Houston we have a…..Nexus 5X, what’s all the fuss about?

Posted on July 18, 2016 by tamsons

New Nexus 5X phone

So it seems my love affair with Google’s Nexus range hasn’t been too badly damaged by the Nexus 9 experience, largely due to my painless daily use of a Nexus 5 phone for a good few years now. Like all good things that has now come to an end; it’s time for a change to ensure I get the full use of Android Nougat when it’s launched later this year. With that in mind, I decided to bite the bullet and get a Nexus 5X – after all, it seems the next sensible step after my great experiences with the Nexus 5.

Granted, it has been out for a while now (and I did wait for the price to drop) but a sale made it too good to pass up, so I purchased it. The plan being that the 5X, along with my sim only package on Three, will keep me going for a while now (unless someone wants me to test drive a phone for them?).

What is the Nexus 5X?

Seems a reasonable question for any of you who have not heard of it before. It is the second five-inch handset from Google and LG, and has much-upgraded hardware over the original Nexus 5, as well as some nice built in extras (including a fingerprint reader and one of the best camera’s to be found in a mobile handset).
LG Nexus 5X hardware specifications


Operating System	Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Display	5.2 inches FHD (1920×1080) LCD at 423 ppi Corning Gorilla Glass 3 Fingerprint- and smudge-resistant oleophobic coating
Rear Camera	12.3MP 1.55 μm pixels f/2.0 aperture IR laser-assisted autofocus 4K (30fps) video capture 120 fps slow motion video capture Broad-spectrum CRI-90 dual flash
Front Camera	5MP 1.4 μm pixels f/2.2 aperture
Processors	Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Processor, 1.8GHz hexa-core 64-bit Adreno 418 GPU
Memory & Storage	RAM: 2GB LPDDR3 Internal storage: 16GB or 32GB
Dimensions	147.0 x 72.6 x 7.9 mm
Weight	136 g
Sensors	Fingerprint sensor Sensor Hub Accelerometer Gyroscope Barometer Proximity sensor Ambient light sensor Hall sensor Android Context Hub
Ports	Micro USB Type-C 3.5 mm audio jack Single Nano SIM slot
Battery	2,700 mAh
Other	LED notification light

The phone came nicely presented in a box with sliding sleeve that, once removed, let you remove the lid and expose the contents as per the cover photo.

The box contained the phone, USB C charger and cable, a small tool to remove sim port cover, and the usual quick start leaflets etc. The handset has a very nice feel in the hand, and the weight is Ok. Side by side, the screen appears to be larger height wise than my old Nexus 5, but the width looks very similar.

Moving data across

This is always the time-consuming part, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as it used to be. With the use of a Google account, and your data being backed up online in various guises, it is now a much easier process when it comes to re-establishing a phone, or setting up a new one.

I choose the option on setup to transfer account information from a previous device. Following the onscreen instructions, I simply touched the back of the devices together and the transfer started. In a short time the account and then all the apps and setting came across to the new handset.

I still had to do some final tweaking in various apps to allow them to update on the new device, as well as some minor setup on the device itself, before I transferred the music and files I wanted across to my new device from my old one. But that was it, the phone was running and Bob’s your uncle. (Well I did have an Uncle Bob.)

Out of the box, the phone updated the Operating system – getting all the security fixes it had missed while it was hibernating. So here we are, after around 40 minutes for account transfer and updates, with a handset that’s ready to go.

How has the last 5 days been?

I have been using it for around 5 days at the time of writing, and here are my initial thoughts and experiences.

First of all, I must say I am impressed, it is great to use and feels great in the hand – I have it in a new case for extra protection. My biggest issue, if I had one, would be the USB C charging scenario – it sounds great and gives fast charging. Sadly the cable supplied with the phone has USB C at both ends and does not plug into my ANKER charging hub, it only plugs into the charger that came with the phone. I can’t even use it at my laptop to charge via a USB port. This is a bit of a nuisance and needs to be addressed – it has required me to purchase a separate cable with USB C at the phone end and a standard USB plug at the other. I will now need a few of these for the car and other areas I charge the phone a lot, leading to extra costs.

My other issue is no QI charging. I have a pad in my lounge that I used to drop my Nexus 5 onto and it charged. At my desk, I had a stand that I placed my Nexus 5 into and it charged. Sadly now neither of them can be used. Why drop this great way of charging a device? It was very easy and meant there was no need to fumble about with cables. It seemed like the future, and yet it has been now taken out of the equation again.

