Up in the Air and Still On Top of Business

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Right now I am on a plane approximate 40,000 feet up in the air. I am connected to the internet. I am typing this article on the plane and will email it shortly to our editor-in-in-chief, and it will probably be be published before I land.

Up in the air I can check my emails, watch a movie or surf on the web. I am not a tech guy but I pretty much try to use technology to make my personal and business life easier. I don’t need to be in the office to manage my business. I have my blackberry, laptop and tablet to take care of my day to day work. I can even access files on my office computer using my tablet as a remote control. I can hardly remember the way of communicating before emails. I can not figure out how we managed doing business in the old days, especially international business. Nowadays everything is done via email, we hardly pick up the phone to discuss business these days. We have many Facebook friends, Linkedin connections and Twitter followers that we have never talked to or seen before. We have customers that we haven’t talked to in months yet exchange hundreds of emails everyday.

Personally I believe that with these “recent” technological developments, people lost the trust in doing business by verbal agreement. Everything now should be written or recorded so no one can deny what has been agreed. The old days of doing business by a handshakeshaking hands is finished. The new generation of tech-savvy youth have never seen a typing machine in their life and the next generation will not know what a fax machine is. In the old days the fastest way of communicating was sending a telex message, for which you had to go to a post office. Doing international business was a big hassle comparing to today’s speed of communications and transactions. Can you imagine doing your job if they took our emails away?

I certainly can’t. I work in sales, and travel often. Imagine that you are on the road trying to go from meeting to meeting with printed maps and no navigation. I bet you will get lost…

With new technology doing business is improved in a way of speed. You don’t need to wait days for your supplier to approve the order you placed. Technology changed the way we perform business transactions from A-Z and the corporations who couldn’t manage to keep up with the technology either failed or are failing. This of course has also effected our personal lives, but not necessarily in a good way. With new technology we are always in touch, as there is no excuse for being “unreachable”. Most of our business is with Asia and by the time we finish our work they open their offices and start sending emails. I am always on my Blackberry, day and night, taking care of business. How many of you have had a vacation without think of work, or even just had a weekend without using your phone or checking your email? Can you manage not to be connected to the world for a day or two?

While I am in the air I can even order a bottle of wine to my hotel room so it will be ready when I check in! (I am joking boss…)