Why I love technology

I am back at work, trying to cull through all the pending, necessary and immediate needs when I get a note on FB.  Yes, FB.  At work.  On Monday.  My friend and colleague is enjoying sun and cervaza in Mexico but is concerned.  She has an employee who turned in hours to be paid.  My friend can't log in from MX to approve the hours for her employee. So via FB, I contact payroll, it's fixed and both my colleagues are set.  Of course, one is on the beach with a cold beer but I won't hold that against her.   Good thing I have FB, that I am set up to receive my FB notes via Gmail and that my Gmail goes to my phone.  All these cool tools helped two people at work.  AT WORK.  

Last week when I was in DC, my colleague Dorothy and I were sitting at lunch.  Lunch made me think of dinner and dinner made me think of the 1500 people sitting in the room who too would be interested in dinner at some point, probably around the same time we would be interested....So whipping out my crackberry, I went to a service called Poynt and found local restaurants in the area.  From Poynt, I was able to sign in and make reservations right on line, right there, right then with a few clicks and types on my keyboard.  When we arrived at the restaurant that evening, there was a 45 min to 1 hour wait for a table.  We breezed through to our table and enjoyed a wonderful meal.  

I have been playing with a location sharing program called foursquare.  It has a lot of cool features but can see how some might perceive it having a weird sort of stalker quality about it.  I had two terrific experiences with 4SQ (my abbreviation) recently.  One, I was meeting my girlfriend for lunch in a new place and new restaurant.  We were arriving at different times, from different locations and I didn't know if she was already there.  In my email pops up a note saying that MB has checked in to One Trick Pony!  So immediately I knew that she was there and would grab a table first.   While at lunch, she shared with me that another local restaurant will give you a free appetizer if you check in on 4SQ when eating there.  WHOA!  How cool is that?  

There is lots to love on technology Tuesday!