My CEO Life

A while ago we made a decision to give as many people as reasonable a Blackberry.  Now the cost conscious out there will argue that this is a waste of resources, however i think for what is a relatively small investment ($800 for the handset and ~$35 per month for the plan) it meant that the team members were able to become more productive and in their own time.  What we also noticed was that people embraced the new technology and also the freedom it gave them.  Often people could go home to attend to their kids but were able to stay in touch with what was happening in the office. 

However there are some tricks of the trade. 

Firstly make sure that some of the more creative types dont get carried away and start attaching their computers to the phones and using the phone as modem – it will cost alot.

Also when people are travelling, the international data roaming charges on Blackberry’s can be expensive.  Therefore make sure that people know how to turn on / off the data roaming so that they keep the costs down.  It probably makes sense for them to check in a few times per day rather than have the data roaming on all the time.

Another function of the Blackberry that has really helped has been the Blackberry Messenger.  This has allowed team members to send quick messages to each other without using SMS (which is comparatively expensive) and without making phone calls (also more expensive).

The last advantage i found using Blackberry’s is that we used the google maps function to help find places when we travel.

The only downside … its not an iPhone!

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