The phone use itself is similar to the Nexus 5, in my day to day use the battery doesn’t seem much improved – I am still charging each night for the next day’s use. Screen seems sharper, and I am impressed by the fingerprint unlock – this means I can pick the phone up with either hand and it can be instantly unlocked with the touch of finger. The camera delivers very clear pictures, and the video allows for slow motion and delivers a nice clear picture as well.

I’ll be back!

Had to fit in a terminator quote somewhere. I will be back over the next few weeks with my findings as I use it for work and social purposes. But so far so good. Just need Google to sort the Nexus Tablet range out and I’ll be a happy chappy again.

Final Nexus 9 Post………..do not pass here!

Posted on December 10, 2015 by tamsons

I thought it was time I updated you guys on the use of my Nexus 9.

I am all for Google and their Nexus range of products, my Nexus 5 is one, if not the best phone I have used. The Nexus 7 2013 version tablet I had was excellent with superb battery life and did everything and more than I needed it to do.

However, as previously mentioned, I purchased the Nexus 9 and gave you some tasters in my previous two posts.

I have now been using it for an extended period and here is my last summary for you to look over.

Pros

Larger screen
Faster processing
Easier to type and handle and view information

Cons

Battery life is just not good, less than a few hours of constant usage and it is down by 40 percent or less. The main culprit it tells me is the screen. I have it set to automatic brightness and the slider at about a third. Not good, as my Nexus 7 lasted for two days, yes you read that correctly two days.

The Nexus 9 seems to load slowly and then the screen periodically freezes and seems to be performing some task in the background as all the hardware then freezes. Power button won’t even switch it off unless you hold it in for a prolonged period.

To summarise it, I would not recommend purchasing the Nexus 9 as it just does to live up to what it claims and as a business owner that uses it constantly for communication and work, it is just not doing what I would like in a manner that makes it a piece of hardware I can recommend…..

Google, if you are reading this you need to sharpen your game here and get a tablet out there that people will be happier with and that can take off with business users as well as the general public. A sad day for my Google and Android revolution……………

What are your thoughts?

Hands on with the Nexus 9 Tablet

Posted on November 3, 2015 by tamsons

Nexus 9 Review

Have now been using the Nexus 9 for a few weeks now and it was to replace my Nexus 7 2013 model.
First impressions is that it is obviously larger with the 8.9 inch screen. I got the 16 GB model the same Storage I used in the Nexus 7. No issues there. Speed seems OK and it upgraded itself within a day of getting it to Marshmallow the latest version of Android.

Here are the specs for the Nexus 9

Display 8.9inch screen

Resolution 2048 X 1536 pixels, 288 pixels per inch (PPI)

Storage 16GB

Processor 2.3 GHz

Ram 2 GB

Rear camera 8-megapixel, flash – yes

Front Camera 1.6 – megapixel

OS Marshmallow

Battery Capacity 6700mAh

Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Weight 425g

So how does it compare with all my daily work tasks?

I use my Nexus every day for work tasks and handle all my social media feeds and emails. As well as typing up documents and accessing the cloud and Internet. I mean I REALLY use it from morning until night it is at my side and always on hand for all the various activities that I do throughout my working and leisure day.

The Nexus 7 handled all this and I never had an issue with performance and battery life. I do run a good number of apps and have multiple desktops. Which is why I find using a tablet computer so useful.
The Nexus 9 has handled all the work loading, but the main things that are different are: –

Battery life is less than good. It lasts less than a day, where my Nexus 7 lasted up to two days. The screen being larger seems to burn all the battery power. I have drained it down and recharged it to try and recondition the battery. It hasn’t helped. I find myself charging it during the day and every night. This is not so good and some online trawling of the net suggests that others are finding a similar thing. The upgrade to Marshmallow was supposed to help this but in fact I have noticed no improvement.
The screen sometimes also is sluggish and doesn’t respond. Not sure what is causing this.
It is larger to carry but the pay-out is the better display and larger screen to display data and show clients what I want them to see.
It also has no QI charging, which I got into with my Nexus 7. Place it on a pad and off it goes and charges up, no fiddling with connectors anymore. Then they drop it. No fast charge either. Which I did not have with my Nexus 7 but hoped it might be a standard for Nexus devices. But seemingly not with HTC as they produced the Nexus 9 and my Nexus 7 was ASUS. Come on Google get it together.

