There are a lot of technological devices out there which have the potential to make us more effective in our productivity (such as unified communications tools). Unfortunately, a lot of these devices can be a double-edged sword; they offer a lot of ways to decrease our productivity too.

A really simple example is the use of instant messaging programs. They can increase productivity by making communication with team members more immediate and more efficient. However, if you have IM programs running all day then you may get distracted from your focus and actually lose productivity.

This was highlighted by a couple of the Twitter responses that I got yesterday when I requested for people to send me their top productivity tips. A couple immediate responses were:

• @BerksBess “turn off Twitter (and the Internet as a whole)”.
• @cdolwagen ”set aside specific time slots for email, web browsing and Twitter. Use a timer so you don’t overrun ”

In other words, you really need to maintain some level of self control when you are making use of technology and Web 2.0 tools. The level of productivity that is possible with them is truly within the power of the person using them.

Smart people are going to maximize their use of these tools without overusing them. The other tips that I received via Twitter from those types of smart people were:

• @kashicat ”For creative people with ADD, doing work in small chunks (i.e. light at end of several tunnels) can help get it done.
• @Ivenetian When you feel yourself drifting…say to yourself “back to work”!

So, back to work it is!

Tags: business, efficiency, kathryn vercillo, productivity, self-control, Technology, twitter, work

I recently did research into the relationship between movies and mobile phones. What I learned from this research is that there are three main ways in which movies and cell phones are linked:

1. People watch movies on their cell phones. More and more phones are getting advanced enough to be capable of watching streaming or downloaded movies. There have been a lot of recent announcements about this link between movies and mobile phones.
2. People film movies on their cell phones. This is just cool. Lots of people use their phone’s video camera to film movies. There are film festivals specifically for these phone-made films. I love the creativity of it!
3. The movie industry markets on phones. There are tons of different marketing ploys used by movie promoters that involve mobile phones include interactive mobile advertising.

Are there other links between cell phones and movies that I’m forgetting?

Tags: art, cell phones, entertainment, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, movies, society, Technology, Wireless

There are some wild predictions floating around about the predicted growth of Android-based mobile phone handset sales. Analysts in the industry are saying that there will be more than ten million of these handsets sold before the year is over. That’s a 900% increase! Is it possible?

It’s probably true that there will be a large increase in Android-based handset sales between this year and last year. That is because there are more companies offering these phones and the increased availability combined with the slow start of sales when the product launched could lead to a large percentage difference in sales.

But will there really be ten million handsets sold? We’re already almost halfway through the year so some major sales would have to take place in the last half of 2009 to make that happen. I’d be surprised if sales go that high but it’ll be interesting to see how close they get. There are definitely some interesting new handsets on the horizon.

Tags: android, google, mobile, phones, predictions, Technology

There’s a reason that they call them smartphones. Today’s advanced mobile phones serve as mini-computers that can take a lot of things off of your mind. You hardly have to remember anything on your own because you can program your phone to remember things for you.

The most obvious example of this is phone numbers. It used to be that people memorized the phone numbers that they called most often. Most people today memorize one or two numbers in case of an emergency and simply let their phones remember the rest.

The fact that we rely on our phones to remember things could mean that we’re thinking less than we used to. We simply don’t have to stretch our brain muscles so much anymore because we’ve got a world of helpful information at our fingertips.

If we’re not thinking as much as before then we run the chance that we’re losing our ability to utilize common sense. A lot of people are lost without their phones – they can’t calculate tips or find their way around a strange location without mobile applications to guide them.

Is your cell phone doing your thinking for you?

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, society, Technology

I was recently reading about the fact that Windows Mobile 6.5 is designed to have voice recognition software. It’s a really cool idea because it means that people using mobile phones with this service will be able to do hands-free texting, web surfing and dialing. Despite the fact that I think it’s cool, I doubt it’s something that I’d use anytime soon.

What’s the reason that I wouldn’t make use of a service that makes sense to me like this? Well, it sounds ridiculous but I just feel so silly using anything with voice recognition. I’m not comfortable speaking to my phone. I know other people are totally fine with turning on their phone and saying “call home” but I just can’t bring myself to do it because it just feels too weird.

What causes this strange feeling? It’s got to be some sort of self-consciousness but that doesn’t exactly make sense because I feel silly doing this whether I’m with other people or just alone. So what is it then? I’m not exactly sure but I do know that I don’t feel comfortable using voice recognition. Do other people also feel weird about it or is this one trend that I’m just really behind on?

Tags: Technology, voice recognition, windows mobile, Wireless

I am one of the only people that I know who doesn’t own an mp3 player. Maybe music just isn’t as important to me as it is to other people. Or perhaps the fact that I don’t commute to and from work makes it so that I don’t need the distraction of a music-playing device as much as the average person does.

