“A year later, the iPad has made itself a key part of my personal and professional workflows. I read more, I lug less around on trips, I am more aware and in touch, and I can be more flexible in when and where I work. And I still really enjoy using it.”

Even the “For Dummies” series has a chapter devoted to using the iPad at work.

He’s not alone. The rest of the world is thinking about the iPad too, and tablets in general. Even the “For Dummies” series has a chapter devoted to using the iPad at work. Here’s a rundown of what the tech media is saying:

How the iPad is Changing Work, and Working Together

By John Cox, Network World

When Hugh Owen wakes up in the morning, the first thing he reaches for after the alarm clock is his iPad 2. Even before he gets out of bed, he’s started reviewing the flock of corporate reports on yesterday’s metrics and today’s plans. Owen is director of mobile marketing for MicroStrategy, a McLean, VA, vendor of business intelligence software. He and others at the company, say the iPad’s attributes are leading to unexpected changes in the way people work and work together.

How Employees are Driving an iPad Revolution, and What IT’s Doing About It

VentureBeat

Mirroring the adoption of smart phones and PDAs before it, the explosive growth of the iPad in business can be attributed almost entirely to employees’ obsession with Apple’s “magical” tablet. The iPad’s transformation from consumer gadget to enterprise tool points the way to an employee-driven tech future in which users — not IT departments — get to choose their own gear and applications. IT managers are learning how to adapt, fast.

20 Percent of IT Departments Prohibit Consumer Devices

By Gina Smith, InformationWeek

BYTE Editors Gina Smith and Brian Burgess presented a webcast on the consumerization of IT in early August. Judging by the number of attendees and quality of their many questions, it’s clear that CoIT is on everyone’s radar. Over and over we hear about consumerization as the coming tsunami. And it’s upon us. Either you ride it or it will drown you. During the webcast, Smith surveyed attendees to find out if they’re surfing, drowning, or somewhere in the middle. The following sums up the results of a survey of 100 IT personnel with a user-base of 1,000 or more. Does your organization have a consumerization policy in place?

‘Consumerization of IT’ taking its toll on IT managers

By Shane O’Neill, Computerworld

“Consumerization of IT” may be an overused phrase, but it is by no means a fad. Workers nationwide are coming to expect that personal devices will connect to corporate networks. But while the use of personal devices such as smart phones, laptops and tablets is liberating workers, it is handcuffing many IT departments. For every salesperson using his or her personal iPad to access corporate email or CRM, there are IT managers behind the scenes scrambling to manage personal devices, protect corporate data and intellectual property, and ensure compliance. And many of these “consumerization of IT” strategies are haphazard, rattled by security fears and unclear data management policies, according to a survey of 750 front-line IT professionals, managers and executives, conducted by Dimensional Research and commissioned by Dell KACE.

Indeed, we get hundreds of BlackBerry calls a week, and most aren’t from the guy who cannot find the on/off button. Rather, it’s the managers on their way to meetings or hopping on flights who want to know the handy tricks and tips that will save them time and make their smart phones smarter.

Here are a few of the notables:

Tip No. 1: How to Filter Incoming Mail
Say, for example, you receive a daily report that you will not read or deal with on your phone and would prefer to just handle it back at the office. Can you create a filter for that?
Of course you can. Here’s how:

1. Click on the Messages icon to open your messages, then click the trackwheel or Menu button and select Options.
2. Select Email Filters.
3. Click your trackwheel or Menu button, select New and then type a filter name.
4. You have several fields you can filter on: From; Sent To; Subject; Message; Sent directly to me; CC to me; BCC to me; Importance; Sensitivity.You can choose more than one option here. For example, to take care of your daily report problem, create the following filter:

From: coworker@domain.com
Subject: Daily Report
Action: Do not forward

This will affect any emails from colleagues with “daily report” in the subject.

5. Click your trackwheel or Menu button and save the filter. By default, it is enabled and will function immediately with any new incoming messages.

If you want to temporarily allow filtered messages, simply click on the filter name to uncheck in the filter list. Take note, however, that filtering works only if your BlackBerry is activated on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server; to access filters with BlackBerry Internet Service you must check with your wireless carrier. (PC Helps E-Tip #9, Vol. 97.)

