2018/08/14

CEO Notebook: Say Hello to a Refreshed Evernote

In June, we celebrated an important milestone in our history, our 10th anniversary. Today is another pivotal moment: we are pulling back the curtain on an evolved Evernote mission and a refreshed brand.

As CEO of Evernote, I have had the privilege of overseeing a company and set of products that improve people’s lives and work. Every day, we hear from customers and community members who tell us how Evernote is changing their worlds, in big ways and small. These stories tell us that Evernote is a part of something bigger than itself, and that’s what motivates us to build the best company we can. Our new brand reflects the optimism, clarity, and confidence that Evernote instills in our customers, and that they, in turn, give back to us.

We believe that people should spend more time on the things that matter most to them.

This means we’re modernizing the way we design and build our products. We are working to improve the customer experience. And we’re finding new ways that Evernote can play an essential role in people’s lives. That role has changed dramatically over the past ten years, and we want our brand to reflect the ways we’ve grown.

Remembering everything is as important today as it has ever been, but Evernote is about more than that. We help people manage information overload and find their focus. We are now more clear about that purpose and will be intentional about incorporating it into everything we do. At the beginning of the year I said that we would concentrate on three areas—EngageExtend, and Explore. Here’s what those words mean for our company and our new brand:

Engage with what matters

Evernote has been an ingredient in the success of our community and customers, and we are dedicated to aiding that success. We aspire to help you work smarter, not harder, to make progress on your goals.

To do this, we are constantly improving the core product and we’re selective about which companies we choose to partner with. From enhanced integrations with Apple, SlackSalesforce, and Microsoft, to polishing up the look and feel of our apps, we’ve made it easier to focus on your thoughts without interrupting your flow. We’ve also worked this year to improve the functionality of our products, specifically around how people are searching, collecting, and sharing information.

Extend impact

When you have the ability to focus on what is most important to you, something magical happens. You become more productive, more balanced, and even happier. Ideas spark actions. And when those ideas are shared, opportunity grows to impact other individuals, teams, and entire communities. The problems that Evernote addresses cross borders, time zones, and languages, impacting millions of lives every day.

We’re tackling the challenges of sharing and collaboration directly in our product development. As today’s workplaces and organizations continue to evolve, effective collaboration is the key to success. So we recently launched a new collaboration feature in Evernote Business called Spaces, which improves the way teams organize and share information. But Spaces is just the beginning of a larger initiative. Evernote’s goal is to enable people to seamlessly share information, see the big picture, and keep everyone on the same page, so they can focus on doing their best work.

Explore what’s possible

When people have a safe space to create, find, and share information they can be confident in their capacity to thrive. Determination and the self-assurance to explore what’s possible are at the root of what Evernote is all about.

It’s about giving people the freedom to focus, which also means not getting in the way. We don’t dictate how to use our products or how you should organize. Evernote lets you use the tools and methods that work for you. We believe that people can accomplish the most when they are free to be who they are and work the way they want to.

Integrating with other tools is the best way we know to allow people to work they way they want. But you will also see this principle at the heart of many of the product enhancements we plan to announce over the next twelve months. Stay tuned.

Our purpose is simple: we’re here to help people focus on what matters most. That idea underlies all of our work here at Evernote, and we will never stop striving to deliver on its promise. Throughout the process of evolving our brand, we have looked to our past for inspiration for our future. We started as a place to remember everything, and that will never go away. But bringing ideas to action and helping people to work together have become equally important to our customers, and therefore equally important in the products and experiences we build. Our brand now reflects our broader purpose and is a public declaration of our excitement and optimism for Evernote’s future.

You can find more details about the specifics of the brand refresh and the thinking behind it in our Medium post.