I am going to continue using it and see how things go. If a cure or fix comes out for the battery life this would be great. So Google if you are reading this what you are up to and what can be done? Get in contact.

What about you guys?

How do you go mobile as they say and is the move to Phablet phones taking away the market for tablet computers? The sales statistics suggest that the sales of tablets has dropped due to phones becoming larger and I have met a few associates who have gotten rid of their tablet computers as their phones are large enough for them to do all they want to do.

What do you use and how is it performing?

Comment below and let us know.

Are you a trail blazer?

Posted on October 9, 2015 by tamsons

White noise

Information overload

With all the feeds we get each day, whether they be Tweets or Facebook or email or news reports or telephone calls or even, yes, even a face to face meeting. It has been occurring to me that there is a lot of interference and traffic out there. Noise if you like. A white noise that obscures sometimes some very useful and genuine comments and info.

Filtration

Do we have a good method of filtration going on or are we being guided by everything that comes our way. I liken it to a video I once saw of an ant colony and the researchers were studying their behaviour and determining how they travelled and how they made their way back to base.

Obviously, they must use sent trails and they lay them down and everyone else follows them as well. Hey presto a fool proof system to get about and never get lost. Being researchers off course they have to test their theories and after the ants had created their best laid plans and trails the researchers created a circle of scents and trails all around some ants to see how they coped and would they get past it. Basically they surrounded them, with too much information to process, or white noise if you like, and they could not get back to the well laid plan. They were too distracted and could not get outside the circle. They really needed a method of filtration to find that one trail and stay on it at all costs and against all other distractions.

Unsung heroes

I know in amongst everything that bombards me every day there are unsung heroes who have gems of wisdom to help me on my way and keep me focussed and yes I do get a bit overloaded and distracted, but I do try and say to myself, be yourself, do not try and be anyone else. Because someone finds a certain feed or path the way to go that is maybe not for you and you need to focus and keep going on the scent trail that you have visualised an laid down.

So do we curb our appetite for more info?

So what are the solutions and how do we cope? Do we simply switch off a lot of the noise and, I know a lot of contacts who have done this and are off various platforms and are in their case thankful for it. Bur remember that is maybe not the best approach for you.

Can we apply a filter to things then and just cherry pick what we see and what we interact with?

Well, yes off course you can, but there is always the fear that you filter out and disconnect from some info and miss a great nugget of gold and a gem that would benefit your business and your life. But hey, that is always the case, sometimes it is about being in the right place at the right time. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else.

Conclusion

I have to admit and say that it is an every changing medium for me and do encourage business owners to use the social media platforms and get out there. Join groups and contribute to what people and business are saying. I am, always changing what I look at and I am rather pleased with myself in the fact that I am now not getting as worked up about some of the feeds. No longer thinking every post is a nugget of gold but applying my filters, where do I want to be and how am I getting there, who can help and what can I do to contribute. I seem to be surviving OK.

How do you cope with all the info and what are your measures of filtration? Would be good to see some comments here. I hope to learn a lot.

Big Brother is watching you and has been for a while

Posted on August 17, 2015 by tamsons

Big Brother is watching you

“‘Who controls the past’, ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'” Part 1, Chapter 3, pg. 37

The above is all inspired by someone the other day putting up a quote about the fact they had read 1984 and couldn’t believe how bad things were back then. Which made me laugh.

George Orwell’s 1984 was a book I read at high school for my higher in English prep. I was into science fiction and that genre and this sort off ticked some of those boxes. Obviously, it was about the state watching everything that the populate did and the perceived freedom people had was really not freedom at all. Orwell based it on the communist state in 1948 and his publisher’s enforced that he change the title to 1984 to make it more sellable and not offend the communist state of Russia.

History lesson over now, I came across a comic photo of Cortana, Microsoft’s office help in Windows 10, based on their game character from their Halo franchise. She will listen to you and answer questions to help. Similar to the OK Google in Android Google NOW.

But what are these helps really doing?

In the comic photo I saw that someone was happy that Cortana was there and they could chat, until eventually they had to switch Cortana off as she was so intrusive the person’s privacy ceased to exist.

My title is that Big Brother, the state in Orwell’s book that spied on everyone, has been watching us for a long time is in fact very true. Since the Internet has been around we have been spied on and catalogued in our preferences and histories and then email allowed us to be spied on. Particularly when it went online and became web based. Our shopping habits are spied on by supermarkets and stores, again with loyalty cards, as we scan, they record. We get vouchers emailed and sent through the post that give us money of the things we buy each week and use. Isn’t it amazing how do they know?

