If you’re a home office worker, a road warrior, a teleworker, a virtual officer or just a workationing mom or dad who’s hitting the highway but expecting to take a little work in tow, how will you help those trying to reach you to actually reach you. A voicemail I received today helped highlight that question. It also revealed that with email, texts, pins, BBMs, Facebook, tweets, IM, LinkedIn messages, some people still rely on vmail. And as antiquated as we may believe it to be, we still must serve those people’s needs.

In the message, the person left her query. She also commented that my outbound greeting referenced Cinco de Mayo. A greeting a month old, eh? Goes to show how little attention many of us pay to our vmail greetings.

This got me to thinking, though… Assuming people actually listen to greetings, what should we say or request of those trying to reach us? What about for teleworkers, road warriors and even workationing entrepreneurs?

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REVIEW: Even as a home officer, I can be an occasional road warrior. I go to hockey tournaments, host television media tours from NYC, watch Gator games at UF, and generally do my part to support the travel and lodging industries.

And, invariably, those trips involve sleep on the road.

So I often bring along that horse-yoke inflatable collar / pillow-like thing that’s supposed to keep me comfortable when I’m stuck in an airplane seat or slummin’ it at LaGuardia when bad weather’s cancelled my flight home.

What is the traveler to do? Blow up your TravelRest pillow. Read More »

Home Office Highway and the virtual office is all about technology. Sure, cooking burgers on a grill doesn’t take much in the way of high-tech gizmos — unless you bought your spatula at Hammacher-Schlemmer.

But this blog has been written on a laptop connected to the Internet by a USB device that delivers broadband Rev-A through-put from almost any location — an RV park, at the base of Stone Mountain in Georgia, or as we drive along I-95 toward Massachusetts. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or you telework / telecommute, tech is your toolbox.

If you’re a tech marketer, the secret of successfully putting high-tech gadgetry in the hands of consumers (especially if you don’t have an IT staff behind you) is making it accessible to folks in a non-threatening, high-touch venue. The chance to play with the latest handset, or demo some new device, or ask “Like Duh!” questions without getting some “You Silly Consumer” look in response is the answer.

Call it the “Evolution.”

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Each summer, my family leaves the home office and road trips for two weeks. And each summer, I find myself gathering up the must-have tools to make my road trip successful.

There’s my laptop and my USB flashdrive with all my most current docs backed up. There’s my Gmail account, through which all my email flows — so I have every email sent or received out there close at hand.

There’s my USB mini-light to illuminate my keyboard or documents, for when I’m working in the early morning — but don’t want to wake the family. I also carry a small Monster power strip to turn one electrical outlet into five — to my laptop, Blackberry, digital camera, iPod (with the Monster cable to broadcast my tunes on the minivan’s stereo) and my family’s phones and accessories can recharge overnight. And there’s our Hampton Inn guide book, so we know where our favorite haunt is along the highway.

And they’re all packed away in my laptop backpack — neatly stashed and close at hand.

Unless the goal is to unplug completely from work, road trips shouldn’t kill productivity. I strive to be just as effective a soloist from the road as I am in the home office.

What’s your Digital Didyaknow? How do you make your travels a time of peak productivity — at least at those times that you want to scratch out a few moments of work? As I gear up for our vocation vacation, I want to learn more.

Let me know…