i commute

For most of my professional career I have carried a standard issue cell phone. I use it like any other red blooded American. I make calls, send texts, and answer my voicemails. My good friend Sam Crumbaugh from Sony Ericsson http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/home?cc=us&lc=en who I have known for years always gives me my standard yearly issue Ericsson or so they are now called Sony Ericsson. I have been back and fourth with a few prototypes. Some good like the Z710 and others like the new 580i. The Z710i and I have a good relationship as it has held up well and been a good friend for years.

One of my fundamental problems being 36 is that I have always been on the outer cusp of being a high tech guy. I have been a part of the wireless industry for 12 plus years now and have never once got caught up in the hype of technology. New technology was not something that I was really interested in as I considered myself as the junk yard dog of the cell phone world. Whatever was produced and produced in mass would eventually be flowing downward and my recycling stream would pick it up.

I have a dead spot on my way home from work and as an old school salesman I am on the phone. I finally had it with T- Mobile and for the first time in my life considered actually purchasing a new phone. Keep in mind what I do. I have never ever had to get an activation much less actually purchase a ‘retail priced’ phone. With the current hype surrounding the iphone http://www.apple.com/iphone/ I graduated toward an AT&T store and immediately grabbed the display unit. I looked at my wife Anne and said ‘well which one the black or white’?

My hesitation or fear with a PDA was that I didn’t want to be connected to work 24/7 so I told myself that I would ease into this new devise and not make myself crazy.

I mentioned to you my resistance or ‘old school nature’ well that changed the second I opened the box and their was no manual. That was the coolest thing ever and I was hooked on whatever apple had in store with me and this new phone. I got the itunes, I got the email synced, I got the weather settings and some cool apps. Man, I love this phone!

As time goes by with anything excitement fades, but this is not what this story is about. I am sharing my thoughts with you as a small business owner today, as I am two months in with my new iphone. It is my job to know when it is a good idea for a person who works here at Cellular Recycler to have this kind of device and whether or not it can be a valuable tool to make a certain employee or there respective company more money. What I found in my situation living here in Boulder Colorado http://www.bouldercoloradousa.com/ is that my commute is short and my routine is steady. I live a few miles away. I am not stuck in Los Angeles traffic two hours each way. I get home, I go to the gym across the street, I make and eat dinner then I get on my computer for an hour or so. My routine as a small town businessman allows me to have computer access basically on command so the feature and fear of having my business life glued to my fingertips never became the reality.

The reality is this. From a phone guy, this is a cool phone. No doubt the coolest I have put in my pocket. But for a small business owner and having to make the decision for the income generators and decision makers of Cellular Recycler the coolness and infinite features doesn’t outweigh the $150 per month usage charge in our case of doing business in a small town.

Brandon Greenhaw