Should we be worried and concerned?

I meet a lot of different people in my IT travels from training to techie talks with geeks like myself. They range from the extremists who are so paranoid that they don’t use a lot of the available tech and systems that are around just now, to the laid back who use everything and deal with the aftermath.

I must admit to being nearer the second type of person with some criteria on what I would and would not do. I do love the latest tech and am slightly addicted to where it is taking us.

I would suggest to you that you are kept on record on the World Wide Web at a host of locations from government bodies who use your ID and unique NI number to shops and web page stored info. (Cookies and their friends). So worrying would be a fruitless activity and probably not get you any real benefit. Paranoia is the other extreme I find and people go to amazing lengths to avoid their real data and identity getting out there. It will get out there and to be honest it already is out there, is the amazing and correct answer to that.

Precautions

Of course I am not saying forget everything and lay abandon to any security and common sense, now that would be absurd, and I do meet that category of person as well.

We really need to use the latter, common sense and be aware of what we are doing.

Not clicking on everything that pops up.
Not filling in every form of filed that is asked of us by companies.
Unticking boxes that want to store our info and sent us data all the time.
Have all updates on and installed.
Make sure we have the latest and up to date Anti-Virus and spyware/Malware kit on our machines.
AND above all use common sense.

What are your thoughts on this and what do you do? Are you paranoid or very open?

Great to hear your comments.

Andoid Wear Brief Update.

Posted on July 27, 2015 by tamsons

Thought I would update my Android Wear post and let you know some of my experiences…

Watch and screen Protection

Well, I wore the watch for w few weeks before my son suggested that we get screen protectors for the glass. He had sourced a tempered glass stick on protector that did protection to level 7. Which meant it was shatter and scratch proof. Sounded like a great idea.

They arrived and my son fitted it to his watch and then to my watch. I used it and all went well. Time for holidays came and I was loading the cases into the boot of the car and the watch clunked of a case or the edge of the boot and I glanced down to see grinded edge on the glass protector.

This happened and few more times as I went about everyday actions and the bottom edge of the protector had small cracks heading upwards. During my holiday I managed another grinded edge of the protector making the look of the watch face not very appealing.

My son had not managed anything and his was still perfect. He said it was because I wear my watch on my right wrist and that is the hand I do everything with. Hence I abuse it. He may well be right. I tended to think that the glass protector was just sticking up enough to be vulnerable to being caught.

I eventually gave up and ordered a stick on flexible cover for the screen with high scratch rating. I prized the glass one off and you can see in the picture how I liked that.

Screen Protector?

It cracked from the small hairline cracks up through the glass. So my experience would be to avoid these particular protectors and stick with the flexible ones, which I have had on for week now and no problems reported even though I have bumped the watch a few times. You can see the small ginded edges at the top left and side of the screen.

Watch usage

On another probably more interesting note. The watch has been performing well and I have found it beneficial to have an instant pop up of the emails and posts coming up on my watch so I can glance and decide if I action them now on my phone or leave them until a more convenient time.

My son also informed me about a wonderful app that in Scotland is very useful. It is called Rain Alarm Pro. It scans various weather and rain pattern feeds at set intervals and lets you know if you are about to be hit with a downpour. I have used this a few times recently as it installs onto the watch as well and shows me the likelihood of you getting soaking wet. It has enabled me to take cover and watch as others run for shelter.

Battery has been OK, really depending on how many notifications I get to the watch and how I interact with them. I charge it every night by default anyway.

First usage summary

So my first summary would be to say that it is still a bit of a novelty and I am not sure how useful this will be, but as Apps develop and they become more interactive it may well make life easier. The benefit I am finding just now is the fact that I do not need to delve into my pocket every time my phone makes a bleep, as my watch shows me the gist of it.

Watch this space for more, no pun intended….or was there?

Who’s in control?

Posted on July 22, 2015 by tamsons

Eye Contact

I spend, probably like yourself based on the fact you are reading this, a lot of my time interacting with connections and friends on social media. Technology has become my tool for everyday life and connection to the correct people and areas for my personal life and my business life.

I often here myself tell people when I meet them, that I love technology and where it is taking us. We can handle and do so much more than we have ever been able to do in the past.

