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Half Personal, Half Business: Dual Smartphones

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Whenever you give someone a smartphone the first thing they’ll probably do is download Angry Birds.  So how do you keep your work away from your personal usage?

Virtual Splitting

Virtual splitting is a method of partitioning a smartphone’s memory into two halves.  One half is person in which only the user has access.  The other half can be remotely accessed by the company that issued the phone.  This is in case the phone is lost or stolen; the company can remotely erase that partition.  A great example of a readymade solution is Blackberry’s Balance.

Problems Skirting Solutions

You might think that with the ability to just wipe out any compromising data is nuclear option that solves everything.  However, it can become more complicated than that.  For example, AirWatch is an app that allows you to remotely wipe certain data so as to not destroy personal stuff.  You might just want to delete spreadsheets and PowerPoint files, thinking photos should be off limits.

But, employees may use photos to take pictures of important documents.

I suppose you could just impose a strict policy of no personal use of smart devices with business information on it.  But then you’ll be fighting human nature.

Shorter, More Productive Meetings: Yeah there’s an app for that

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Less Meeting is an app that works with Outlook or through your web browser.  Like it’s name suggests, the app is geared towards making business meetings more productive and thus having them less frequently.

Step One: Setting Up

This app allows you to sync your calendars across various platforms including your Google Calendar and iCalander.  Selected contacts can then be invited and reminded of meetings.  Well begun is half done, as they say.

After you meeting time set, the app allows you to fill out a short outline of what you want to cover.

Step Two: Setting Limits

Probably one of the most intriguing aspects of Less Meeting is the workplace culture that it tries to create.  Meetings are designed to have a thirty minute limit.  Metrics allow you to measure what everyone is done who is attending the meetings.

For example, any notes taken or documents submitted are tracked centrally.  This allows the person running the meeting to see productivity during the meeting.  Thus, the best practices can be deciphered.  Like how Jim needs to be sent two reminders for every meetings because one just isn’t enough.

Step Three: Be More Efficient

Less Meeting has plenty of built in typing shortcuts so you can take notes more quickly.  It’s a little clunky at first, but as time goes on it goes better.  As stated before, all notes are tracked so they can be easily organized and presented.  These notes can be exported via e-mail.

Step Four: Follow up

Meetings are ends in and of themselves.  They’re tools to make sure things get done.  Less Meetings has a follow up feature.  You can assign tasks based on the notes taken during the meeting and send to-do lists to various employees.

After the lists are send, your employees can then write back saying that they have completed their tasks or require clarification or help, etc.

Step Five: Go Forth

Meetings are always going to be a drag.  With the Less Meeting App, maybe they’ll be less of a drag.  The pricing is based on the number of users, ranging from $12-8 a month.