPES OF INFORMATION COLLECTED
(a) TRAFFIC DATA COLLECTED. We may use cookies or similar technologies to collect information when you visit our Site, use our online services, purchase our online products or interact with our online advertisement. This type of information may include: your type of browser or device, details of the web pages you have viewed, links you clicked on, your IP address, sites clicked on before coming to our Site and any other information you choose to share when using the different social media buttons on our Site. For more information on cookies and how to manage them, please see our Cookie Policy.
(b) PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED IN THE ONLINE STORE. In order for you to purchase products that we offer via the Site, we require you to provide us with certain information that personally identifies you (“Personal Information”). Personal Information includes your name, e-mail address, billing address.
(c) PAYMENT INFORMATION COLLECTED WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE OR MAKE A PURCHASE. The Eric Mack Company, (dba ICA.COM, eProductivity or FasterAtWork) uses Infusionsoft and PayPal as our eCommerce payment processor for all on-line purchases. For your security, your on-line purchase is handled by Infusionsoft and PayPal directly. Other than receiving a notification that you have made payments made via these providers, we do not receive any of your private payment information, such as your credit card details, etc.
When you use the above payment providers to pay us, your payment will appear on your credit card statement as “ICA COM INC” or “Eric Mack Co.”
Subscriptions
If you subscribe to one of our service plans, you will receive an email receipt every time a subscription payment is processed. Your subscription will automatically renew at the stated interval and renewal rate unless you cancel prior to the next billing date.
For your security and privacy, The Eric Mack Company will never request your credit card information via the web, email, or by telephone. If you are ever asked to provide this information, please refuse and notify us at once.
(d) PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED DIRECTLY FROM YOU. This is personal information you provide us if you communicate with us by filling in application forms, e-mail, post messages to any of our chat groups, bulletin boards, or forums, or otherwise complete online forms, surveys, contest entries, or register for our newsletter, any information provided in such communication and/or registration may be collected as Personal Information. This type of Personal Information may include your name, postal address, e-mail address, user name, telephone number, age, date of birth, or gender.
(e) PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM FORUM REGISTRATION. In order for you to create an account we require you to provide us with certain Personal Information. This type of Personal Information may include your e-mail address, user name, and date of birth. For more information about our forum please see our Terms of Use.
3. USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION.
(a) USE OF INFORMATION. We collect your Personal Information to provide you with the required services or information. The following are examples of how we may use the personal data we collect:
• provide you with services and products that you request from us
• send you an invoice for our services and products
• resolve consumer and/or product and services issues
• anticipate and resolve problems with any services and products supplied to you
• improve your customer experience on our Site
• do research and analysis to maintain, protect, develop and improve our services
• deliver customized content or advertising such as personalized offers for products and services that may be of interest to you
• communicate regularly with you to inform you about service updates, content, special offers and advertisements that may be of interest to you
• participate in our online communities, including our social media channel/pages and blogs
• store your preferences for future interactions and communications from us
• create external marketing & analytics reports
• prevent illegal activities, suspected fraud and potential threats to our network
analyze the characteristics of our customers at an aggregated level and customer utilization of our products and services in order to understand customer and market needs, to improve our existing products and services, to design new products and services and for business development
(b) SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION. We share certain categories of Personal Information we collect from you in the ways described in this Privacy Policy. We share this with advertisers and other third parties only on an aggregate (i.e., non-personally-identifiable) basis. We do not currently share Personal Information with other companies or third parties for any purpose other than our own Company purposes. In the event we do wish to share Personal Information with other companies we ask for your prior explicit consent (opt-in). We reserve the right to share Personal Information with business partners to assist us by performing core services (such as hosting, billing, fulfillment of the agreement with you, or data storage and security) related to our business activities and/or operation of the Site. If we do share any such data with business partners, we will require those business partners to agree to uphold the same standards of security and confidentiality that we have promised to you in this Privacy Policy. The business partners will only use your Personal Information to carry out their specific business obligations to the Company. If you do not want us to share your Personal Information with any third parties, please email us at websupport@ericmackcompany.com, but please understand that such a request will likely limit your ability to take advantage of all of the features and services we offer on the Site.
(c) USER CHOICE REGARDING COLLECTION, USE, AND DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION. You may choose not to provide us with any Personal Information. In such an event, you can still access and use much of the Site; however you will not be able to access and use those portions of the Site that require your Personal Information. If you wish to receive information and promotional material from us or from some of our partners, you may select the appropriate “opt-in” option each time we ask for your Personal Information. If you do elect to provide us with Personal Information, we may use that information for any of the purposes identified above, unless you have specifically chosen to “opt-out.”
4. CONFIDENTIALITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION.
Except as otherwise provided in this Privacy Policy, we will keep your Personal Information private and will not share it with third parties unless you authorize us to do so, or unless such disclosure is necessary to: (a) comply with a court order if we are legally entitled or required to do so; (b) protect our rights or property; or (c) enforce our Terms of Use.
5. SECURITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION.
The collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information is safeguarded by technological and organizational security measures with the objective to protect the Personal Information against loss, misuse and unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure or destruction. These measures are continually improved in line with technological developments.
Your Personal Information is stored on secure servers located in the United States that are not accessible by third parties. We transmit sensitive Personal Information via secured channels. We do not retain any financial information (e.g. Credit card numbers, etc.); this information is maintained by our eCommerce providers (Infusionsoft and PayPal) and subject to their privacy policies.
We will not retain your personal data for a period longer than necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, unless we have to keep it for legitimate business, tax, or legal purposes.
6. YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS.
You are entitled to know whether we hold Personal Information about you and, if we do, to have a copy of that information. Furthermore, you can request us to correct, update or delete your personal data in our records and/or inform us about any misuse of your personal data. You also have the right to data portability.
We maintain a procedure in order to help you confirm that your Personal Information remains correct and up-to-date in our online store, forum, and/or Faster at Work University. At any time, you may visit your personal profile on the relevant sites.
Through your personal profile you may review and update your Personal Information. Please note that our online store, forum, and Faster at Work University are separate databases, and you will need to update your information in each one if you have a profile. In the case of electronic direct marketing, we will provide you with a method to opt out of receiving further marketing materials or with a method to opt in if required by law. If you wish to contact us regarding your Personal Information, or object to our use of your Personal Information, you may do so by e-mailing us at websupport@ericmackcompany.com. You can also make a complaint to the relevant privacy authority.
7. LOST OR STOLEN INFORMATION.
Please notify us promptly at websupport@ericmackcompany.com if your credit card, user name, or password is lost, stolen, or used without your permission. In such an event, we will remove that credit card number, user name, or password from your account and update our records accordingly.
8. PUBLIC INFORMATION.
The Site may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. This Privacy Policy applies solely to Personal Information collected, used and restored in connection with the use of our products, services and Site.
We may also make chat rooms, forums, message boards, and news groups available to you. Please understand that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information. We have no control over its use and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your Personal Information.
9. CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or your privacy, you can contact us at:
Eric Mack Company
P.O. Box 221033
Santa Clarita, CA 91322-1033
USA
You can also click here to contact us by email.
10. UPDATES AND CHANGES TO PRIVACY POLICY.
We reserve the right, at any time and without notice, to add to, change, update, or modify this Privacy Policy, simply by posting such change, update, or modification on the Site and without any other notice to you. Any such change, update, or modification will be effective immediately upon posting on the Site. By continuing to access our Site or to make use of our products and services, you agree to be bound by the revised Privacy Policy.
Last Revised: June 4, 2019
Eric Mack Company Website Privacy Policy
The problem is even bigger than you describe for two reasons as I see it. The first is that GTD is a truly personal system, as it was designed to be. I have heard people speak of there system that is perfect for them and I know what they have would never work for me. The second issue I see is that there are many platforms that people operate in, and not always by choice. David uses Notes, as a consultant I have lived in a few different office ecosystems. The app would need to be Office Environment agnostic to insure that as the back end changed the app would still work. Even within the same ecosystems you may not have the same capabilities. Again, as a consultant I have utilized MS Office in different organizations. Each has been configured with it’s own rules. I worked in one environment and had a fairly robust GTD implementation integrating my work and personal lives, optimal in my opinion. I changed jobs and lost all the integration I had due to to limitations. For people like me I would see the need to have the tool integrate multiple ecosystems. Based on policy there would also need to have the ability to have the tool move data between the environments or only integrate them in the app and not cross pollinate data. I am sure there are even more and greater challenges.
Daunting.
Vincent, you raise many excellent points that David and I have discussed for years. Even when I developed eProductivity, the only way I was able to get close was by having several hundred preferences that could be called upon to easily customize the software for the individuals or environment it served. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Eric, thx for your input at the GTD summit. As you stated, I don’t think any of the apps out there come close to what GTD requires. I believe that David’s blue print needs to be broken down into smaller modules. And each module should be programmed and tested one at a time. I would start with a plugin which can operate in any email client to deliver the 5 steps workflow. I bet that even veteran GTDers when they move onto autopilot with email clarification/process do end up short cutting the workflow. It be ideal to have a tool that when you click on open email starts “its song” – “What is-it”, “Is it actionable”, “Yes/No”. I would want to see a timer if it’s a less than 2′ action… I’d be happy to discuss more with you. Thx
Yannick, indeed this is the approach I took when I developed eProductivity and showed it to David Allen step-by-step. Even as much as GTD is embedded in the way David works, he still uses some of the built-in tools you described that make it effortless.
I worked at IBM, 1978-2014. For a period of time I used eProductivity. Since I’ve left IBM, I no longer have access to IBM / Lotus Notes. For a period of time in the 1990s, we were considering to use Lotus Notes. The Corporate IT folks said it wouldn’t scale to the size of an organization of IBM. Then we bought the company. Over the next few years in the 1990s, IBM PROFS was turned off and we ran on Lotus Notes. Today, I wonder what the best, if there is one, “backend” system should be…. open source, proprietary, or what.
