One of my best friends, Fred Blaser, the President of La Republica, Costa Rica's best business publication, swears by pen and paper. He is a throwback to the old days of newspapers, where reporters ran around town with a notepad in their pocket. Fred is a genius, one of the smartest men I know, and I know some people who would kill to get access to the scraps of paper he carries around in his pockets with notes.

I have been trying to bring Fred into the 21st century slowly but surely. When I first talked to him about blogging, he saw it as a big waste of time. Last year I convinced him to convert one of his online ventures, CA+ into a Blog. While it is still in it's baby step phase, it is a great Blog on business in Latin America and will grow.

I simply need to Convince Fred to post more often.

I am probably one of the biggest technology users I know. I was trained years ago to be a Dayplanner user. I was one of those cats who never went anywhere without his Franklin Dayplanner, and I swore by it. Using a Dayplanner was and is one of the reasons I don't have much stress, and I am able to stay organized. Just about every stressed out business person I know, is stressed because of a lack of organization and planning. They may know where they are trying to go, but have no clue as to how they will get there.

After using a Dayplanner for several years, I invested in the original Apple Newton. I was a faithful upgrader until Steve Jobs, curse the day he did it, killed the Newton. I moved to the Palm Pilot, tried several other platforms, including several iterations of the Pocket PC, and finally came back to Palm. My latest device is the Palm Lifedrive, which I have written about several times here on ISOU. The Lifedrive is a wonderful device, and with built in Wifi and Bluetooth, a 4GB hard drive to store ALL of my documents, and a large 320x480 screen, it has become close to a laptop replacement for me. More importantly it is my digital notepad, agenda and phone book. I have added numerous programs to the Lifedrive that allow me to organize my day and thoughts, communicate wherever I am, (via Wifi when available and when not via my cell phone's GPRS connection), and its built in SMS program makes sending short text messages to colleagues, friends and associates a painless process, instead of trying to enter the messages on the tiny keyboard of my Motorola V3.

Fred stands by his scraps of paper, but I can do something Fred can not. I can find any scrap of information, email, document, etc. in seconds on my Lifedrive. Sometimes being able to find information fast can make the difference between closing a deal or not. Using programs like Agendus, I am able to not only effectively manage my time and tasks, but keep track of billable hours and associate contacts with projects, other contacts etc. I can even use the built in voice recorder to attach voice notes to contacts, tasks or meetings. Why take notes in a meeting when you can just record it and store it with the appointment in the agenda. The Palm becomes a handheld relational database of surprising power. Add to this the multimedia and multi document format reading capabilities and you have a powerful portable reference platform.

There are solutions available, some of them free like PalmPDF, that allow you to open and read PDF formatted documents better than the Adobe Acrobat Reader for the Palm. The latest version of Documents to Go Premium also features the ability to open PDF Documents. Documents to Go also provides support for NATIVE Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, including the ability to edit them, something Windows Mobile does not do very well. In a typical scenario for me, I might be having lunch at a restaurant in the city when I get a call from a client requesting a document or asking me about an email they sent me. If the restaurant has a Wifi network, I simply take out the Lifedrive, log on to my email and answer their question or send them the document they requested, which is synchronized from my Notebook to my Lifedrive's hard drive each time I sync the Palm. If there is no Wifi, I can connect to the GPRS network using my cell phone and complete the same task. In a crunch I can even log on to Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger and chat with colleagues back in the office or their homes. The bottom line is that I am never more than a few seconds away from the information I need.

While I carry my iPod with me just about everywhere (See my typical out of the office kit photo below), the Lifedrive is also a multimedia powerhouse. I often rip full length movies to the Lifedrive and watch them on the built in media player while relaxing in the evenings or waiting for a meeting.

My ipod, Motorola V3, Lifedrive and wireless keyboard, along with my "kit bag."

For me, paper is not an option any more. In my business decisions and opportunities are often decided in seconds, and I can not afford to lose a scrap of paper that holds the key to that success. With the robust built in communication tools in my Lifedrive and phone, I have a portable office that goes with me wherever I go. Phone Calls, emails, short messages, all become part of a Master Puzzle that allows me to track my business and projects effectively and to analyze results.

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