Smartphones are meant to make us more efficient, right? Well DO they? I’ve got some data to share with you that paint a different picture!

I’ve had a smartphone for years. Have you? I started with a Blackberry, then moved onto an iPhone (until someone relieved me of it at an airport) and now I use an older Samsung handset, until I change to an iPhone 4S. I love ‘em. I can do my job from my smartphone, just like many people say they do, but does it make me more efficient? Does yours make you more efficient?

According to Nielsen, though, statistics on downloaded apps tell a story that we probably wouldn’t want our bosses to hear. Most apps downloaded today are games. See for yourself.

Only 21% of downloaders chose productivity tools, versus 64% of downloaders choosing games, and 34% of downloaders selecting video/movies.

Are smartphone users more efficient, or are they entertainment devices that distract us from work?

It seems that most users see them as entertainment devices. Especially those with iPhones, as this data shows:

But these figures are hiding something – that the growth of the smartphone is a consumer phenomenon as much as it is a business one. I don’t know about you, but I really struggle to do my job as efficiently when my smartphone isn’t held safely in my pocket. And one thing is certain, it isn’t the downloadable apps that make that so, it’s the very basic features of the smartphone that I use the most. For example,

• Email on the move is a feature I just can’t do without. I’m on the road all the time and I can’t wait until I get back to my desk to reply to important emails.
• Calendar functions; where would I be without them? Not at the meeting I am expected in.
• Contact Management – my smartphone contacts are my rolodex. My smartphone makes contact management easy, and saves me heaps of time.
• Document viewing – I can view most document types on my smartphone. OK the resolution isn’t great but I can work with that – it’s enough to review a document on the road.
• Messaging – I am not always contactable. Messaging enables communication that allows me to respond when I can do so.
• Google Maps – Essential when trying to find the offices of a client!

Then there ARE some apps that I use all the time, and the best one of all is Skype. It’s a life-saver if I need to bridge calls whilst on the move, or call internationally at cheap-rates. I also use a sat-nav app which is great because I don’t need a separate device, and, I can use the sat-nav whilst walking or cycling as well as in the car.

So What About The Games?

I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t have any. Some are for fun whilst waiting at the airport, and most are for amusing my 5-year old son (James) if we’re waiting around for something. He loves driving games and anything to do with monster trucks.

Other than that, my smartphone really is used as an essential productivity tool.

What About You?

Is your smartphone merely an extension of your body? Can you live without one to do your work or run your business?

Share your view:

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

Could you use an extra hour in the day? Want to know how to create one? Here are 8 tips to materialize another 60 minutes in your day without too much compromise.Another 60 minutes in a day would mean you could get those smaller, more annoying jobs out of the way, right? Or maybe it could be used to spend a bit more time with the kids. If you want to find another hour in your day, I might just have a number of things for you to try.

1. Get out of bed 30 minutes earlier, and go to bed 30 minutes later – perhaps a real obvious one, but have you considered it? To be honest, this was a tough one for me. I like my bed. But I was surprised to find out how little I missed that extra hour. For me, going the full 30 minutes on either end of the day was too much a leap of peril, so I decided (to the mirth of my wife) to move it out by 10 minutes each day for 6 days.  I expect this felt more of a psycholigical victory than absolutely necessary, but it worked for me.
2. Listen to podcasts, instead of reading – I read a lot, and if you do too then you will find time to save by listening to podcasts of my favorite content. Have you tried podcasts yet? You will find that many of your favorite media outlets provide podcasts of their content in addition to text. (Shame on me – I don’t offer this on my site, yet). So instead I whack the podcast on my iPod and listen to it in the car or the train.
3. Check emails only twice a day – are you addicted to your email? Do you keep checking it over and over? Your addiction is sapping up LOTS of time. For one day, try checking your email just once mid-morning, and once mid-afternoon (or use a sensible downward adjustment for your job). Then, see how much time it saves! And you will find that your productivity hasn’t been negatively affected. If you’re similarly addicted to Twitter or Facebook (if you are, you join a cast of thousands!), then the same applies too.
4. Don’t watch so much TV – I wouldn’t say I have ever been a TV addict, but it is fair to say I used to watch too much. I would often let the TV schedule rule my own. I guess with Tivo and YouTube, we can choose when to watch during more convenient and abundant time. But cutting out watching many of the shows that were ‘on the fringe’ of my interest has saved bags of time, and I don’t miss them at all. I watch less than 5 hours a week now, rather than the 25 hours + I used to!
5. Walk to work – (hey, wasn’t this about saving time?) Ah yes, walking to work can save lots of time, if you work out in the gym. If you walk for 30-60 mins to work then you don’t need to spend that time working out. The net benefit is saved time (and quite possibly, saved money from not using the gym). Similarly, if you own a dog you could take a more strenuous walk with the pooch rather than going to the gym seperately.
6. Plan your day – those who fail to plan, plan to fail – the old saying goes. But some simple planning can also save you lots of time. When I say planning, perhaps preparation is a better word. Preparing for tasks and activities in advance, perhaps the day before or during a quiet moment, means that the planned time is spent on the task itself, not the preamble. When I take this approach, I find that tasks are completed in the time I allowed, without having to steel time from other activities which has a knock-on effect of eventually eating into my own time!
7. Don’t aim for ‘perfect’ – This isn’t the same as ‘accept sloppy work’, but instead, accept that not everything has to be perfect to get the job done. Especially when writing documents and reports, content is superior to style. The other thing is that your ‘perfect’ isn’t always the same as the next guy’s. If you normally set a high standard, then perhaps your ‘perfect’ is just a stage too far for someone else. A powerful way of getting over this is to product a ‘draft’. Your draft is an imperfect product, purposefully. A draft can be reviewed by everyone, and then only the very necessary points of perfection need be added.
8. Avoid busy places at peak times – sounds obvious, right, but why are the busy places like that at peak times? Because those folks don’t understand this too! Sometimes, convenience is as such (convenience, to me, isn’t standing in long lines). Try to do your grocery shopping and activities like that when everyone else is watching their favorite show! You have Tivo, right?

