Corporate Travel =  Sound of Piggy Bank Breaking

If you shudder when you pull up to the gas pump these days, or swallow hard before you tear open your utility bill every month image how your company’s controller must feel.  If you’re in a start-up or any small business and especially if you’re not cash-flow positive yet these times of soaring energy costs and economic uncertainty border on the downright terrifying.  Under such circumstances even the most financially stable enterprises are taking a hard look at expenses and trying to determine areas in which costs can be cut without reducing the quality of service or their future business prospects.

One area that is coming under the budget-crunch knife at nearly every company on the planet is travel.  Right now just about every aspect of travel has increased in price.  Airfares are skyrocketing and the new ancillary charges - since when did it become reasonable to charge passengers $50 for bringing along a single checked bag? What’s next?  Charging for inflight air?  Or perhaps pay toilets?  One thing is certain, flying is not only a hassle it’s also expensive.  From your CFO’s perspective anything that can help you avoid the cost and headache of another flight - and especially one overseas with the sinking dollar effectively doubling that cost - is going to be worthy of serious consideration.

Buy the Ticket, Ride the Ride…

The flip side to this is that some meetings really require that both parties see one another.  Sure, conference bridges are good and shared desktops like GoToMeeting are useful for certain things but sometimes you really need to look someone in the eye in order to move things ahead.  Traditionally that meant hopping on a plane and that usually meant at least a thousand bucks drawn down on the company coffers (and  lot more if more than one exec needed to travel or if the trip required crossing a continent or an ocean).  That’s a lot of expense for one short meeting. And until recently there was nothing that could be done about this but bite the bullet and break out the plastic.

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Hi, everyone.  As you may know, David Allen will be delivering the keynote (along with Conference Director Ismael Ghalimi) at the upcoming Office 2.0 Conference which is taking place at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco from September 3rd through the 5th.

In addition to David’s appearance, I will be moderating a panel discussion on how Office 2.0 tools can support David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology.  So far we have Kevin Merritt (blist), Tim Norton (PlanHQ), and others to be confirmed.

If your company has developed a GTD-Oriented application that has a growing and passionate userbase  and you’d like to be considered to participate on this panel, please write to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com.  While the final decision about the panel participants will rest with Ismael Ghalimi, I expect that my input will be seriously considered.  There is a key caveat here and it is this:  The application must operate within the constraints of what is considered to be a Web 2.0 application.  In practical terms this means that the code and the data both reside in the cloud and thus the application can be accessed from any connected computer.

To further clarify this, if your software comes with a .dmg or .exe extension and requires a download it does not qualify for this panel.  Please understand that this is not a criticism of installable applications, it is simply that the focus of this event is on applications that operate within the Web 2.0 framwork, hence the name Office 2.0.

For those of you that are passionate users of applications that do fall into the definition of a Web 2.0 GTD application, please let me know about the application and why you like it in the comments.  If anyone feels like submitting a review of such an appliction for publication here, please send your review along with  your contact information and a brief bio to me at editor at GTDtimes dot com.

See you all at Office 2.0

Image from Dion Hinchcliffe’s Excellent Blog at ZDNet

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Late last week I had the opportunity to interview Shai Berger, the CEO and Founder of a new company called Fonolo (Phone-Oh-Low) that I think you’re going to like as much as I do.  Fonolo solves a problem that we all have, is something that is almost universally hated and which we all thought, up until now, was an evil that simply must be endured.  The endless misery dished out at the hands of IVR systems all over the planet.

For those of you that haven’t heard the term IVR,  it’s an acronym for Interactive Voice Response - in other words it’s one of those pesky systems that answers your calls when you call just about any large company.  Usually you’re greeted with the statement, “please listen carefully as our menu options have changed…” or else (and especially if you’re calling from California) “If your language preference is English, please press one now. Si su preferencia de la lengua es español, ahora presione por favor dos.”
What follows is a list of options and the buttons you need to press in order to navigate to the place in their system where you can actually accomplish the task you had called to do in the first place.

Any adult in the modern world has spent countless frustrating hours, usually enhanced by some mind numbing muzak or even worse a promotional jingle on a repeating loop while attempting to get the help or service you needed when placing the call.  I don’t know what the total time lost to US workers each year is while we struggle through these IVRs but I’m certain the time loss would run into the hundreds of millions if not more.  But hey, there’s some good news.  Especially if you loathe IVR systems as much as I do then I think  Fonolo is going to be your new best friend.

The way it works is actually quite simple.  Instead of calling the company and entering IVR purgatory, you go to Fonolo and find the company in their index (they are adding new companies all the time - in fact, this is one of their competitive insulators, the number of IVR systems that they have already identified and mapped).  When you locate the company you want, you are presented with a visual map of the IVR system.

