networking on the go « All Things Networking

Posts Tagged ‘networking on the go’

Coffee House Tech Trends

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

As we move to the end of the year, I wanted to share an observation of technology and how we are using it.

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I spend a lot of time in coffee houses. It’s where I meet my clients, prospects and people I network with. I am also a people watcher, and a gadget freak, so I like to see what gadgets other people are using.

Last year and very early this year, I saw a lot of Blackberrys, laptops and some netbooks. Those appeared to be the mobile productivity tools of choice.

As 2009 progressed, I saw a change. I now see fewer laptops and Blackberrys. What I see now are more netbooks, iPhones and other brands of smartphones.

It’s actually surprised me how the number of Blackberrys has dropped off. It’s a good mobile tool, but based on my unscientific measurement, it seems to be losing ground to the iPhone and other smartphones. I expect to see more Android-powered phones next year, especially as long as Verizon continues to not have an iPhone. People seem to like the touch screen phones, and the Blackberry Storm has not taken off here. I see it, certainly, but compared to the iPhone? No comparison.

The switch to more netbooks does not surprise me. More portable is better. Hence my recent netbook purchase. Most of the work done in coffee houses seems to be web browsing, basic word processing, email (and watching YouTube videos). Netbooks perform those functions very well.

What did surprise me until I thought it through was what I perceive as a switch from netbooks to iPhones and the like. Note the work I mentioned above. iPhones and many other smartphones perform most of those functions very well. Word processing is the only one where a computer is clearly better, but I have written plenty of documents on my phone, so it certainly can be done.

My observation is, of course, in the Washington DC area. Anyone from another location have observations to share? Is this an “inside the Beltway” phenomenon, or does it extend elsewhere?

Oh, just one more observation. While I was in Disney World last week, I noticed that while iPhones certainly were present, they were scarcer than the DC area. It might have had something to do with the fact that the AT&T service was horrible in the Orlando area. I couldn’t get 3G at all in the parks, and even my Edge connection was sluggish at best. I used to think all the complaints about AT&T were unjustified. The service in the DC area is quite good. Now I see that my experience here is hardly universal. Another reason to stay put for now.

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Tags: iPhone, networking on the go
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Finally Got a Netbook!

Monday, December 21st, 2009

I am back from vacation, and it was amazing. To think that less than a week ago, I was wearing shorts. And now I am back home with a foot and a half of snow outside. Is this a great country or what?

Anyway, it’s back to work and back to blogging. I have a new toy…I mean tool… to work with and share. It definitely helps with networking on the go, so I’m still on topic.

During my fight with Verizon a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that I am very productive in coffee houses. I was getting more done there in a couple of hours than I was at my home office. Which finally gave me the excuse the buy the netbook I have been lusting after for more than a year.

I decided on the Toshiba NB205. Why that one? My research indicated that Acer and Toshiba have the most reliable netbooks. And the Toshiba had much better battery life than the Acer. It’s rated for 9 hours. I’m not getting that, but I’m getting good life. I bought it on Friday, and I’ve charged it twice. The initial charge and one other. Definitely need to charge it today, but this has been good. Battery life is important since the Panera I spend the most time at has two power outlets. What were they thinking?

It’s definitely slower than my laptop, but it’s getting the job done. Operating system is Windows 7 Starter, and I discovered one major downside. I thought I had done my research well, but somehow I missed the “can’t run more than 3 programs at the same time” limitation. This is a bummer since my usual work lineup is Firefox, Thunderbird, Tweetdeck, iTunes and Open Office. iTunes is the obvious casualty (my iPhone can cover the music angle). Email or Tweetdeck will go when I need to use Open Office. I can live.

The keyboard was the other reason I got this one. Very comfortable. The keys are large with good spacing between them. Even my husband and his huge fingers can type comfortably on them.

I still have a program or two to install, but I’ve got the important ones loaded and running well. As I work now, I have Tweetdeck bringing in important stuff, like my 4:30 appointment DMing me to reschedule. My blog is almost done. Life is good. Tomorrow I will finally leave the house with it, and provided it survives two clients drooling over it, I think we are in business!

