Typing out this blog in the passenger side of our van on this very road trip – and I was asked by some people what workflows and systems I use to keep up with work while on this 1 month road trip – I think its better to break it down by app.
Have passed about 7,000 miles on this trip now, and will reach 10,000 when we finish mid next week, and I have for the most part kept up with my “bare essential” workflow.
I didn’t put in apps like gmail,chrome browser, – as I assume they are pretty standard on everyone’s phone and not very specific for the use of the road trip.
Evernote – An app I use as my command center. I do almost all of my work on it (event typing this blog inside of it now on my laptop). whenever someone sends me an email, a text, Facebook message, or anything that I can’t immediately reply to (needs me to think) – I forward it to my evernote in a “to do” system that deserves a blog post of itself. But the MASSIVE help with this app is that it works online and offline – and then syncs between all my devices (mobile phone and laptop). I no longer use email as my todo list. All my actions are in evernote, when I need to get work done, I open my evernote on my laptop no matter where I am and get right down to work.
Waze – Social GPS. My buddy Larry Salibra told me to set this up when I started my trip! Way better than Google maps! It is “Social” so other users share information on the road. A few times I was alerted there was a police car up ahead and ensured I was under the speed limit – and sure enough there would more than likely be a cop hidden in the trees up ahead. Amazing! And then there was TRAFFIC – specifically in western florida, I think it was a 3 car pile up in the highway up ahead….it re-routed us to take the next exit and took some seriously local roads (felt like I was driving in a residential complex at times) but saved us at least 1 hour of horrible traffic.
Yelp – Feel like a local anywhere I go in America! I have had an account for years but this trip I finally leveraged it. A really fun time was when we were driving through Savannah, Georgia and wanted some local Southern food. While driving we read reviews, previewed the menu, looked at crowdsourced photos of the food and atmosphere from my mobile phone – sharing it around in the van and we all made a decision about 30 minutes away from entering the city for dinner. And walking into the local restaurant we knew the menu and what we wanted to order already. really awesome! I finally found how to separate this from Foursquare (there is a bit of overlap of Yelp and Foursquare – see below)
Foursquare – This one I have been using for years, basically its sharing your location with your friends on Foursquare (LBS = Location Based Service) I saw friends in the area I checked in that I may not have realized lived there. A specific example, while I was in Manhattan, New York City during Superbowl weekend I used it twice!
(a) Friday upon arrival I saw my advisor Steve Forte was also in the city – I had already met him in his new home of Silicon Valley – but he was in NYC as he had tickets for Superbowl! While I wish he had an extra ticket – we did manage to grab breakfast together Sunday morning before he headed to the game, amazing!
(b) Sunday night I was checking in around the city and my friend Mike Krupnick saw that I was checking in like a madman on foursquare all over the city and had just gotten back from a wedding in Virginia (I think) – so we met up for a beer after the game! Talked about mobile apps and business and not having met for about 5 years (last time in Hong Kong during a wedding) – pretty amazing too I have to say!
Also I know a lot of people want to follow along on this road trip. Foursquare is where I try my best to document each stop I make, for my own personal record, and to also allow friends interested to follow along. I don’t update too much on Facebook because I don’t want to overwhelm everyone with too many status updates there – those on Foursquare are subscribing specifically to location based check ins.
Google Calendar – Kind of obvious- but I am totally leveraging the ability to create events in various time zones. Its getting really confusing moving time zone to time zone – but when I setup a dinner meeting or phone call – Google calendar updates the timezone and also views all current events in my mobile phone’s current timezone. While sometimes I feel like my schedule is upside down (literally), as long as I enter the calendar entry in the correct timezone I can ensure its updating correctly.
Trello – This is how we manage our startups tasks. Tasks are assigned to each developer and we chat about those tasks and even “@“ mention those who have to pay special attention to that task and comment. They are web and mobile ready so I can jump between my laptop and my mobile phone – depending on where I’m currently working from.
Social Agent – (full disclosure I am co-founder, CEO of this app) As I meet new potential customers / business contacts, I add them to my account here. When I’m asked to refer someone to their company for a service, I send them their contact via Social Agent to track who I refer to which company and track referral fees. And when I get new updates about my contacts that I want to note, I add those notes about that person in the app. A mobile personal CRM.
Instagram – Sharing photos of where I am and what I’m doing – I connected with people I hadn’t seen in years. Specifically Cindy in Florida- she moved there from New Jersey and saw I was in the area from a post and we met up for dinner the next day!
Facebook – of course a standard everyone uses – but it did help me arrange some meet ups (Connecticut, NYC) by making an event. Also on some of my status updates, I realized some friends and colleagues were in the area.
Twitter – sadly I have been using Twitter less and less. But has helped me keep me in touch with people about my business and asking questions about services I provide.
Google maps – Kind of a 2nd GPS / map system after Waze. But its useful to have 2 GPS systems as one you have for your destination, and another you’re using to estimate new routes and timeframes plans for days to come.
Youtube I won’t list as an app, but I have been listing a daily video of the road trip on our company page via SocialAgent.me/Roadtrip for those interested.
Man, this trip has been intense – but seriously technology has helped so much I did a road trip in 2003 and it was nothing like this one – I am really able to get work done and business done as if I’m in the office! But then again, my friends all say I’m a mobile phone addict – constantly looking at my screen.
I’m still just so amazed how much I can get done from my phone.
Work anywhere – that is the mobile revolution – its not about “apps”. I seriously can’t wait until wearable technology becomes more mainstream!
* Today’s blog photos was taken while writing this blog post – in the passenger side of this van, while Attila was driving. Oopps!
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Oops. I… did it again…Hahahahaha