Jott.com is one of the best new services I have come across recently. If you’re a web marketing or technology consultant like me, you probably find yourself driving to and from client locations a good deal part of your working week. The time I have then lets me collect my thoughts about the meeting I just had or the next steps on a project that I am working on. For whatever reason, it tends to be a particularly productive time to brainstorm for SEO phrases and content ideas.

Unfortunately, these productive brainstorming sessions leave me with thoughts that I need to annotate somewhere, but wait a second, what am I crazy, I’m driving! I need to keep both hands on the wheel. Oh and how temping it is to grab my Moto Q, usually charging in the seat over. It almost seems too easy to just pick it up and attempt to type a note to myself.

Yeah, I know, bad idea.

Thankfully, Jott can save my ideas and my life, by transcribing my voice instructs into my email, while I keep my hands on the wheel.

What’s Jott about?

“Jott™ is a revolutionary new service that automatically converts your voice into e-mail and text messages—anytime, anywhere, with any cell phone. Jott™ makes you more productive and efficient by capturing your ideas, notes to self, tasks, and more without using your keypad.”

- Jott.com

For road warriors, here’s four easy steps to setup Jott on your phone.

Step 1
First, sign up with an account on Jott.com. They will send you a typical email with a link to verify your account. Then fill out a couple of questions to let them know what type of cell phone service you have and whether or not you want Jott to email you, text message you, or both.

Step 2
What you to do next is add 1866-Jott-123 in your contacts list and then save it as one of your quick dial numbers. Mine is #5. If I press and hold 5 on my cell phone, it automatically dials and connects to Jott’s service. By reading the caller id, Jott knows I’m the one calling, and presto, you get the pleasant,”Who do you want to jott?” question. Setting up quick dial depends what type of phone you have, but most modern cell phones work roughly the same.

“Ok, but your still picking up your cell phone while your driving to press 5, that’s not quiet safe is it?”

Step 3
The next step is to get familiarize yourself with your voice-activation services. Again, this depends in large part to the type of phone and/or type of service you may have. Moto Q’s have built in voice-activation in the phone itself. My hands free device allows me to voice-activate Jott’s service with a quick press of button, nothing more complicated than turning the radio in your car.

Step 4
Use it. I have all my voice notes sent to my inbox for future reference and processing. But I also like getting them sent to my cell phone via SMS. By asking Jott for a “Reminder”, I can set Jott to send me a note at a future time and date. If I happen to be in a meeting or in an environment where I can’t leave my cell phone ringer on, I will be get a transcribed version of my note via SMS Text*.

There are a number of uses for Jott but collecting my thoughts on the go and sending myself reminders, I have found to be what I use it for most frequently. It’s quiet remarkable how easy it is to use and how sophisticated it’s transcribing technology has to be to make this magic happen so accurately. I haven’t tried blogging with it, but I am told it does a pretty good job as well. I will have to try that sometime soon.

Right now Jott.com is free, in beta, I suspect it will have some nominal fee associated with it when it’s ready for primetime.

*Note: Make sure you have an adequate plan for SMS. Overage charges are very expansive so keep an eye on your phone bill and make sure you have enough service cover your typical usage.