Toolie Business Travel Newsletter October 2009In This Issue:
Toolie's Monthly Travel Tip: My Recent Trip and the TripIt ServiceAs promised, this month I am following up on my use of the www.TripIt.com service on my recent trip to New Orleans to speak to the NSA chapter there. After leaving New Orleans, I went to visit family in the far-west suburbs of Chicago. I also visited my alma mater, Wheaton College, and participated in some business meetings there. Besides the obvious usefulness of being able to email my flight and hotel confirmation emails to TripIt and have them magically appear in my TripIt account, I found a few additional uses for the tool. TripIt as a Planning Tool In August's newsletter, I alluded to the fact that using TripIt's Activity function, you can include detailed information about things you plan to do during your trip, over and above your travel times. For example, you can include business meetings, entertainment information such as theatre tickets, private time, and so on. Somehow, putting this information into TripIt in the context of exact travel times made me realize how much time the activities I had in mind would actually take. For example, I tried to accomplish too many things in too short a time during my visit to my alma mater. Sometimes that can't be helped, but I could have at least tried to put the information into TripIt, realized the problem sooner, and made alternate plans. Yes, I could do this in my Outlook calendar too, but TripIt provided a travel-oriented approach to the problem, and I found myself more cognizant of all the factors involved achieving my business plans somewhere other than my office. TripIt for Record-Keeping After my trip was complete, I decided to go back into the travel record and make notes about some of the things I experience during that trip. For example, I decided to take my chances on getting upgrades for the first 3 segments of my flights by waiting on the good graces of United and their top-flyer-gets-all-you-might-be-lucky-we'll-let-you-know approach to handing out upgrades (and no, I didn't get any). But my return trip from Chicago to Seattle was a 4-and-a-half hour flight, and I really wanted to be sure to buy an upgrade with miles if I had to. As it happens, I forgot to buy that upgrade, so I spent most of my trip fretting over whether my upgrade would come through. It did, thankfully, but if I had put in a reminder (either in my calendar or TripIt) to buy an upgrade outright, I would have been able to relax knowing I had a comfortable ride home. So I went back into TripIt and made notes about some of the segments of my trip, including which upgrades I bought when, and why. While I was there, I also added some of the private activities that took place on my "days off." It was then that I realized that this was a perfect way to document the business/non-business days of my trip for tax purposes. I don't know that TripIt intended their service to be helpful in this way, but as I said earlier, having the information in a travel-oriented interface rather than Outlook's generic interface prompted me to make notes of things about my trip that might not have otherwise occurred to me. Expanding My TripIt Network In the August newsletter, I mentioned that you could invite people in your LinkedIn network to join your TripIt network so that you can be aware of each other's comings and goings. The idea is that if you happen to be in proximity to each other, additional meetings for business or leisure might be possible. Well, I made the connection to my LinkedIn account, and I've got invitations out to colleagues with whom I've already connected there to join my "network" on TripIt. While I expect to be hanging around Seattle for the next month or two, I can keep watch for those colleagues who might coming to visit and connect with them, because I will have advance notice that they're headed this way. Other Useful Things in TripIt I clicked on the Apps link on the TripIt website and found that it's possible to put a TripIt badge on your website or blog that reflects your current travel status and the number of miles you've traveled on itineraries for which you've used TripIt. What's a website "badge"? Well it's simply a piece of code you can install that uses RSS behind the scenes. When someone visits that website or blog, the code retrieves your current status from TripIt and displays it in the page. I installed one of mine on my speaking website, http://www.tooliespeaks.com, on the home page. You can also install a link on the Favorites Bar or Links toolbar in Internet Explorer, FireFox, or Safari, that allows you to add travel research and hyperlinks to your itinerary. It's called a TripClipper, and clicking that "favorite" takes you to your account in TripIt where you can make notes and add the hyperlink to the page you've found to the appropriate trip. For example, when I was planning my trip to New Orleans, I looked up possible methods for getting to downtown New Orleans from my hotel near the airport. If I had been aware of TripClipper, I could have easily added the New Orleans airport ground transportation page and New Orleans mass transit website as links connected to that itinerary. You can do this manually, of course, but it's a nice convenience that the folks at TripIt have thought through. The only remaining step for me is to upgrade to the Pro version (at $69/year after a 30-day free trial). When I have a few more trips planned, I will do so, and I'll report back on the additional features of the TripIt service. ToolieTravelBlog.com News Service is Back OnlineAfter being offline for a couple of months, and following 3 days of software wrangling, my www.ToolieTravelBlog.com website is again serving up helpful travel news gleaned from major news services. While I do use a software program to retrieve the stories, I personally inspect them to ensure that they're of value to business travelers. Once in a while I include a travel-related story of human interest into the mix, and a number of you have commented on how much you enjoy those stories too. Be sure to check my travel blog regularly for items of interest to you, my fellow business travelers. Toolie's Travel PlansI am hard at work on my website training product, which is due out shortly. After the first of the year, I'll be using that product as the basis for re-launching my speaking AND my business-traveling. For now, I'll be staying close to home as I finish up this 18-month effort. You're invited to join my website tips mailing list where announcements about this product are made. Visit http://www.fixmywebsiteplease.com for more information. Stop by my web site, http://www.tooliethetravelguide.com and say 'Hello,' especially if the Live Chat icon says I'm online. I love to hear from my subscribers anytime! Toolie®
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