Simmering in the Las Vegas heat, bMighty's "Tech On The Go" correspondent explains how he harnesses the power of GPS and project management software to streamline his workflow.
Our "Tech On the Go" correspondent Scott Koegler will be filing his column from the road this summer as he crosses the country with his family over the next six weeks. Though there's bound to be some "vacationing" along the way, Scott will continue to operate his small business from the road. Throughout this adventure, he'll share tips, tricks, and insights about how to keep a business running smoothly when you're on the move while maintaining a virtual connection to his office network, server, desktop computer, and video surveillance system.
Scott and his wife, Donna Marie, are traveling in a Ford E-350 van, pulling a travel trailer, accompanied by their dogs Cody and Mac. They left their home in Wilkesboro, N.C., on June 16 bound for the Rocky Mountains. After crossing the Continental Divide, they'll stop off in Las Vegas, peek into the Grand Canyon, and visit family in New Mexico before heading for home along Route 66 (and more modern byways).
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Las Vegas, Nev. -- We landed in Vegas after a grueling nine-hour drive from Yellowstone complicated by a tire blowout somewhere in Utah. Fortunately, there are four tires on the camper, and the one that failed was curbside. The highway patrol officer who stopped told me that tread separation is common this time of year because of the heat of the roads. We were back on the road in about 30 minutes.
That was only a brief reprieve, because once we landed in Vegas, we discovered that the campground was a giant slab of asphalt. I've been on those kind of campgrounds before, but never in 100+ degree heat. Parking over a preheated heat sink made the conditions inside the camper unbearable. We turned up the A/C, and concentrated it to only the main room. We would have removed ourselves to either the pool or one of the casinos, but leaving our two dogs to roast was not acceptable. Now I fully appreciate the genius of Vegas developers: the outside heat drives everyone into the air-conditioned venues.
At any rate, we cut our planned three-night stay short, and left before the sun had a chance to work its magic on us again.
So, back to business...
There are a couple indispensable tools I've been using to keep up to date on my work and my sanity at least marginally intact. One of them is GPS. I'm using a TomTom Go 930 as my portable unit, and DeLorme Street Atlas as an overall planner. But beyond trip planning, I've come to rely on GPS in general. I've been using two services that make use of GPS technology, and they are partially interconnected. My hope is that tracking my location, then publishing it to the audience of my choosing, becomes automatic and configurable. By configurable, I mean announcing my exact location to my family and close friends, and a more approximate location to those who either don't really care, or don't need to know.
This locating technology can be powerful for businesses that need to know where their employees are for deliveries and scheduling, and there are services that can do this on more proprietary -- and expensive -- platforms. But I'm using Mologogo running on my BlackJack II to constantly update my coordinates to a variety of services. Right now, it updates my Twitter account with messages like "Mologogo thinks Scott is at "X." It also updates Yahoo's FireEagle service and Mologogo's own service. You also can define a custom URL to be updated, for those who want to integrate their location into their own application.
The other service I've been using to track my locations is BrightKite. The service doesn't currently take updates from Mologogo, but integration with FireEagle is on their road map. This would make location updates automatic, displaying them on the map, or in a list.
Time Zones
As we've moved locations, and crossed time zones, I've missed more than one phone conference. At times, it's even difficult to remember what day it is, and what is due. Over the years I've used a variety of scheduling and project management systems, most of which were too complex for my small business needs. For the last couple years, I've settled on iLore's ProjectTrack. It can be used as a networked application, or in single user mode (which is how I use it).
It's not a full project manager like Microsoft Project, but that's exactly what I like about it. I have set up all my customers, their projects, the milestones, and specific detailed tasks. I synchronize my contacts with Outlook, and can generate e-mail directly from ProjectTrack to those involved with the tasks. The e-mails can automatically include specifics from the tasks and projects, meaning that I don't have to retype, or even copy the information. It's great for sending reminders, inquiries, and assignments that are typically boilerplate text anyhow.
Speaking of schedules ... I need to get on a phone conference now. Fortunately, both AT&T and Sprint are showing four bars!
See you on the road!
See more "Tech on the Go" columns by Scott Koegler