Until I bumped into this chaps YouTube Video, wow this made me think and challenged me and touched my sensitivity about what it happening all around me.

Check it out the read on for my initial thoughts after watching this video.

Well what do you think? I hope you watched it all to the very end.

I think it was well written and constructed and touches a lot on what society is now doing. Where we are placing our time and ideas. For some the security of having instant friends that interact with you remotely can be reassuring and social media in the past has been known as a medium to save people’s lives because they posted on it in a time of need and help was given.

But, the questions I suppose we are asking ourselves are, are we in control of it or does it take control of us? And is it changing society for the better?

If you do what the chap in the video did and simply walk down the street and take a bus or tube train and watch the amount of face down glued to the device people there are, it will astound you. But because this is a current 21^st century thing we accept it I suppose as a sign of the times we are in.

I wonder what the future will look back and say. Will museums and documentaries reflect on this changing social culture as a good thing or a bad thing?

I still think the flexibility of mobile working and connectivity is amazing for running my business, but I am now challenging where I stand with talking to people. Actually looking in their eyes and engaging with them. Hence my top picture. Laughing out loud together in the same room and space.

I am a people person and always have been since high school and I always like to get in front of a person to talk over things, whether work or private concerns. Remote working only takes me so far and I am sure others are in the same boat.

What are your thoughts on this video and does it challenge you in anyway?

Well done to Gary Turk for making this and challenging where are and where we are going.

How much rope is enough?

Posted on May 6, 2015 by tamsons

Give them rope

Reflecting back over my career and various positions in organisations, I can say that managers in various guises have played a major part in how well I performed and how well I progressed into a better person in the workplace and in the processes I adopted and now use. Transferable skills shall we say.

We all over time gather info and learn, it’s just built into our systems. That’s why you hear people say, “You learn something new every day.”, when they come across a fact they did not know.

So, in the workplace we are always learning, now I don’t mean gaining certifications here, even though that always helps. I mean we are constantly shaping and evaluating what we are doing and if it could be done better and changing it so that the next time we do that task or a similar one, we will do it differently. Experiential learning if you like.

Where does the rope come in?

Well the rope comes in as I reflect back on various line managers at the various posts I have had. Some managers obviously stand out for the way they behaved. Some for positive reasons and some for negative reasons. But the importance is they stand out.

A manager’s job is a complex one and staff see the manager in different ways: –

The manager is in between me and the top brass, so they take the heat.
The manager is there to bounce things off and I let them take the final decision that I run with.
The manager is there to help me do what I do and advise and give experience where needed
The manager is there to identify my strengths and weaknesses and help me grow.
The manager is there to hound me and be on my back all the time
The manager is there to micromanage everything I do
The manager is there to bully me into doing things a certain way
The manager is just an extension of the top brass and I don’t trust them
The manager is just looking after themselves all the time.

The above are just some responses I have heard and I am sure you have heard many more over the years. The top ones are positive and the bottom ones are more negative. The culture the manager creates is one of the most important things in an organisation. It is either a culture of trust and growth and innovation or one of distrust and tolerance of the management as a whole.

The rope comes in where the mangers are switched onto their staff and not just processes and statistics. You see the managers that have stuck out in my past are the ones that saw my potential for self-motivation and gave me the rope to run with it. When I stretched the rope and I did on more than one occasion, they would grab the end and pull me back in a bit, but always with encouragement and not demotivation..

I have worked in some great environments where the people were such a massive resource and if they had been managed correctly would have been so innovative that the potential clients would be climbing over each other to come and deal with us. Sadly, a culture of short ropes and bullying was relevant and it destroyed the people and the innovative juices within a short period. Very sad indeed to be part of and watch. I did escape and got out before the whole house of cards fell.

So how much rope is enough?

This is a great question, don’t get me wrong I believe in systems and know they have to be there for so many reasons. I EVEN TEACH THEM.

But, I also have such a heart for innovation and letting people be creative. I teach a creative thinking techniques seminar that gets people to tap into the juices that made them creative when they were children. Which they have now parked as they have picked up the managerial styles over the years.

They come out and can create ideas that are normally outside their thinking processes. It’s like a relearning. I do believe that most people can be self-motivated and if given a brief and some rope may well shock you with the solutions they come up with. Once you trust and give them the opportunity they will impress. If not we all learn anyway and nothing is lost; I guarantee that more will be gained. It’s is easier to get the best out of staff with motivation than bullying. That I also guarantee, having experienced both.

