Reality Bytes

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with technology. It’s great when it works, but just when we start to get used to it, it stops. Usually without warning…leaving us hopelessly struggling to recover whatever it was we planned to back-up the night before, but didn’t.

Still, despite it’s failures and freezes, its over complications and intermittent unreliability, there are plenty of reasons to be thankful for technology–especially if you work in commercial real estate or other industry that revolves around travel, meetings, data and client contact. Here are several to consider:

10. It reduces your carbon footprint: Applications like web video conferencing and virtual tours can eliminate or at least reduce out-of-town travel.

9. It puts data at your fingertips: Due diligence has evolved from looking through musty stacks of paper to simple searches of online databases.

8. It keeps you organized: Forget those pocketfuls of slips of paper, those briefcases crammed with notes and daily planners. Just streamline your planning with an online organizer that sends your daily schedule straight to your cell phone.

7. It saves paper: You can send a digital image or virtual business card without harming a single tree.

6. It builds relationships: You can keep in touch with clients via a quick text message or brief phone call, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

5. It saves time: You can virtually tour properties without leaving your desk, and reserve site visits for locations that warrant a closer look, or use GPS (intelligently) to find a building in an unfamiliar location.

4. It saves money on gas: Your office is as close as your wireless enabled laptop and cell phone, eliminating a potentially long drive to work.

3. It reduces frustrations: You don’t have to have actual contact with that annoying co-worker or demanding client if you work from a virtual office.

2. It helps you focus (or just relax): All you need to avoid an unwanted conversation in a public place are the headphones for your iPod. As long as your ear buds are in place, you’ll be left alone. Most of the time, anyway.

And the Number One Reason to be thankful for technology: It gives you a way out. Nothing ends an unproductive conversation as effectively as a weak cell signal-or one you replicate by repeatedly flicking the mute button on your mobile phone and saying frantically, “I can’t hear you.”