#Appstores, #Changedbusiness, #Communication, #Mobileoffice, #Phone, #Technology, #Websitetraffic | Aug 31, 2020
Why your phone is now your portable office
The way technology has changed business is so wholesale and rapid that it is almost difficult to remember what it used to be like. However, within a 30-year career, people who entered the workplace in the early 90s have seen an incredible amount of change.
Back then you would have to go to your office and sit at a large and bulky desktop computer (if you were lucky enough to have one). It might take a few minutes to start up and load all the required programs. If you needed to print something out, you needed another even larger device. Email and the internet were in their infancy and barely used, so communication was done either by phone, snail mail, or occasionally fax (remember those?).
These days the world of work is very different and changing all the time. In fact, there is little to nothing you can’t do on your phone that you would have needed thousands of pounds of software and office equipment for, back in the day. Make and receive voice and video calls, join conferences around the world, or use the internet to research information or browse the net.
You can use software packages such as word processors and accounting, keep an eye on the dashboard of various programs that manage your website traffic and data mining. The only thing it can’t do is print, but we’re moving towards a paperless business world anyway.
Apps that transform your phone into an office
Of course, in order to be a fully-fledged office, there are certain apps that you will need to do this. These can include software for word processing, spreadsheets, and accounting. You can buy subscriptions for these from most app stores. You may need a password manager too, to keep on top of all your login information.
In order to share large documents that might eat up too much memory on your phone, you can use document-sharing services like Dropbox. This means you can share and access large files no matter where you are, without slowing your phone down.
A sketch or notation app will help you to make last-minute additions to other documents to be seen by others, anywhere, or anytime.
With a handful of well-chosen apps, you can really transform your phone into a mobile office. Work on the train, at the gym, or on your sofa – the phone has become a very powerful tool.
So, if you remember what offices were like in the 80s and 90s, you’ll really appreciate how a phone can now do all these things and more. If you’re from a younger generation and have grown up with smartphones, just imagine what technology will be capable of in another 30 years’ time. In the meantime, be thankful that you don’t have to sit behind a desk with a huge flickering desktop screen, desperately trying to get it to connect to the one printer the whole office shares.
Email mike@thesalesacademy.com for more information.
