Mobile Productivity

Calendar Chaos! Who owns my time and how do I know?

My calendar is schizophrenic.  We've tried therapy.  We've tried medication.  Unfortunately, work/life balance is suffering as my multiple personalities fight for calendar time.  The problem is simple:

I have no unified calendar.

That's sort of scary.  There is no one place where I can go look to figure out where I am supposed to be and when.  There is no one canonical source that I, or someone else, can consult when committing my time.  It isn't from lack of effort.  My Outlook calendar is "supposed to be" my canonical calendar.  I try to keep it up to date.  Unfortunately, the natural compartmentalization of my world means it is an uphill battle.

First, there is Outlook.  The corporate standard my organization uses for calendaring (against an exchange server).  Coworkers schedule meetings against it.  I sync it to my phone.  It represents my day to day view of where I should be.

Then there is Salesforce.com.  This is where our sales organization schedules my time.  It holds customer meetings, prospect meetings, partner meetings, marketing events and webinars.

Then there is google calendar.  This is where I've been experimenting with my personal calendar.  It is nice because it is easy to share with my friends and family.

Unfortunately, three calendars equals three distinct views of the world.  Salesforce has a mediocre Outlook integration.  Those that have used it know how fragile it can be.  Microsoft's implementation of ical is so non-standard Google usually just throws up its hands and give me an error telling me it can't be imported.  In the rare times when it all works well, the process is manual and a pain.

One of the interesting trends in Enterprise 2.0 is the drive for tools that unify work/life management without compromises.  It will be interesting to see what evolves for unified calendaring.  Perhaps Google's enterprise unit will solve the problem.  Perhaps Microsoft will embrace the coming changes in work patterns and extend it's office dominance.  Perhaps someone like myself who has to deal with the problem on a daily basis will leverage the impressive toolsets available today to create an elegant solution to calendar schizophrenia.

Why EDGE on the iPhone doesn't suck as much as you think

When Apple first announced that the iPhone would have EDGE instead of UTMS, it immediately disqualified itself as an option for my next phone.  I have been using an HTC TyTN, a 3G/UTMS enabled smartphone with Pocket IE and Opera for about a year.  Frankly, the experience of browsing is slow and painful.  The thought of taking a step backwards and slowing down browsing even further was unacceptable.  However, after running Safari on the iPhone over EDGE side by side with Opera on the Windows Mobile Phone over UTMS, I have discovered a subtly of mobile browsing that I had not previously occurred to me. 

The Punchline

Browsing on the iPhone with EDGE isn't much slower than browsing with 3G Broadband on comparable smartphones.

The Mobile Browsing Process

I know that sounds crazy, but let's analyze the mobile browsing process, particularly for interactions with web applications (my new favorite use).  The mobile browsing process can be broken down into three distinct phases: Navigation, Loading and Rendering, and Reading and Processing.

Navigation

The navigation process encompasses everything I do from the point of time in which I decide to seek out a piece of information or capture a piece of information until I the browser has registered that request and is working on it.  For me, this includes:

• Turning on my phone
• Launching a browser
• Entering a URL or retrieving a bookmark

Loading And Rendering

The Loading And Rendering process is all about the raw power of the phone.  It includes:

• Posting the request to a remote server
• Downloading the results
• rendering the results on the screen

Reading and Processing

The Reading and Processing process is what I do to close the loop on the request.  In other words, I went to this page for a reason.  I either need to enter some information, interact with some controls, scroll through the page to find what I am looking for.  So the basic breakdown is:

• Orient myself to the structure of the page
• Locate the content I require
• Interact with the page (controls, forms, links, etc)

The Comparison

With my HTC TyTN (slow processor, small screen, but blindingly fast network) that process looks something like:

As you might guess, my Loading and Rendering time was reduced quite nicely with the 3G browsing.  What is more surprising has been my experiences with the iPhone and the PAINFULLY SLOW EDGE NETWORK.  What I have found is that while there is a dramatic and noticeable slowdown in the Loading and Rendering component of the browsing experience, the ergonomics of the phone, coupled with a great rendering engine and decent processor end up creating an overall faster browsing experience for me (and certainly a more enjoyable one).

Conclusion

Why is it that my overall experience is faster, while my network is so sssslllloooowww?  I would encourage you to take a look at my post on why the iPhone is such a great mobile application development platform.  To recap, it boils down to innovation in getting you where you want to go quickly (Navigation) and making it easy for you to find and interact with the content you need, despite the fact you are doing so on a 3 inch screen.

From Microsoft to Web 2.0

I have developed a solid productivity system based on:

• Outlook (with a bevy of plugins)
• OneNote
• MindManager
• Toshiba M400 Tablet PC
• HTC TyTN running Windows Mobile 6 (and a host of 3rd party software)
• And a cast of smaller third party windows based apps

However, increasingly, I have found myself incorporating web 2.0 applications to fill specific holes in my overall productivity flow.  The pace at which compelling web based applications have come to market has been exciting.  After becoming attached to some of these (usually for their collaborative features), I began to ask myself the question, could I replace my battle hardened windows apps entirely with Web 2.0 equivalents (I hesitate to use the word equivalents, as I have found my web 2.0 productivity workflows are quite different than those from my windows world).

So, I have started an experiment to see if :

a) I could achieve the same level of productivity with web 2.0 apps as I have with the best of the windows apps
b) Could I find more innovative ways of becoming more productive
c) Could I survive my brutal travel schedule without all my apps with me during my flights

I'll post here with all the details....

Introducing Mobile Productivity

I'm pleased to introduce the Mobile Productivity Blog.  This blog will focus on productivity issues, tips and tricks, and reviews focused on those of us who spend our time traveling and out of the office and need to adapt to the unique set of chaotic challenges that result.

Background
I travel a lot.  I routinely max out the frequent flyer programs on multiple airlines.  I spend more nights in a hotel than my own bed.  Even when I am in town, my time is dominated bouncing from conference rooms to breakfast/lunch/dinner meetings, with starbucks meetings in between.  After a few years of this lifestyle, I have had to adapt my productivity processes and tools to keep me effective regardless of where I work.  And given how much time I spend away from home, I am motivated to make every second count, so my time at home with my family can be maximized.

What You'll Find Here
You'll see three kinds of posts on this blog:

• Tips and Tricks: I'll outline, in "how to" style techniques, processes, and tools that have been successful for me
• Commentary: Discussion and insight into productivity problems facing mobile professionals
• Reviews: Detailed explanation of the tools and technologies I use to stay productive with an emphasis on why they seem to work for me.

Frequency
As this blog rolls out, you should see about one post a week..sometimes slightly more, sometimes slightly less.

Contact
I'm looking forward to creating a dialog.  Please don't hesitate to contact me, either through comments in the blog or directly through my contact information.

Thank you and enjoy!

Erik