My tools on the road – what is in my backpack?

A lot of my work doesn’t rely on a fixed location and as with many of us required me to maximise productivity when on the road.  Here are the common things I carry around with me:

Technical bits

• BlackBerry 8800, couldn’t be half as effective during travel without this – knocking emails, scheduling tasks and contacting people while waiting for trains, planes etc.
• Standard wired headset and bluetooth headset for the Blackberry
• X60 Tablet – I’m a real tablet fan as it gives me the widest choice of input types and is much more acceptable in physical meetings than having a screen open.
• A spare battery (and if possible charged!) so as to last a day if at conferences.
• Mobile data card (invaluable!)
• A portable mouse, the Logitech VX Nano.  I would not be without this portable mouse now.  The only pain is that I have to unplug the receiver before standby otherwise it wakes the laptop up – not good if like me you prefer not to toast your laptop in your bag.
• A standard telephone headset.  When away I still have to do many conference calls, and you can never find a desk with a headset so I now just take one.  Its really changed my comfort levels during calls and takes minimal room in my bag.
• Logitech presentation wand.  This is worth every penny!  I even find myself using it when talking just using my screen.
• Several USB memory sticks.

Tools I use to stay effective on the road

Corporate stuff (in no particular order):

• Lotus Notes
• Lotus Sametime (IM and presence and sometimes web meetings)
• AT&T Connect for integrated audio and web meetings (my preferred virtual meeting tool)
• CSC’s PC backup and restore service
• Confluence Wiki
• OneNote
• Mindjet Mind Manager Pro
• Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000
• Our Office Communication Server lab environment for one-to-one video calls with team members.

Consumer stuff:

• SkyDrive to share selected files with people
• Twitter – more colleague focused updates
• MSN Messenger and Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 for calls back to home (I find its really nice to see the family when away – especially when abroad).
• Facebook to keep up-to date with friends (on both web and BlackBerry)
• Googlemail to keep up with personal emails (again on both web and BlackBerry)
• Newsgator Feeddemon
• Twitterberry
• Twhirl
• Ultramon (for when I can find a monitor on travels)

Important non-techie stuff

• Pencils
• Hard backed notebook (even with a tablet I still need pencil and paper at times)
• Travel sickness tablets (tilting express trains and flights sometimes set me off but the tablets control nausea and maintain my effectiveness)
• Flyers about our services.

Desires for the future

• A folding screen
• Better bag storage (thats mainly down to me!)

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