A lot of people were skeptical about the iPad when it first came out – I included – unsure of how it could be used differently in an iPhone world. Let’s not shy away from the fact of the matter: the iPad is a “big iPhone.”

But when friends with many, working with hundreds of employees: size matters.

The iPhone is great for individual use.

The iPad is great for both individual and group use.

Here are the ways in which we’ve used the iPad at TPL and hopefully, you will be able to use in similar ways at your business, company, organization and workplace as well.

Communication & Training

In Business Process Outsourcing, our main task is to communicate instructions on how to calculate, produce or update data. The clearer instructions are communicated from the client to the team, the more efficient the data can be calculated, produced or updated. At TPL, we use the iPad to break the monotony of the normal routes of communication through representation of ideas and instructions through visuals. For example, we use Cocoa Box Design’s Penultimate app to illustrate instructions in English and at times, Vietnamese, so that a task or project is started on the right foot. We also use Penultimate to create mini “Refresher” manuals  on project and task guidelines to keep the material exciting and relevant, in addition to concept checking with team members to ensure tasks are being completed correctly every step of the way. These documents created within the app, can be exported as PDF files (Single pages as well as the entire notebook) readily sent to your e-mail inbox.

In addition, we’ve also used the iPad as a notebook during group meetings or one-on-ones and to conduct pick-up games of Hangman.

S W E E T

We value personal and professional development at the company, so we also conduct English classes after work. We use it as a visual aid to elicit vocabulary and ideas to accompany the particular lesson (using the iPad cuts down on the use of printing paper for images…how do you like dem apples Greenpeace?!). The iPad also has a decent speaker, able to be used as the main audio source in a given class, to create ambience or serve the learning objectives of the lesson (ex. dictation, song study). Just make sure the audio files you wish to use are of a higher-quality (at least 160kbps for CD-quality) for audibility’s sake and that the iPad’s bottom speakers aren’t covered.

Team-building

Since the Stone Age, games has always been one of the easiest ways to get a group of people together and interact with each other. Because of the screen’s limited real estate, the iPhone is at best, a solo device. But thanks to the iPad aka the “big iPhone,” numerous people can join in on the fun. The iPad’s comparatively generous screen real estate allows more hands to touch on the device simultaneously, spawning a new genre of “huddle games” aka multi-player games around a singular iPad.

Your team just had a long day at work? Meeting new team members for the first time who don’t really talk much? 2 hours in an intense, tension-filled meeting? Whip out the iPad and play one of the multi-player games together to break the ice, fill the silence, relieve the stress and tension and overall, make a connection.

Some of the multi-player huddle games we play are: Family Feud, Marble Mixer, Memory Cards, Money, MultiPong, Scrabble

Productivity

In doing Quality Assurance (QA) for our deliverables, at times, the mind finds it difficult to process everything through one screen (despite the availability of Expose and multi-window applications). A lot of times, having that secondary external monitor does the trick if you need to QA off a client’s specific checklist and general guidelines or if you need to compare multiple deliverables side-by-side to ensure compliance and synchronization. Avatron Software’s Air Display is one of the (only) apps to turn your iPad into a secondary external monitor, using a Wi-Fi connection.

Given its multi-touch interface, the iPad is really good for mindmapping as well as it makes mindmapping more intuitive – create more nodes by touching on the screen as well as moving nodes around to fit your desired conceptualization and thought process. The favorite app at the offices is Craig Scott’s iThoughtsHD. Mindmapping serves many purposes: Brainstorming, To-Do checklists to groups tasks and track progress (of correspondence and transactions even) through batching and colorization, mapping out the respective teams in the company, and simply note-taking during a meeting. The plus is you can export your mindmaps in many different formats, notably as PDFs and Mindmanager files directly into your Dropbox or Box.net accounts.

I actually used iThoughtsHD mindmapping to outline and write this blog post.

Conclusion

These are just some of the ways we use the iPad at our company to communicate and train effectively, team-build and increase our productivity. What ways do you use the iPad at work?

Special thanks to Jimmy Tran for contributing to this article.

Technology

August 5, 2010

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