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Tags: networking on the go
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Aggregation and Push

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Yes, these are legal between consenting adults in the state of Virginia.

Seriously, keeping up with social media can absorb your entire life if you let it. So you need to control it rather than letting it control you. A good way to do this is keeping your media in as few places as possible (aggregation) and having things sent to you instead of you having to go get them (push).

Let’s start with aggregation. Remember my recent post on Google Reader? Reader collects all the blogs you are reading and allows you to go to one place to read them, saving you from having to go from website to website to keep up. That saves a lot of time. And Google Reader highlights blogs with current entries, so you don’t have to worry about who has updated yet and who hasn’t. That’s almost, but not quite, push.

Now let’s look at a program that aggregates AND pushes. Tweetdeck. Tweetdeck allows you to keep track of Twitter, Facebook and MySpace all through one program. It keeps each account in a separate column. When someone tweets, it shows up. And when someone updates their status or posts a link on Facebook, that shows up as well. That’s the aggregation, and the program would be great if that’s all it did. But, as long as you have the program running on your computer, you will get pop-up notifications when a new post arrives. You can even group your contacts, so when one of your best friend posts something, you’ll get a different pop-up notification than when Great Aunt Martha posts a picture on her Facebook page of you when you were three years old.

This was very useful to me a couple of nights ago. I’m subscribed to Swagbucks, where I can get free stuff. Swagbucks posts codes to various places, including Twitter. Enter the code, and you get a Swagbuck. Wednesday night, they tweeted that later in the evening, they were going to be posting a code that was good for only 10 minutes. I got it because Tweetdeck “pushed” that post to me. Without Tweetdeck, I probably would have missed it.

And that’s how I keep up. I have most of my social media content aggregated in Google Reader and Tweetdeck. And Tweetdeck pushes stuff to me so I know exactly when something pops up.

Anyone else have any good ways to keep track?

Gotta go. Tweetdeck just told me a friend updated their Facebook page. I need to see what’s up.

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Tags: blogging, networking on the go, social media, time management
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Facebook as Follow Up

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

Facebook recently updated their mobile app for the iPhone, and I’ve been using it for about a week now. It’s a good update and makes it even easier to keep up with my friends on the go. Which reminded me that I haven’t written anything about social media for a while.

Follow up is the part of networking that trips people up the most. Many of you have heard me say it. We meet someone new, decide we like each other and will definitely refer each other. Then six months later, nothing has happened. The main culprit for that is lack of follow up.

But what is follow up? At its core, it’s staying in touch with people and becoming a part of their personal (if appropriate) and professional lives. Remember that we refer people we know, like and trust. Follow up incorporates all three of those, and Facebook is an excellent tool for the liking part.

Why and how?

Mostly through status updates. If you’ve been on Facebook, you know what I’m talking about. Status updates are the running feed of what people are doing. They range from significant (my mom died yesterday) to frivolous (eating a ham sandwich now). They can be personal, like the previous examples, or professional. I often use my status updates to announce new clients and networking events I am attending.

A question I often get is “why do I care what other people are up to?” When I get that question, I know people are missing the “know, like and trust” part of follow up. We care because we are human beings, and we need to connect with people on a personal level. We like to share what is going on, and we want other people to respond to us.

But as we network more and more, it becomes harder to stay in touch in person. We get to a point where we have to do some of our staying in touch virtually. And that’s where Facebook can be a good tool. We can keep an eye on what people are doing, offer encouragement, and let them know what we are up to.

When you’ve told someone “way to go” when they landed a new client and offered condolences on a recent loss, you’ve moved well along the road to mutual liking, and that gets you closer to great referrals.

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Tags: iPhone, networking on the go, social media
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Review: Getting Things Done

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

I’ve been recommending a fantastic book to many of my clients, and the response from them has been overwhelmingly good. The book is Getting Things Done by David Allen. Mr. Allen takes a different approach to time management and organization than many other authors, and I think most of his ideas are relevant to networkers.