What are your thoughts on this whole area, would be good to hear from you.

I want to stand on a platform with regard to this matter.

Posted on April 13, 2015 by tamsons

Choosing a platform

During the time of election fever and the stance of many politicians and the media flooding our households, Internet and newspapers with all the spin and comments of election contenders, it occurred to me that many of them are launching the election campaigns on a platform of one thing or the other. If it isn’t the NHS it is migration and immigrants.

It got me a thinking

It started me thinking of what is the platform I stand on with regard to my business and how it operates and runs and then to take it into the techie world, what Social Media and Internet platforms do I use to get the message flooding to my customers and potential customers worldwide.

Platforms there are so many

It is the case that there are so many platforms, as with the election there are so many stand points that people take and you don’t know at times which one to believe, so we base our beliefs and decisions on past experience and their record if they have done the job before. When I set my company up I knew I did it out of passion. I wanted a company that had a drive and passion for what it did and did it well and honestly. So that was my initial platform if you like, I then structured the offering my company had around this. My testimonials from clients were my gauge as to whether I was achieving this each and every time. Then learning and tweaking happens. No one is perfect and it is the driving force behind our actions that should be considered.

So honesty, integrity and doing the best job as promised was my platforms and I hope I have achieved them as often as possible.

The other thing I did as an organisation was start to business network, before I even setup as a company I attended some networking groups to find out what business was saying about the climate and how they were getting on. I wasn’t setting up blind as they say. This paid off and I have continued to business network to this day. It is a great place to bounce ideas around, meet great people and pick up so much information and ideas.

What about online platforms?

With regard to online platforms, I have always been as you can imagine, the company is called IT Turning Point, very aware of what technology is doing and where it is taking us. The Internet has been with us for years and introduced so many changes in the way organisations and customers operate that it has dragged some organisations into the 21^st century screaming and kicking.

The key of course is to decide your best and most appropriate route to market and then target the majority of your efforts there. This of course sometimes takes more than one attempt to get it right and is what I like to call a toe in the water scenario. We try and see if it works and tweak and try again until we hit the sweet spot. I decided early on to have a website and had it up and getting found before the official company launch, so when I launched people had a shop window to visit.

This of course was mentioned on all emails and literature to drive traffic in that direction. The site was optimised at the time for the search engines and we were off.

Social media was my next area of consideration and what should I do here and which platform would be best for me to use. I did the following and it has worked for me over the years.

My company was primarily B2B so LinkedIn to me was essential and getting my profile up to 100% as it was at the time and then making good honest connections with potential customers, existing customers and other companies and contractors that might be useful for me to touch base with and bounce ideas around. A company LinkedIn page was setup as well as my profile and maintaining it and promoting it became a goal.

For more awareness of brand name and getting me more widely known quicker I also thought that Facebook would be a great place to have a business page. So off I went on my next platform and got that page up and running and started to gain likes and awareness.

Remember, I am always aware of where technology is trying to take us and I launched a Twitter account at the same time to take advantage of the profile raising for my brand name.

In the corner of my eye I was always reading techie articles about search engine Optimisation and how you can get found online to make sure my efforts where not all in vain. This kept me informed that Google the main and most popular search engine was changing what it calls it’s algorithm that checks the Internet to find you and me and was placing more emphasis on Social Media activity and content. So this means and still does today that you need your website optimised, but you also need to be active in the realm of social media. You need to have link popularity, which means people are coming to your site from various locations and landing there and then leaving to go to other locations from your site.

Other social media platforms are out there, Google+, Kiltr, Pinterest and Instagram. It was now a case of deciding which platforms I felt I could benefit from and manage easily.

Again tools were there for the managing and these have helped immensely. Such as Hootesuit, highly recommended and there are others.

Email newsletters were the next thing I had always ran since setting up and had made a decision that a monthly newsletter would be the thing. So to this day we send out a monthly newsletter to a database of people who have signed up for it. Again there are laws about spamming people.

Have we reached our goal?

No, is the easy answer, we are always looking at tweaking and changing what we do and managing it differently and we do use other mediums to get the message out there, such as PR articles to business press, etc. We also run an online blog about technology amongst other things.

All these various platforms have meant that we have been able to vary our offering and develop it over the time the company has been running and as long as we keep to the company platforms of honesty, integrity and doing the best job as promised then we will keep it up.