Simply scan down the map (an example of such a map is on the right) until you see the location where you need to go and click the button on that location.  Fonolo will now place a call, do the navigating and waiting for you and then ring your phone once it has reached the location in the IVR system that you had previously specified. No more grinding your teeth while listening to endless menus and muzak, no more wasted time when you could have been doing something more interesting or productive either.

The only thing that is going to be frustrating now is the wait while Fonolo indexes the millions of IVR systems that popluate our world.  You see, while the concept is simple and the UI is intuitive, the process behind the scenes is incredibly difficult.  Imagine the work required to identify each segment of every IVR, program a computer to enter the correct tones at the correct time and then to know when it has arrived at the desired location so it can call you.

Plus there’s the added burden for Fonolo of keeping current as companies modify their IVR systems as they grow and change.  This is an absolutely massive undertaking - not one for the faint of heart CEO that is for certain.

There are lots of ways that Fonolo can make money - most of which don’t include charging the end user - although don’t be surprised if Fonolo rolls out with some carriers and then those carriers promote the service in some white labeled format and charge you for the privilege of using something that the company is currently giving away for free.

I really like this concept.  It’s original, useful, well thought out and absolutely something that I will use myself.  It’s also the sort of thing that reminds me why I like writing about applications.  Even though there are so many companies creating software right now, there are still a ton of new and/or better ways of doing things that are just waiting for an enterprising individual with a vision and the desire to see it through.

Fonolo is just such a company - one you should definitely add to  your list of time saving tools that you have to check out.

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Have you ever stopped to think about how many different places you now have to keep track of online?  Credit Card accounts, Banking, Stocks, PayPal, Ebay, MySpace, Flickr and the list goes on and on and on…  Entire business models have been based simply upon keeping track of your passwords for all these sites but what no one has done is create a one-stop interface that lets you keep tabs on all the sites I’ve mentioned above plus dozens more from a single URL and with just one log-in.  At least no one until now.

PageOnce is a start-up that does exactly what I’ve just described.  The initial sign-up process takes just a few steps and once you’ve verified your the owner of the email address you’ve registered the web application starts walking you through adding all your accounts a sector at a time until you have filled out a surprising amount of real estate that does a pretty exceptional job of summarizing your online life on one page with one log in.

I spent a few minutes this evening speaking with PageOnce founders Guy Goldstein, CEO and Ahikam Kaufman, COO about their new application and equally exciting, their about to be released iPhone application, iOnce which should be available via the iPhone application store later this week.   I got to take a look at their new iPhone application and it’s every bit as slick as their online version.  This is a well thought out, intuitive and very easy to use application - figuring out what to do is definitely not a challenge and in only a few minutes you’ve consolidated your online life into one place.

Of course the big question you have to be asking here is what about security… and to be sure that’s the first thing that crossed my mind - especially when you’ve got all this information accessible on a mobile phone.  What, I asked, if you lose your phone?

Guy explained to me that it’s not quite as potentially injurious as it might seem.  That’s because the application doesn’t actually provide full blown access to all these accounts, just a window into them so that you can see what is happening with each.

In other words, if you lose your phone your finances aren’t in immediate danger but those nude photos you were hiding in your flickr account might be the subject of some viewing you hadn’t intended.  More over you can contact PageOnce and disable access to your account in the event that it has been compromised - althought you’re probably going to want to notify your bank and credit card companies just in case someone wrote down account information.

During my talk with Guy and Ahikam, I actually realized that they have a couple of interesting opportunities related to security and fraud prevention.  First, I suggested that they should offer an upgraded service that provides wallet protection for a fee.  Since you’re registering all these accounts anyway, why not have PageOnce contact your credit card companies and other service providers if your wallet gets lost or stolen?  Or have PageOnce be a one-stop-notification service to update all your providers that you’ve got a new address?  I’d pay for such convenience and I’ll bet a lot of other people would too.

The other area where PageOnce may have a big opportunity is with the credit card companies providing anti-fraud services.  After all, by putting consumers in much closer contact with what is happening on each of their accounts, we’re a lot more likely to notice an unexpected charge and take quick action before a thief manages to rack up some really damaging charges.

This is one of those ideas where as soon as you see it you say to yourself why didn’t I think of this?  I know I did.  All I can say is that I’m glad that someone was finally smart enough to make my life a little easier - PageOnce - as far as I’m concerned it’s a winner that will help you and me both get a few more things done every day.

Here’s a look at the PageOnce interface once you’ve set up a few accounts:

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I’ve been a loyal Firefox user for almost as long as Firefox has been available to the technology community.  I’ve used it on Macs and PCs and even a Linux box or two and for the most part it has been pretty good to me.  The fact that it is so extensively customizable, that it had tabs before any other browser that I’m aware of and the fact that it was a product made by someone other than the “Evil Empire” all contributed to my choice to use it instead of Explorer.