The reality of my life seems to be that when I’m home I’m typically busy with work and other things so I don’t listen to music much there. If I want to have music on in the background, I just set it up on my laptop. And when I’m going somewhere, I usually want to be aware of where I’m walking and what I’m doing so I don’t seek out the distraction of a music player.

Nevertheless there are some times when I think a music player would be nice. When I’m working out is a great example. I would love the distraction of music when hiking up some of our bigger hills here in San Francisco or when doing basic stretching exercises at home.

Because of this I think that maybe mp3 sports players are the way to go if I do decide to get a music-playing device. These are designed specifically to be lightweight and durable for use during exercise. They even have functions designed to assist you with your workout goals. I’m not one hundred percent sure that this is a purchase I want to make but I’m fairly certain that this is what I’ll look at if I do decide to get a music player.

Tags: gadgets, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, mp3 player, Music, sports, Technology

I think that the development of various mobile phone applications which we have seen grow in the past couple of years is a great thing. The iphone, Blackberry and new Android phones all offer phone users the chance to personalize their phones in such a way so as to make them more fun and efficient to use. However, I think that there are some mobile phone apps out there that are just a complete waste of time.

I’m not saying this just because there are phone apps that I don’t like. There are plenty of phone apps that I don’t use but can see the value of. For example, I am not someone who is interested in instant messaging from my mobile phone so I ignore all of those apps when I see headlines about them in the news. Nevertheless I think those could be valuable apps.

But there are some applications for phones out there that just seems absurd. There are applications that heighten your paranoia by informing you about crime rates in the area that you’re in. There are applications that remind you to pray at certain times of day which I think is something you should be doing without help from your phone. And there are applications that take features that you can already find on your phone elsewhere and try to market them in an appealing way even though you really don’t need the app to enjoy the features. It’s silly.

See my picks for ten of the most ridiculous mobile phone apps out there today. What do you think – agree or disagree on these?

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phone applications, mobile phones, phone apps, Technology, Wireless

I remember sometime in the late 1990′s when daily newspaper headlines constantly alerted us to the fact that kids in bad neighborhoods were being murdered for their sneakers. The point of these headlines was to highlight the senselessness of gang violence and other violent crimes. I was reminded of this recently when I did research into a rash of reports about people who have been assaulted for their mobile phones.

Just a cursory glance through the mobile phone news throughout the United States and the UK reveals that there are people all around the world who are getting physically attacked for the purpose of robbing their mobile phones. It’s hard to say in some of these cases whether the victim was assaulted for another reason and then the phone theft was secondary to the crime but it’s clear in at least a few of these instances that robbery of the phone was the sole motivation for the attack.

That’s some scary stuff. It reminds us of just how senseless most crime is. Phones are not that valuable and they’re easily accessible to almost anyone and yet we’ve got these crimes where mobile phones are valued as property to be stolen. It’s frightening and the reports are eye-opening as to what’s going on in the world around us.

Check out my whole article titled Today’s Thieves Want Your Mobile Phones.

Tags: cell phones, crime, law, legal, mobile phones, news, robbery, Technology, theft, violence

I really love looking at gadgets and technology that are only in concept form. I’m a huge fan of concept cars (like Terrafugia) and am also really interested in concept phones. Basically I think that any technology that’s only in concept form has the capability of showing us what things might look like in the future. And I think it shows off the kind of innovation that only a handful of designers in any field are actually capable of working on.

For example I’ve been reading lately about the Kyocera EOS Concept Phone. This is a phone that is made from a bendable polymer that allows you to reshape the phone. I don’t know that it would work well in actuality – you can just see it breaking over time – but I think it’s an idea that is going to be worked into handset design in some way in the future. Likewise the phone’s ability to self-charge using kinetic power is something we’re going to see in tomorrow’s mobile phones.

It’s not that I think every single concept phone brings about change and ends up being the device that we want in the future. It’s just that I think we start moving in a new direction with these types of products. Anything that’s different captures my attention and anything that’s cutting-edge in design manages to keep it for at least a little while!

Tags: cell phones, concept phones, creativity, design, innovation, kyocera, mobile phones, Technology

Remember when Mom or Grandma used to get out the Sunday paper and clip out coupons. She probably organized them in some sort of envelope or fancy organizer and then took them to the store with her when she did her grocery shopping. Although there are still people out there using coupons like this today, it really doesn’t make sense any more to rely on these printed types of coupons to save money.

Printed coupons just don’t have the benefits that they used to have for most people. For one thing, it has been shown that you can probably save as much or more money by shopping for store brands instead of buying name brands using a coupon. More importantly, the whole process of printing coupons (whether the manufacturer prints them or you do it yourself at home) is time-consuming and costly and it makes saving money in this way inefficient.

Online discount codes make sense in today’s society. Mobile phone coupons make sense in today’s society. But printed coupons just don’t make a lot of sense anymore.

Tags: coupons, Frugal Living, kathryn vercillo, save money, society, Technology