I hope this helps, let me know your thoughts on the whole area of platforms, online or offline.

The Communication Revolution

Posted on March 9, 2015 by tamsons

Communication Revolution

Nice to talk to you, how are things going?
Can you drop me a day and time for a meeting?
When can we talk about the training you need?

You know I see around a hundred questions a day coming my way in various guises and usually keep on top of them, but I have noticed recently that I have dropped the ball on a couple and wondered why.

I use technology for most things and particularly admin, tasks and communication so how can this be happening? Well in fact the very saviour that I use to keep me organised is the very thing that is making me drop the ball.

How is technology failing me?

I have been doing some historical research and asking the question of how we communicate and of course using my age, no comments here please, as I remember using various versions of communication over my years in industry and business.

Here is a rough breakdown of what I experienced: –

Phoned into the office once or twice a day to see if there were any messages for me
Got a pager that bleeped when the office needed me, then found a phone and phoned into the office
Technology improved and I got given a pager that had a scrolling screen across the top and I could read the messages. This was amazing, where was technology taking us?
Got my first company car with built in car phone, large box in the boot and aerial on the roof. The handset took up most of the foot well and a microphone hung in your face as you drove. But, hey that was advances in technology and don’t be fooled I loved it. It also meant I now couldn’t hide anywhere.
The next was a company car with a cradle and no large box in the boot and no aerial on the roof. The phone had it all built in and could be removed from the car. What…I was lost for words and it was great. It fitted in my pocket and I could call the office or any clients I wanted. This was just amazing.
Then on top of all this I was given a small portable compute that had all my product range on it that I was selling and could work out a quote on the spot for a client. I was then hooked on technology. The tech kept me informed and allowed me to be more flexible in what I was doing, simply brilliant. I could juggle all these no problem and I was mobile even back then.

So where are we now? And I still haven’t answered why technology is letting me down?

Yes, sorry was caught up in nostalgia when times were developing fast and things were simpler.

Now I sound like my gran.

Well, now we have the Internet, the cloud, the web, back then we didn’t so communication was done differently. Now I can get communication from all sections of the Internet that I am active in and believe you me there are a lot of them. Because I am also mobile a lot of the time these communications come in as I am on the hop and I read them quickly and think I will answer that when I get back to base and have time to think it through and check a few things out.

So where do my communications come from now? Well here is the current list and I may have missed some: –

Letter, or snail mail as it is called.
Emails, quite a lot of emails to various accounts I use
Direct messages I get from Facebook, three possible accounts
Direct messages I get from Twitter, three possible accounts.
Emails I get from LinkedIn
Messages I get from my blog I founded and write
Messages form my website activity
Messages from any LinkedIn groups I am in
Messages from Facebook pages I manage
Google Hangouts, sometimes a few open at one time talking to more than one person, like holding two phone calls at once.
Skype, which I must admit I don’t use a lot really
Phone calls on landline and on mobile
Text messages
Even my file server at home emails me when it updates or has had a problem…….

So my dilemma is that I have on occasion been out the office and mobile and got a message through one of these mediums and read it over and thought I will answer that once I can put a reasonable response together. I then get back to base and there is something in my mind about a message I must answer so I open my emails and check each account, all emails have been read, which of course they have as I looked at it when I was out and about. So it doesn’t jump out at me.

Or on occasion I can’t find an email and think how else did the message come in and spend a bit of time going through all of the above until I hopefully stumble across it. An example recently was one that I had read over when I was out and about that it was a direct message and then my day got busy and confusing. When I got back to base I looked and it wasn’t there. I checked emails and other areas and couldn’t find it. Finally I think found it as a direct message to one of my Twitter accounts I use.

So maybe you can see my dilemma, the very thing I have embraced to make my profile and business public and found easily is also the very thing that is causing me to be juggling so many forms and ways to communicate that I occasionally drop the ball.

What’s the solution, or is there one?

Well, the solution is obviously a difficult one. I could peal back the activity to the essential areas and not over complicate things. Hence only check and receive important messages. But being into all the aspects of the current Internet I find this difficult to rationalise. I even teach people to use it to its fullest. No I will just have to be more organised again and make sure I am aware of the source of communications that come my way and prioritise and deal with them as appropriate. A few extra hours each day might be useful.

What are you experiences of this phenomenon, is it something you have experienced or is it just me?

IT Tech Point

Ian Thomson Tech Blog

Tag Archives: business