“Calendar views are often a source of frustration, no matter what device or software you use. “

Tip No. 2: Change Calendar Views in a Snap
Calendar views are often a source of frustration, no matter what device or software you use. Here are some quick and easy ways to navigate your BlackBerry calendar:
While in the calendar, click your trackball, and select from the following views:

“View Day”: summary for the day, showing appointments by their times.
“View Week”: seven-day summary view, showing appointments by their times.
“View Month”: shows every day of month, showing appointments by day.
“View Agenda”: Lists your upcoming appointments in detail view.

You can also use the following shortcut keys:

“D” switches to day view.

“W” switches to week view.

“M” switches to month view.

“A” switches to agenda view.

“C” creates a new appointment in detailed mode.

“T” goes to today (keeping the current view).

“G” goes to a specific date.

Press any of these keys to switch between the views. Note that shortcut keys will work only if you have “Enable Quick Entry” in Calendar Options set to “No.” (Researched by Joel Reeves)

Tip No. 3: Conference Me In
You’re on the road, on the line with a client, and you need to patch in your assistant. Here’s how you use conference calling with your BlackBerry:

1. Call the first person from your BlackBerry.
2. During the call click the trackwheel or Menu Key and select New Call (sometimes listed as 3-Way Call or Conference Call).
3. Type a phone number or select a contact to call and press the Send key.
4. Finally, when both parties are on the phone, you click the trackwheel or press the Menu key and “join” the two callers from the menu.

You can repeat the process to add multiple people, depending on your wireless plan. Check with your carrier to see if it’s available. (JR)

Tip No. 4: High-Priority E-Mail Notifications

You want to make sure you know when high-priority e-mails come in, and the standard notification doesn’t quite command your attention. To set up special notices, start at the home screen, go to Profiles, then Advanced. Here you can create a new profile or modify your current one. Set the desired notification for Level 1 Messages and save. Note: High-priority message notices will work even if you have disabled those for other types of messages. (Researched by Nkoli Ukpabi)

Got any BlackBerry tips to share? Send them my way, and I’ll be sure to give you props if we publish them.

FIND MORE INFO IN: BlackBerry + Mobile Support | Desktop Application Support | PC Helps eTraining | Contact PC Helps`

You had better get it together. The heavies are starting to weigh in.

Resistance is futile, says one CIO. The iPhone is the most popular handheld device available.

Last month, Forrester Research released findings from a study that said IT departments are moving closer to supporting all mobile device platforms. Although BlackBerry (upwards of 60 percent) and Windows Mobile (40 percent) still take the lead, according to the study, one out of four companies now supports iPhones.

The only thing holding the iPhone back from catching up is its so-so security, which remains a big concern for CIOs. (There’s also that pesky issue of AT&T’s spotty coverage. But that’s for another time.)

Security doesn’t seem to be the main issue if you look at the results of a recent TechRepublic poll, which asked 300 CIOs if they support the iPhone, and their reasons for doing so or not doing so. TR editor in chief Jason Hiner posted the results on his blog and the findings have at least one common thread: The iPhone is still viewed as a personal “gadget,” and thus has no place in the enterprise.

Among the CIOs who said they do support the iPhone, the device’s potential to increase productivity was noted. One CIO pointed out that use of the device by traveling execs has decreased VPN support considerably. Another IT manager gushed about how the iPhone is less of a support hassle than other mobile devices.

By far, the two best quotes in Hiner’s piece are:

1. “We have found that resistance is futile. The iPhone is the most popular handheld device available. It has the best mobile browser and our sysadmins say it is a great device for remote systems administration.”
2. A second CIO stated that his company’s move to support the iPhone has resulted in a “decrease in the perception that IT is a wet blanket that is an impediment to the use of consumer-friendly products.”

Keep in mind, however, that supporting mobile devices such as the iPhone will not be without a few headaches for your IT department. According to a March 2009 study conducted by Zenprise Inc., downtime will be a key issue as the use of smart phones in the enterprise increases. (For more on downtime, read “Going Mobile.”) Because the majority of users are higher-profile employees, such as senior and middle managers, the downtime has a greater effect on the bottom line.