Do you have any tips on saving time, without too much pain?

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.

InformationWeek just announced the ‘Top Ten CIO Issues for 2009 ‘ and I was wondering why ‘Staying Employed’ didn’t feature on the list!

If you believed everything you read in the newspapers or watched on TV, then we’ll all be out of work in 3 months. The economy will grind to a halt, so we’ll all have to grow potatoes at home and produce our own energy. So why isn’t the media suggesting that the biggest concern for IT leaders is keeping their job?

What they don’t want you to know, because it doesn’t sell stories, is that people are tougher than that, and that tough people and determination will pull us through the recession. CIOs aren’t afraid of losing their jobs – and like all IT workers, they realize that technology is the answer to economic challenges, not the cause.

All my experience and insight tells me that IT will be the fulcrum of change in 2009 that pulls us through the recession. IT isn’t the cost-center that needs reigning in, it’s the business investment that will pay dividends.

The ‘recession’ has triggered the corporate survival instinct. Business issues aren’t just those concerning customers’ needs and the marketplace; they’re also about the basic hygiene of running an organization – capital, fixed costs, a focus on core activity, and automation.

Just look at the InformationWeek article . The Top Ten issues for CIOs in 2009 are:

1. Customer-Facing Innovation
2. Attacking the 80/20 Ratio
3. The Challenging Economy
4. The Strategic CIO
5. Cloud Computing
6. The SaaS Effect
7. Virtualization
8. Outsourcing
9. Green Computing
10. Radical Desktops

What do you see? Six out of the ten listed are about cost avoidance:

• ‘Attacking the 80/20 Ratio’ challenges the spend on fixed costs and infrastructure, and aims to free up more budget for innovation.
• ‘Cloud Computing’ is a long-term investment to reduce the amount of capital needed by IT and to put the management of technology into hands of experts at lower costs.
• ‘The SaaS Effect’ will continue as CIOs look for higher-value alternatives in software provision, reducing overall cost of ownership.
• ‘Virtualization’ will bring infrastructure costs down, assisting in ‘Attacking the 80/20 Ratio’ too. It enables CIOs to sweat hardware assets and to lower the costs of backup and DR services.
• The goal of ‘Green Computing’ is to reduce energy consumption (and therefore reduce energy costs), as well as encourage recycling.

Looking at the list again, you could say that some of the greatest challenges for IT departments this year is maximizing the value of IT investment, by focusing on efficiency and just as importantly, effectiveness . The two mantras will be:

1. Doing things right (efficiency)
2. Doing the right things (effectiveness)

Haven’t CIOs and IT professionals always been asked to behave this way, though? Haven’t these technologies been around for a while now, but weren’t taken seriously or de-prioritized below more ‘sexy’ innovation?

Good questions (I tell myself), but taking the cynicism away, the point now is that the economic situation we find ourselves in means we have to take the things IT has been talking about FOR YEARS very seriously now. The world has conspired against itself to put these issues, (no) these solutions , at the forefront of the agenda. No longer are there solutions waiting for a problem!

This New Age of realization that we have to take technology innovations seriously, is upon us. The challenge is to make sure it’s a sustainable investment , which is why (quite rightly) a big issue remains on how the CIO becomes (or maintains) the position of a ‘Strategic CIO ‘. Interventions to bring about Efficiency and Effectiveness shouldn’t just be tactical. A long-term plan of continuous innovation in the above areas is needed.

I like what Eric Brown says on his blog, who also comments about InformationWeek’s article. To quote Eric:

If CIO’s focus on the three main areas of Leadership, Strategy and Technology,then the “Top 10 Issues for 2009? or “Top 10 Issues for 2020? will be easy to solve.  Why?  Because the CIO and IT Leadership should have been leading the IT group to a proper technology strategy that aligns with the business strategy.

The twist I’d add is that the recession has brought some forgotten truth’s into business:

We must run efficient and effectives organizations and exploit technologies that enable us to do that AHEAD OF THE ECONOMIC CYCLE.

So a key element of ‘Business Strategy’ should be to always ensure that operations are efficient and effective whilst also pioneering in their market, in whatever the organization does. Doing so means survival and stability in tough times, and the truth is, that’s what customers want – not bells and whistles!

‘Staying Employed’ must the last concern of CIOs right now – there is a lot of work ahead!

©2012 SimonStapleton.com. All Rights Reserved.