Certainly it wasn’t perfect with the primary problem from my perspective being a rather persistent issue with memory leaks that ultimately forced you to restart your computer at times that perhaps you would have preferred not to, or else locked you up completely if you were a little bit unlucky.  However, aside from that issue I would have to say that up until this most recent release it has been one of the best pieces of software I’ve used.

FF Three on the other hand has been making me pretty miserable ever since I made the mistake of installing it.  I don’t know if it’s just me or if other people are having a similar bad time but after the success I had with the prior two major releases, I’ve been very surprised at how many bugs seem to still exist within this program.  In fact, there are enough problems with it that I find myself uncomfortable using any kind of web-based application as a trusted system and will probably continue to feel that way at least until an update appears to have solved the majority of the problems that I’m having.

So what are these issues you ask?

Well, I had hoped that the memory leak issue would be the major improvement with this release.  In fact, that is the principal reason why I upgraded (?) to Three in the first place.  Sadly, the leak seems to be a regular fixture that has not been “fixed”.  Perhaps I get a bit more runtime before needing to restart but when I look at my activity monitor on my Mac or check out what tasks are demanding the most memory on my PC I invariably see that Firefox is by far the one requiring the most resources.

Beyond this bug, however, are a number of other issues that  vary from annoying to critical.  On the annoying side is an issue I am having with the vertical height of the tabs.  Since a picture is worth at least a couple dozen words check this out:

(You’ll probably have to click the image to see the full sized version to really see what I’m talking about here) This is Firefox the way it is supposed to look.  Check the height of the individual tabs.

Now the above image shows what is happening to my installed version of Firefox Three on both my PC and my Mac after I open up enough tabs that they would occupy more than a single row.  As you can see the tab height has increased.  The more tabs you open the thicker the tabs become taking up more and more screen real estate as they do - which, since I use a laptop is particularly annoying.

What’s especially frustrating about this is that even when you close enough tabs that they would no longer occupy more than one row you don’t get the real estate back, the tabs stay fat.  This problem doesn’t seem to be theme specific either.  I have tried the default theme and four or five other themes besides but the problem seems to persist regardless of which theme I am using.

A variation of this problem also occurs with certain images.  When you click an image to see a larger version of it, sometimes the height of the tabs increases to fill more than half the screen.  They are so large in fact that you can’t even view the image you were looking at because the tabs obscure it.  Frustrating and weird.  At least when this happens closing the offending image does restore the tabs to their normal size, at least so far.

Now the last bug that I’m going to mention is the one that is the most problematic.  Here, again, a picture will help explain what’s going on:

This error seems to occur any time that Firefox spawns a new window - when you click “help” while using GoDaddy for example, or any other website for that matter.  You can eventually get rid of the message and continue working by clicking okay about a dozen or more times but if you keep the small window open the error will continue to pop up and interrupt your work until you finally close the window to put a stop to the irritation.

This last problem is more than just inconvenient however because about one in three times the problem seems to completely crash the browser which means that if you are using any kind of browser based application whatever it is you were working on is probably hosed unless you were smart enough to save often or lucky enough that your application saved it for you automatically.

I am wondering if I am the only one having these issues or if other people using Firefox Three are being similarly inconvenienced and paying the price by getting less done as a result.  Please share your experience in the comments.

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My friend and mentor Andy Abramson who authors the excellent blog, Working Anywhere.  He has just posted an article called Tools of the Global Nomad that is a must-read for anyone that does any serious amount of work while on the road as well as folks that work from home but have the needs (or wants) of services comparable to those that any reasonably sized and appropriately equipped enterprise would have.

Andy’s list of service providers is very comprehensive however there’s one company missing and I think it is a vital one to have on your list if you travel in Europe at all and especially if you rely on mobile data in any way, shape, or form.  That company is Yoigo.  They’re a telecommunications service provider that sells 3G sim cards that work just about everywhere in Europe.  The deal with them is that for about the equivalent of $1.25 per day you get unlimited voice and data with your own new international number.

These SIM cards are sold all over the place - you can get them at grocery stores, tobacco shops, etc.  These cards, in and of themselves are enough reason to unlock your iPhone if you are planning on going to Europe.  They mean the difference between being connected or not being connected (or being connected and not coming home to a $17,000 data bill - no I am not joking - I really did get one of those!)

Among the providers Andy lists are:

PhoneFusion,  GrandCentral , Jazinga,  Boingo , Skype, MaxRoam, GizmoProject, Truphone, Mobivox and many others. This is one of those “print it out and save it” sort of posts as it references a ton of best of class providers that can make it a lot easier and more economical to get things done and look good doing it.

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TUAW is reporting that “Outpost“, an application still under development, will make Basecamp even more useful by supporting management of the application via your iPhone. Details are still fairly sparse at this time and it looks like we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to really see what the folks building Outpost are doing with their UI as even the images on their website state that they are under development and subject to change.

