The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Technology

“Tying a knot in your handkerchief”was used in the old days to remind you that you had to do something. In today’s continuously multitasking world this method would hardly suffice. Fortunately, technology has kept up and we can have “knot” free handkerchiefs in our pocket.

When we started our ISO 9000 journey, we had to make maintenance calenders, print each month with a square for every date and then fill the relevant square with the activity. Later, complimentary desk planners made it easier. However, you had to transfer the activity details at the end of every year to the new planner. Now, thanks to google calender, you just create an event viz: “Overhaul Crane” , and the same can be automatically repeated yearly or half yearly for any number of years. You can ask the calender to send you a reminder email a few days or hours before the actual event, or even ask for a pop up on your screen so you do not miss out while you are engrossed in your daily work. The event can be set up to send an email to others who may be involved in the event. In case you wish to set up a meeting between two or more people you can exchange calenders, overlap them and find a common free time so the meet can happen. You can make reminders for important dates related to Income Tax, Central Excise, Labour, Directorate of Industries various license and NOC renewals etc.

Every time, I worked on a file at home or my office, I would email the latest version to myself so that I could access it where ever I chose to work on it again. It was quite painful to find I had forgotten the latest version on my desktop and I was now working on my laptop. Either, I had to redo or postpone working on it. Not anymore, I now use DROPBOX or more recently GOOGLE DRIVE. These are cloud based applications which allows you to store your work on the net and you can work from any device anytime as long as there is an internet connection. The applications sync immediately when the device is turned on so you have the latest version of your work to continue working.

This also is of great use when you send a file to many. Each recipient edits the file separately and the problem is that someone has to collate all the changes at one place. Invariably it never happens. Recipient A makes changes and hits reply all, at the same time Recipient B makes his own changes and sends to all, all of a sudden there are three versions and mostly with the same name. There is a solution again in google, “SHARE” the file. All changes are saved and every recipient is looking at the current updated version, you can also make comments which other can see. There maybe other applications which do just this, check it out, it is just that I prefer GOOGLE.

The Blackberry is fast losing out to the likes of Samsung or Apple. What they started is to be appreciated and used. Emails come directly to your phone immediately. Editor Harsh sent me an email on Sunday, asking questions on collaborations, I opened it replied. If I had to log in and then answer it might not have got done till Monday at the earliest. This is one mobile phone application which I see has a major downside, we are online 24x7. Earlier, one such to shut down your system and delinked till the next time you “power on”. Now, even if get up at 1 A M to drink water, you will see the ominous red blink and check your BB. 9 out of 10 times you will reply in your sleep. The solution is “airplane” mode. On to ensure alarms go off but “off” enough to be disconnected.

Technology is a game changer, and if we can spot its uses quickly we will benefit, our business will benefit.