MORE INFO IN: Mobile Device Support | Coverage of PC Helps’ iPhone support in Computerworld.com | Contact PC Helps

Training and support transform smart phones from “fun toys” into powerful business tools.

The most recent is a witty report published by TechRepublic, titled “IT Budgets: How to waste money.” The nine-page report offers 10 tips on effective money-wasting, including doling out too much money on energy, unnecessarily purchasing new hardware, and spending too much on travel.

All of the tips are worth a look, but here are a few we’d like to amend/elaborate upon:

Spend too much on mobile technology. Yes, spending too much on mobile technology is a waste of money – when you don’t show your employees how to get the most out of it. Training and support transform smart phones from “fun toys” into powerful business tools. Write that down.

Hire full-time employees when contractors would be more cost-effective. We’re taking liberty and renaming this suggestion: It should read “Hire full-time employees when outsourcing would be more effective.” We know outsourcing is a sore spot for many workers, but consider the following scenario: Your company is migrating to Office 2007, and you are expecting a deluge of calls to the help desk, thanks to the radically changed interface of the new version. Do you hire new IT staffers and train them on Office 2007 or do you find an outsourcer/migration partner to do it?

First, consider the cost of hiring new employees, plus benefits, training and overtime. Secondly, can you afford to hire enough Office 2007 experts to cover a company-wide migration? And what will you do once the migration is complete and call volume diminishes? Fire them? A migration partner has trained experts, who are there when you need them, even after-hours. Best of all, you won’t have to do any icky firing.

Make unnecessary upgrades. The upgrade itself isn’t the problem; it’s what your company does or doesn’t do with it that can create waste. If you simply upgrade without offering complementary training, then, yes, it’s waste. If you show your employees how to harness the new software’s power with training and support, well that’s just plain smart. (Jen Darr)

MORE INFO IN: Productivity Loss Index (PDF) | Office 2007 Migration Checklist + Tools | Migration Case Study | PC Helps eTraining |Desktop Application Support | Contact PC Helps

We know you’ve been nodding your head in agreement when your colleagues (or underlings) discuss the pros and cons of the 3GS, even though you have no clue why the world is so miffed about tethering and MMS. Here’s a chance to school yourself, so you know what your employees will be griping about in the near future.

How often do “smart phones” render us stupid, especially when syncing mail?

Tethering: If you search for “tethering” on Twitter, you will learn that it appears to be “pretty important to road warriors,” that AT&T has committed a massive “fail” by not offering it right away with the iPhone 3GS, and that, if you have the right friends, you can hack your iPhone to enable it.

But you still don’t know what it is.

Tethering refers to using a cell phone as a modem for a laptop or PDA. The term is on fire this week, thanks to AT&T’s gigantic “fail.” Seems technophiles are in a flap because the new 3GS has the capability, but the phone’s sole US carrier (AT&T) will not be offering it until the end of the summer.

Baked In: This term can be used to describe spices, love, goodness, and now software features. As far as the iPhone is concerned, critics of the device as a business tool point to its lack of antivirus and firewall as major security concerns. The traditional model of protecting applications with security packages after-the-fact has become outdated, experts say. Security needs to be “baked in,” which critics say isn’t the case with iPhones. IT departments should prepare for headaches.

Dumb Phones: It was inevitable. With the acceptance of the term “smart phones” to describe BlackBerrys, Windows Mobile devices, iPhones, Palms and the like, someone was bound to start calling their simpler counterparts “dumb phones.” It should be the other way around: After all, how often do smart phones render us stupid, especially when synchronizing mail? It’s the IT managers who purchase the devices and don’t offer any support or training who should be considered dumb, or at least a little thick. (Jen Darr)

Have any IT buzzwords to share? Send them my way, with “IT Buzzwords” in the subject line.

FIND MORE INFO IN: BlackBerry + Mobile Support | Desktop Application Support | PC Helps eTraining | Contact PC Helps