A lot of people are pretty excited about this developing software.  Basecamp, by 37 signals is a very popular application, and many folks that follow the GTD productivity strategy have found that Basecamp is one of the most efficient and effective tools for helping to keep track of commitments, projects and the next actions that they entail.

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One of our most prolific contributors, Eric Mack, has been hard at work developing a tool that has been called the ultimate GTD application for Lotus Notes.  Now, after months of beta testing with select companies, Eric is about ready to release the application to the public.  However, before he did this he wanted to do one last set of tests and get some additional real-world feedback.

As a result, you’ve got a chance to get a 24 hour preview of eProductivity for Lotus Notes and for those folks that put in the time and energy to give Eric the sort of detailed feeback he seeks, it seems you’ll get a preview license and also be entered into a drawing for a full version.

For more information you should head on over to Eric’s blog and check out the announcement for yourself.  Also, if you do check out eProductivity and find that it is as useful as people have been saying, could you please comment here so that others will have the benefit of your experience?  Thanks.

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If you happen to be a road weary traveler who works in or even with any significant amount of technology, I am certain you would agree that accessing your data on the road is one of the banes of your existence.  Between lugging your “desktop replacement” aka your carry-on boat anchor (so that you have all your critical data with you - just don’t forget your Chiropractor’s phone number) and attempting to remember which files you’re going to need and then synchronizing them to your small and light “travel computer” aka your anemic, expensive, carpal tunnel causing DVD player.

On the one hand you end up dragging around this behemoth computer that does everything you need (so long as you are within cord’s reach of a power outlet) while on the other, you have ample run time however your productivity is limited by how well you planned ahead as to which data you needed to synchronize as well as how quickly you succumb to the hand numbing discomfort courtesy of attempting to work on a cramped keyboard.

Personally, I have found a third solution that allows me to use any computer while on the road and so long as the computer I’m at has a reasonable Internet connection it is pretty much just like I’m sitting at my own desk, working on my own computer.  LogMeIn isn’t really one program - rather it’s a company that provides an entire array of services that for the most part revolve around providing remote access and administration for one or more computers.

Their basic program, LogMeIn Free is free just like the name says.  Unlike most free products, however, this is not a frustratingly crippled version of some functional program that is purely intended to force you to upgrade if you really want the promised utility.  This is not the “walled garden demo-version”.  In fact, LogMeIn Free is not only the version that I, myself, am currently using, it is so robust and provides so many sophisticated capabilities that there are literally certain things that this program allows you to do to a machine remotely that are all but impossible to do while physically sitting in front of the machine that you are accessing via the LogMeIn Free interface.

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Editors Note:  Erratum.  This article had a number of errors that have been corrected from the original version.

Applebriefs‘ Jeff Kabbe has done a spectacular job authoring a very detailed review of the GTD task management application Omnifocus. Mac owners have probably seen other applications developed by Omni Group, particuarly OmniOutliner  which comes preinstalled on many machines from Apple.  The company has also developed  OmniGraffle,  OmniPlan and roughly half a dozen other useful applications.    His review is so comprehensive that it makes no sense for me to do anything except refer you to his blog where you can read it for yourself.

Meanwhile, the guys folks at Omni Group  have made a splash of their own by giving folks a preview of their soon to be released iPhone application. In addition to supporting live sync - supposedly even capable of background syncing tasks to Apple’s new MobileMe service and being FREE to registered users of the desktop version of Omnifocus, the iPhone version is also location aware and thus can automatically identify various contexts and provide you with task details that are contextually appropriate.

As you might imagine there’s quite a lot of excitement about this forthcoming application.  Omni Group says that it will be released about the same time as the new 3G iPhone goes on sale.  You can learn about more about the soon-to-be-released application in the comments on the Omni Group blog

Lastly, there’s a small bit of news for GTDtimes..   Evan Carmichael maintains a list of the 50 top Productivity Blogs.  When the updated list was released recently I was dismayed to see that GTDtimes was not listed.  I suspected that this might be due to the fact that we only launched in March of this year and that with so many good productivity resources Evan might not have even come across GTDtimes yet.

I figured that I had nothing to lose by writing him a note to introduce ourselves and Evan surprised me by adding GTDtimes to his list as a special mention just below the top eight sites listed in the GTD Category.  I thought it was incredibly cool of Evan to take the time to do this - most folks running popular sites probably wouldn’t have been so readily accommodating.

Incidentally, Evan’s Top 50 list is a rich productivity resource and his site is packed with useful content for entrepreneurs, GTD’ers, and really anyone that wants to be more productive, more successful and more balanced in their approach to work and life.  I highly reccomend you check it out  (and mention that GTDtimes sent you).

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