Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Is BYOD really about BYOA?

So here's a question for you: Is BYOD really about BYOA?
 
BYOA = BYO Application
 
You want to BYO Device so you can use an application or applications you have on that device but not others.  e.g. you iPhone, iPad, or Andriod equivalent has lots of Apps that are sometimes unique to the device (or class of device) and you just can't run them on your work's SOE device.
 
In my case its certainly a good part of the reason I BYOD, there are lots of Apps that I use every day in my work. The reasons I don't or can't install the same Apps on my work's SOE device include:
 
  • they won't run on Windows
  • I don't have a license to install on multiple machines (its already installed on my BYOD), and possibly
  • its against your work's IT policies regarding installing non SOE software on work equipment
 So here's my straw poll: What's your main reason for BYOD? (where BYOD includes the OS part and anything essential to running the device, Apps are on top of that)
 
  1. I love my BYOD over the work SOE alternative
  2. I need the Apps
  3. Its a 50/50 split between BYOD reasons and BYOA
  4. Some other reason - please share :)
p.s. with the recent trend towards cloud Apps, BYOA may only be a fleeting concept as may Apps are available on just about any device. If this trend continues, maybe BYOA will become more about the legal right to use your Apps accross any device you have access to

Friday, February 1, 2013

Year of living paperlessly

With apologies to Christopher Koch (Year of Living Dangerously) I am trying a bit of a 'science experiment' this year, an attempt to live as paperlessly as I can this year, at least for my work as an IT consultant.

Here is an except from a Q&A post I published to LinkedIn a few weeks ago when embarking on my experiment...

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Year of living paperlessly**

** as far as possible at least

Just looking for some new ideas on how to live as paperlessly as possible this year - mostly from a work point of view but will also try out at home.

My ideal use case is:

When I come into contact with some paper I need, I 'scan' or take a pic and dont need the paper any more.
... be able to make notes on scanned/photo'ed paper I receive.
... tag the content I create/ capture and make search, discovery and retrieval easy where ever I am (assuming I have device with me or connection to 'cloud')

My current devices include an iPad, iPhone, Mac at home and PC laptop at work so anything cross device, cross OS would also be good.

The apps I currently use include:
- Evernote - plan to keep this but also looking for companion apps to collect and use content I collect
- Notetaker (for iPad) - ok, but looking for better ability to annotate and also 'tag' my content
- Dropbox - plan to keep for storage but would like to be able to tag content easier and search it better

Open to any other ideas on how to improve things, especially in apps that make it easy to scan/ take a pic of paper and then file it electronically. Currently I use Evernote for this and its ok but looking for ways to make it better.

============

Here is a link to some of the replies I have received so far... http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/information-technology/information-storage/TCH_ITS_IST/1087577-12337876?browseIdx=0&sik=1359662184595&goback=%2Eamq

I'll be following this blog up with a 'so far so good' post to share some of the ideas I have tried, some that have worked and some which Im still working on.

In the meantime, I thought I would also share this interesting site that I came across... http://paperfreeclass.wordpress.com/

Its a very interesting site that uses WordPress to provide the digital hub for the classroom and how the students and the teacher interact with each other and, as a by product, cut down on their paper usage.

Im using a Wiki to cut down on my own paper usage but so far its just a local one that uses TiddlyWiki ... http://tiddlywiki.com/

TiddlyWiki is great but I have aspirations to upgrade to Confluence http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/overview/team-collaboration-software so I can easily share my info with others and have others contribute as well