Before eProductivity, the most acceptable system I had was the Franklin Covey Windows based time management system. While not completely GTD based, the Covey system did allow for a decent approach to time and project management. Ultimately, when I switched to a Mac based platform for personal use, it lost its appeal, as did the ultimate support for a product.
I’ve tried some extensions based upon Evernote, and Omnifocus, even Google Mail/Calendar/Apps, nothing really seemed to do an adequate job of being a tool to add my adoption of GTD.
Ken, I don’t believe there is one ultimate back-end system; however, I can say that the IBM (Lotus) Notes environment is extremely robust and quite capable and allowed us a great deal of flexibility to customize the environment and workflow. Unfortunately, IBM dragged their feet/lost their way for many years on the marketing and development of Notes, causing many clients to move on to other markets. Recently, HCL purchased Notes from IBM for several billion dollars. It will be interesting to see what they choose to do with it.
I have been scouring the Internet for this program/app too, but as you said, I want it tailored to to my tasks and daily goals. I don’t feel so bad now that I know I’m not alone on this. I thought I could hire a programmer to create something for me, but not sure I could afford it right now. The guys over at quality-assurance-solutions have some nice little apps that if combined would be a nice start for me, but when I emailed asking if a couple could be integrated and maybe added to over time I was given a quick “No”. 🙁 Anyways, thanks for sharing David!! –Tracy L.
I have some ideas that could possibly enhance/accomplish the GTD process that I have been using in bits and pieces. It would be great to discuss this approach with someone to guide me to see what it would take to make it happen. I looked at the notes that David has put together but much of the handwriting is not clear.
Is there someone to contact or is there a document that is written that I could reference to get this process started?
It would be great to hear from you.
joseph herbst
I hope this doesn’t sound simplistic, but the screens really describe David’s vision, and David’s book describes the process. Beyond that, all you need is a decade or two of mastery of all the subtle nuances of GTD and an understanding of workflow development 🙂 That’s what I did when I designed eProductivity. While most of my attention these days is on helping people become intentionally productive with whatever tools they already have, I would be open to consulting with an organization that is prepared to invest in this and wants to understand more deeply how to “bake in” the GTD principles.
Thank you for your response.
I have been working on this set of issues for quite a while. I have partial implementations that focus on productivity in very specific environments, some quite out of the box for standard ToDo types of applications. Dave does have one for students that I just noticed and I will have to read to see how it fits with my approach. I guess I would need a quick conversation to see if my approach makes sense to effect a simple approach with a complex set of accomplishments before I jump into the full project. Is there anyone or a quick guide that can help me get started.
Also, I printed out Daves pdf but I don’t seem to be able to get a clear printout from the download. Is there a clearer version of this or perhaps a ppt presentation that I can print more clearly.
These will be of great help.
Again, thank you for the info
Great Eric! Thanks for sharing David and Eric.
I agree with Vincent in that GTD implementations are very personal. Also, the solutions designed only for work environments aren’t the best option for personal stuff (and for people that change jobs).
I’ve been using GTD for the last 12 years and have tried many tools, I could write down a list of ideas, features and requirements from my own perspective, but I think we are missing the point. Any product development effort needs to start in the problem space, not in the solution space.
To build the best GTD solution is needed to perform user research and see which are the user pain points with current GTD practices and implementations, before start to discuss functionality. I think there is a great opportunity to do this the right way. I’d be happy to contribute.
I agree wholeheartedly with the need for personalization and starting the design process in the problem space. This is much of the approach I used years ago when I designed eProductivity, though it took me several years to get the design so clear, complete, and effortless that it passed David’s rigorous vetting process — but once I did, the solution stuck (in fact, 10 years later, David still uses it).
That said, both of us would love to see this brought current and moved forward, and I think that’s why David is choosing to share his plans and his vision.
I’ll reach out to you privately about your other ideas.
Most people don’t realize the pain they’re in, that GTD relieves. That’s the big marketing and design issue.
Thanks, everyone, for your comments and MANY emails. I’m working my way through responding to those I can.
Meanwhile, I’d like to keep the discussion here on the blog for now so people can interact and learn from one another.
Due to the volume of inquiries, I’ve arranged to do a podcast with David Allen in two weeks so we can address some of these questions. if you have a question you would like us to consider for the podcast, please be sure to post it as a response to my latest blog post — see https://www.intentionallyproductive.com/answers-and-podcast-on-the-ultimate-gtd-app/
In the spirit of giving and getting input re GTD app, I’d like to share what I use. (Combo of PersonalBrain, calendars and Keep lists). Hopefully this will give the CTO some ideas and he may be able to provide input to my process to make it more effective.
Hi,
There are ereader tablets which you can take notes on and read documents, some of them run Android and therefore allow all sorts of productivity apps that aren’t only for a single device.
I’m going to get the Onyx Boox Max 3, its a 13.3 inch ereader with lots of great features. Would be really great to have a great productivity and personal organising app for these.
Sadly they are pretty expensive, but for a professional life with lots reading with large technical documents or even just notes, this is very important for exposure for people to know their options.