When I think about how I used start my day 20 years ago, compared to today, life is just way more convenient today.
In 1991 I was 38 years old and headed into my last 5 years of a 24 year career at the Star Tribune Newspapers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At that point, for a very few of us who weren't in denial, the hand writing was on the wall for the future of printed newspapers. Our days of walking to the end of the driveway to pick up our daily newspaper were, for the most part, coming to an end with the first half of the Baby Boomer Generation.
20 years ago, I would leave home a 7:00 in the morning and drive 22 miles to downtown Minneapolis where I would attend sales and management meetings and take notes using a pens and a legal pad. When I wanted to write a memo about the meeting, I would write it in hand write it and hand it to a person, called a Secretary, to type in on her network computer only to read, make corrections and print again. When I think back, it's a wonder we accomplished anything.
So now that you have the idea, let's flash forward back to today! I left the Star Tribune in 1995 and became self employed along with lovely wife of 32 years, Mary. As our kids moved onto college, we moved from Minneapolis to Summerlin, near Las Vegas, NV where we operate Kennedy Advertising and Mary Kennedy at RE/MAX Central.
Today, I get up in the morning and turn on my I-Phone GS. Now I'm not Mr. High Tech guy, but I do pride myself in knowing enough to be dangerous about what I want to get out of this utility. I call my SmartPhone as a utility because that's really what I use it for. I don't need to have the latest version of the phone. In fact, I purposely lag one model behind so when the version 5 comes out, I'll go for the version 4. I don't like to be on the front end of working out the bugs. I view my time as precious and use my I-Phone GS for more work and very little play. The only game I play each day is one called "Get Efficient with your I-Phone" I have no music loaded on the phone.
I sync the phone with my computer each day so my calendar and contacts are automatically updated and look the same in both places. I use several apps that are pretty basic and can be used when I'm away from the office. I use Google Voice for my Voicemail because I have one click access to listen to my messages and the messages are logged for me up on my I-Google Home Page.
The basics are the email downloaded from 3 different accounts that I can receive and respond to. As for the apps that I can access from my personal ITunes Home Page, I downloaded the Yahoo and Google Search Apps for in the field research. My Social Networking apps consist of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Yelp. I also receive property alerts from Zillow.com and Realtor.com. I only open them when I see that I have a message.
I'm also an information junkie so I check the headlines each day using the mobiles apps for Fox News, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Star Tribune, TwinCities.com, NFL.com, Fandango and the Las Vegas Review Journal.
The only real non- business apps I use, on a regular basis, are All Recipes, Groupon, Overstock, and Kayak for travel.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m not Mr. High Tech Guy and I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface with the apps that I currently use. To keep me moving forward and upward in the mobile app world, I have a subscription to the printed version of MacLife Magazine and I have the MacLife Mobile App on my SmartPhone.
If any of you have any mobile apps that really work well for you would like to share, please feel free to comment on this blog. Thanks!!
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