Last week I bookmarked this great list of Office 2.0 applications and planned to publish my own list. Most of the tools I used in my private life first became part of my business life very fast. But it took years for most of these tools to become a business standard (e.g. e-mail, Instant Messaging, PDAs or the Web2.0-Open-Social-Toolset).
Bookmarks: I am using del.icio.us since years in my private life. With Lotus Connections there will be Dogear as a de.licio.us clone now in my business life, too.
Calendar: Google Calendar. But C&S is still done with Lotus Notes for private and business life. Tried to integrate it with Google Calendar, but there is still no way to this – even not in Notes 8. But with Google Sync there is now a great workaround. It lets me sync Notes and Google Calendar via Blackberry. If Lotus does not deliver, RIM does 😉
Contacts: XING has become my main contacts management tool. I am using other services like LinkedIn, Facebook (this is more of a funny platform than a „contact management“ app), or Plaxo (still have an account, but does not use it anymore) too. But XING is the most usefull platform for me.
eMail: GMail. Since I use GMail I even stopped using a offline mail app like Thunderbird. Since everybody uses web mail apps even the boring discussion about mail clients stopped at the customer sites. The argument „users are using Outlook at home so this is the reason why they do not like Lotus Notes at work“ is dead, because people use tools like GMail now.
FeedReader: Google Reader, but I still have the FeedReader installed.
Weblog: Blogger, since years. Microblogging with Twitter, of course 😉
Photo Manager: Flickr, since years. Still the best tool to manage and share your photos.
Instant Messenger: Skype, and more and more Google Talk. Daily work is still done with Lotus Sametime.
Spreadsheet/Word Processor: Google Docs. But most of my daily work with „productivity tools“ is done with OpenOffice 2.3.
More an more applications I am getting my things done with are web based. In my private life I do not have an e-mail client anymore. I have GMail and I use the integrated Google Talk chat. I have more and more chats via GTalk – even Skype is still my preferred chat client. But GTalk is always there, it is open, it supports XMPP and it is available on every desktop when I open GMail. Same thing for my documents and spreadsheet: I edit, save, share and collaborate on private documents via Google Docs. I share my calendar in my private life via Google Calendar (and with Google Sync it stays synced to Lotus Notes).
All these apps become mobile more and more thanks to RIM and Google. I have Google Talk on my Blackberry installed, there is a GMail client. I get my directions with Google Maps, even without GPS connected to my Pearl. And funny services like Twitter or Facebook have a usefull mobile client, too.
So the big question is. How long will I need to run a fat operating system with fat clients to do my work? This is not a question about Linux vs. Windows or Office vs. OpenOffice. This is more a question of getting my work environment on every client out there at every time – like I have it in my private life today.
Yes,, I know, most of my online toolset is powered by Google. I am aware of that risk. But Google simple delivers what I need. And yes, because I like it clear and simple I have to buy a Mac. I will.
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