One of the most interesting is that he suggests getting rid of priorities and To-Do lists. I had a hard time with both of those when I read the book. I lived and died by my To-Do list, and I wasn’t willing to give it up without a fight. But when I finally got his point, I gave it up. He suggests that we look at everything in our life and work as “next actions.” That concept, which seemed so simple, was almost revolutionary.

Look at a typical task: “Buy stuff for networking event.” Seems simple, right? Actually, that task can be broken down into a series of next actions:

Determine attendance
Decide on food for event
Pack projector and computer
Buy food

And so on. The point he makes is that if you leave a task too broad, you will tend to avoid it because it seems to hard to get your head around. Breaking it down into a series of discrete next actions makes it easier to actually take action and get an item off the list.

Another point he makes is to combine “work” and “personal” actions. That flies in the face of the advice of many time management gurus. But again, I see his point. His goal is to have his readers put in place a system where they are doing the right thing, in the right place. For example, if you need to go to Staples for work supplies, and your system includes both work and personal, you’ll also remember to pick up poster board for your son’s school project. If you maintained separate lists, the odds are good that you’d end up making two trips.

Go buy the book. It’s worth it. I’ve always thought of myself as organized, and I got so much out of this book that I completely reworked my systems. And I am getting a lot more stuff done.

In future posts, I’ll share some ideas for implementing the GTD system on the go and how it can fit in with an overall networking strategy.

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Tags: GTD, networking on the go, task management, time management
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News on the Go

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Last week, I posted on giving, and I mentioned that information can be an excellent way to give back. But with all the information available, and all the demands on our time, how can we keep up?

Getting your news on the go is what I am finding works the best. Google Reader is an excellent (and free) way of keeping up with news and blogs. They have an excellent mobile site, so you can access it from your smart-phone almost as easily as from your computer. The Washington Post just updated their mobile site, and I have been very happy with the redesign. The New York Times has an iPhone app that I use for accessing their site. I haven’t made a study of it, but I am certain other major papers have similar mobile access.

There are a myriad of mobile apps for keeping up with Twitter. The one I have been using is Twitteriffic for my iPhone. There is a free, ad-supported version that does everything I need.

What about you? What are you using to keep up with news on the go?

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Tags: Giving, iPhone, networking on the go
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Review: Word Press Mobile for iPhone

Monday, August 10th, 2009

Good networkers are often on the go. But we frequently have time between meetings to do some work. Mobile devices make that easier. So much nicer to pull out the phone while filling a few minutes between meetings than messing with a laptop.

Let me start my series of posts about mobile networking with a review of Word Press mobile for the iPhone. I have written several blog posts on the go with it, and so far I like it. (Yes, I wrote this post using it at Panera, waiting for a client.)

I can create a new post, even adding tags and categories. Categories are synced from the website, but tags aren’t, which is a bit of a pain. As my list of tags grows, it will be hard to remember which ones I use.

I can write and save directly to the phone, so I don’t need an active connection. Great. When I am camping in a couple of weeks with no cell signal, I can still write if the mood strikes me. But I kind of hope it won’t.

One of the nicest features is the ability to review and accept comments. Since there are days when I leave the house early in the morning and don’t get back until late, I am glad I can monitor the discussion around my posts on the go. It would be even nicer if the program pushed comments to the phone so I knew about them in real time. Right now I do have to remember to open the program and check. Maybe in the next version.

It does not support the iPhone landscape keyboard, but that’s a non issue with me. I almost never use it.

Syncing a post to the web, even over Edge, is fast. This post took about 15 seconds to upload on Edge.

Pros:
ability to create posts off-line
Ease of use
Quick learning curve
Ability to monitor comments

Cons
No use of landscape keyboard
No pushing of comments
No saved tags

Overall, I give it a solid 4 out of 5.

What? No iPhone? There is a beta version for you Blackberry users. If any of you want to test it and write a guest review post, I’d be happy to publish it. Just let me know.

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Posts Tagged ‘networking on the go’

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