Tool Man

John could use the following ICT to change and hopefully improve his working style;

PDA- he could use very easily to manage his time and make sure he is on track and keeping up to date with all his clients. PDA's are very useful to people working in trades that mean they are constantly on the go, because they act as a small pocket size personal computer; this is very helpful to John because he can store all his important information in the PDA's memory and set reminders that will come up to tell him where he needs to be or planned journeys that can connect through blue tooth, infrared to a tom tom satnav etc... Also when John is in trouble or running late he can use the PDA's Internet services to contact his client or help him to find the right road or address.



GPS- would also help John alot because it can help him travel around the country easily, this is because he can program peoples addresses in to his GPS and let the device navigate him to the location he has set it to, also if he was to take a wrong turn they can even find a new route or direct you back to the one you are on so there would be no chance of getting lost as long as he has got up-to-date software loaded in to it. He could also save him self alot of time by programming all the addresses in to the device the night before to come up one after the other so he doesn't have to sit around and mess about putting all the details in. He could just get to one address get his work done and when he gets back into the car it will automatically know where he is going next.

Laptop(with access to the Internet)- this would be very helpful to john because he could use it to record all sales he has done e.g. on already designed excel spreadsheets or databases making it easy for him to calculate his sales figures and the commission or wages he gets for selling a certain amount etc... Also by having remote access to his companies Internet or his own home Internet he could surf the web where ever he is as long as he is picking up a signal,also this means he can keep in touch with his company all the time through e-mail and he can send them his sales figures when ever he wanted or was asked to report on his position all for a fixed cost because he or his company would be paying a fixed line rental a month for their Internet use.

Mobile phone- this is an obvious one and not the most technologically advanced piece of equipment he could carry but it still is a very useful piece of information and communication technology, John would most likely of carried a mobile any way before lots of hi-tech gadgets were introduced to his job so he would be very familiar with it and find it a easy piece of technology to use if others were playing up or not responding well. Mobile phones are also a very good way of getting through to people and making sure they know you are coming, because they provide a personal one-to-one conversation unlike e-mail because you do not know if your e-mail has been read etc...

The possible disadvantages of John employing alot of ICT are he could have days were the technology is not working properly or it has contracted a virus or one of many data destroying items. He may also not be familiar with any of the products he has been given so he could just be wasting the money spent on them because he would never use them to their full working capacity or speed, meaning his company would have to pay for him to be trained with IT skills which they would not be so happy with because they would have to spend money that would provide no real return unless John adopted the training and new technology very well and used it to his full potential increasing his usefulness to the company as a salesman of there products.