When the boss gives you roundtrip tickets to The Bahamas, Las Vegas or Montego Bay, are you ready to travel like a star? Let’s prepare you for the mobile trip of a lifetime!
Your Mobile BYOD Travel Kit:
- Travel backpack or purse
- Smartphone
- Tablet
- Smartphone and tablet covers
- Two chargers so you can charge both devices at once
- External battery pack
- Printed copy of your travel itinerary
- Pen
Charge It!
As soon as you get your flights tickets, print your travel itinerary. Some things are too important for even low-tech batteries. On the day of your flight, charge both your smartphone and tablet all the way to 100%. Give them a “booster charge” an hour before you leave the house for the airport. This is good to do while showering and packing. Scout your travel backpack and decide where your devices and chargers go. The goal is to be able to whip them out in the dark!
What do you do with passwords? The best place for them is in your head. If you’re like me and have too many to remember, the next best place is a printed piece of paper strategically hidden in your backpack. A piece of paper is a lot safer than storing your banking and email passwords on Dropbox! A notes app that stores data in the cloud is a lot safer than storing the data on your device. If you lose your device, you want to be able to access your data.
App Planning
Download your BYOD app before you travel. Login and make sure everything you need is there. If you use Nubo, you have nothing to worry about – with zero data on your device, nothing from your work environment will ever actually reside on your device. If you use any other BYOD app, make a strategic decision as to what files you will load. Perhaps email and marketing documents are “safer” than financial spreadsheets. Speak with your managers and team before you head for the airport. The rule of thumb is “when in doubt, communicate.”
BYOD should make your life easier while on the road. You should be able to open your tablet, login, view and edit documents with ease. Be prepared to push the screen-off button quickly to avoid prying eyes. When you find yourself BYOD’ing in the sun, don’t hesitate to change the screen brightness.
What about chat apps? Skype and Facebook are easy to use. Skype is cool as it will let you video conference – and show your jealous friends your new desk, a tiki bar teeming with colorful cocktails. Keep in mind that there are some activities that you don’t anyone at work or home to see! Don’t allow your “worst yet most fun moment” to be indexed on Google.
Our friends at SysAid have put together a great list of 10 free Android and iOS business apps.
The Ultimate Mobile Lifesaver
The mobile battery pack is an old invention with a new audience. The good ones come with all of the connections you will need and can typically charge your smartphone twice. The energy they store is measured in mAh – milliamp hours. Mine helped me pass the time on my last flight. I was able to charge my tablet and get in another 2 hours of gaming on the way to Florida. You can find these on Ebay for really low prices – for the cost of a Big Mac!
If you are heading directly to a business meeting, leave some “juice” (electricity) on your devices. You don’t want to land and need a plug in order to make a call. Finally, be careful *where* you BYOD. I can think of a lot of places I’ve been to where I wouldn’t dare pull out a new tablet. Or even a Texas Instruments calculator.
Bon Voyage, BYOD’er!