Managing Leadership^®

As we’ve talked about gadgets over the past week, we’ve seen the daily organizers and planners that I have found myself using decrease in size and number while simultaneously increasing in capability, flexibility, and usability. At this point, aside from office-based equipment, we are down to a slim yet rugged and extraordinarily powerful Nokia E71.

Even though I’ve been working with this phone for the better part of a year, I’m still struck by the many things it can do, and how well it can do them. So, I thought I would give, today, a quick list of the applications I find myself using the most:

• Phone calls – let’s not forget that – 3G, which just came to Turkey last month, enables video calls; this and other basic 3G features come at no extra fee in this country, although there are special services that do require a separate subscription
• Short message service (SMS) – simple text messaging which can include multimedia features
• Calendar planner/organizer, including to-do lists
• Contacts – this and the calendar synchronize with Outlook
• Business/ finance calculator – exceptionally powerful, flexible, and intuitive, including a global currency converter
• Alarm clock – this is part of the pre-installed clock feature; it is separate from the alarms in the calendar and elsewhere, and I find myself using it regularly
• E-book readers: Mobipocket and Adobe Reader. Aside from books from Mobipocket’s online store, documents in any wordprocessing format can be saved as PDF files, which can then be read on Adobe Reader or imported into Mobipocket
• Bilingual dictionaries – English-Turkish and English-Arabic
• MS Office-compatible productivity suite – documents, spreadsheets, presentations
• An encrypted data storage/manager program
• Fring – an application that enables me to make Skype calls directly from the phone (not normally available from a cell phone, here), as well as to access Twitter, Facebook, and other communication/collaboration platforms all from one place
• Gizmo – another VOIP internet telephone application, similar to Skype
• A simple but elegant and powerful project planner
• WorldMate – an excellent travel planner, although it lacks some itinerary planning capabilities on this phone’s operating system that would be nice to have
• An expense tracker
• An application dedicated to interacting directly and securely with my bank
• Google Maps, which works with either or both of the phone’s internet access and its built-in GPS receivers
• Garmin navigation device (on a micro-sd card) for Turkey, and Nokia Maps, which has a similar point-to-point navigation feature, in the US
• A music player – I store music files on an 8GB micro-sd card; some of it is reserved for other files, but there are currently nearly 100 hours of music on the device, and room for plenty more.
• Email – another principle use for this business phone
• Gmail
• Internet – the phone comes with an excellent browser, although I’m now using Opera-mini – this and email work with the direct internet (3G) access on the phone, or in a wi-fi network. Virtually all the applications and capabilities available on any computer internet browser are fully and easily accessible on this one.
• Google search – right from the phone’s screen, searching either files on the phone, or connecting to the internet to search there, as necessary
• A 3.2 mp camera and video recorder/player – I find myself using this for all the typical purposes, but it’s also a quite practical tool to help locate the car in a parking structure (on parking, take a picture of the car and the closest space identifier).
• Television – globally and locally, using 3G
• Radio – also globally and locally
• A comprehensive unit-conversion program
• A 2-d barcode reader
• Voice recorder – for capturing notes on the run
• An excellent chess program
• A voice-interaction program that not only speaks the name of an incoming caller, but recognizes these names (without pre-programming) when spoken into the phone, and then calls them

I also usually use a Jawbone II Bluetooth headset, as well as others, with the phone – this enables me to keep the phone somewhere safe or convenient when I’m out, and to just pull the headset out of my shirt pocket to receive or make a call. This is especially useful when moving around, driving, or taking notes while on a call.

That is a lot of capability on such a compact device – but they are all there, robust, fully capable, the organizer/planner functions can be synced with their counterparts on a computer, and there is more than enough active memory for many of them to be used simultaneously. What’s more, there are others, such as a movie-player, which I don’t use. In addition to the cellular, wi-fi, and direct internet access, together with the GPS and Bluetooth capabilities, the phone also has infrared and USB connection ability, and can be used as a computer modem as well. It certainly warrants the retirement of the hugely powerful, but now largely redundant, HP iPAQ.

While this phone may be the most capable business-oriented smart phone available – or, at least, solidly among them – the above is not intended as an advertisement for the Nokia E71. It is just a description of the current point on the path being travelled to try to find something we will be discussing later this week.

But first, we’ll take a brief look at the broader landscape where we really are on that path. See you tomorrow!

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Today’s tips: Speaking of communications, have you ever wondered about this puzzlingly common phenomenon that Frank Roche observes. He also suggests we take some practical cues from it – please stop over to see what he has in mind.

You will also want to visit Management-Issues to see what Joe Barnhart has to say about internal vs external communication discipline – and the excellent example from a high-visibility current issue he uses to illustrate it.

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