Technology on the Road

We know that the Apple app store has 1.5 million apps. And Google’s Play Store for Android has even more at 1.6 million. And the average person uses less than 10 apps on a regular basis.
 
However many apps we may have on our phone, and however many we may or may not use, there is no denying that technology has changed our lives over the past 20 years. Some of these changes it could be argued may not be for the better. But what cannot be argued is that it is much easier now to do business and communicate whilst on the road, than ever before.
 
We recall, and not fondly, the days of travelling for business in Asia some 20 plus years ago. We had to write like an ant as much as possible on a page, which then cost as much as a night in a fancy hotel to fax back to the office.
 
With free wi-fi now available most places – even at a $15-a-night Peruvian backpackers (but interestingly not at $250-a-night Sheratons in the USA) – it is easy to hook the laptop or tablet or phone in to the wi-fi, and download and send email. Nobody even needs to know that you are not at your desk back in Auckland.
 
Whilst there is no substitute for face-to-face contact in the business of selling, there are a number of tools we use at Expedio to ensure that we are productive – even when we are not physically on the spot.

Some of the technology tools we find most useful are:

Phone Camera: The principle that “a picture is worth a  thousand words” is so easy to bring to life with the amazing quality of cameras now integrated into most smartphones. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s cheap and can save huge amounts of time and money. The plumber can send a pic of the rusted rainhead or spouting and he can have a decision to replace or repair while he is still on the roof.

Laptop: We know that for many a tablet has completely replaced a laptop. But there are some of us who still prefer a physical keyboard for typing. We currently use a Dell XPS 13, which is only fractionally heavier than a tablet but has a keyboard.

Phone / Tablet Apps: We prefer Android. Not necessarily because it is better than an Apple iPhone, but because we can buy an Android phone (ours is a Nexus 5X) with much the same specs for less than half the price. So if it should accidently end up in a concrete pour or see the inside of a washing machine, it is substantially cheaper to replace. The apps we use are generally available in both Android and Apple versions.

Camscan: On the road it is usually possible to find a printer to print out a contract. But we have real difficulty in explaining in Mandarin or Spanish or Croatian that we need to scan the signed document. And this is where Camscan comes into it’s own. Using the phone camera we can photograph the signed contract, turn it into a pdf, and send via email.

Google maps: Whether on the desktop, or on the move on the phone, Google maps is an incredible time and energy saving tool. It enables us to immediately look up a location, and even, with street view or Google Earth get an impression of a property.

Adobe acrobat reader:  Most documents are sent as a pdf. And they should be, as PDF files are generally compressed to make the file faster to both send and receive. Please don’t send docs as a .jpg or a .tif unless absolutely necessary!  Adobe may be the oldest, but it is still the best tool for reading a pdf.

Excel/Word: For spreadsheets and regular documents it is hard to beat Microsoft Word and Excel.

Bank: Every bank has it’s own app, and these are generally much faster to use/load than using the bank's website. For a quick check as to whether payments have been made it is hard to beat the ASB’s mobile app.

Trade Me: Unfortunately the Trade Me mobile app is close to useless with regard to the industrial property market. Time for TradeMe to get their act together on this one.

Splash ID:  One of the scourges of online life is the need for passwords. To ensure we are secure we obviously cannot use 123password for everything, so we need a whole bunch of different passwords. Then how do we remember them? The answer is a  password keeper such as SplashID. Just remember one password to access SplashID and you can access all your passwords. It’s easy to use, as when you update from one device (phone / tablet / laptop / desktop ) it automatically updates all.