Archive for General

Can you hear me? 5 fantastic facts about wireless communication

January 22, 2013 / Liz / No comments

Of course we take it for granted: Wireless communication is the backdrop for the very technology driving our mobile apps, allowing field service businesses to serve customers quickly, successfully and to their utmost satisfaction.

Bottom line: “On the go” would just not, well, fly, without the advancement of wireless technology.

Here are five of our favorite facts from A Few Facts About Wireless Communication, a recently published infographic (compiled by Wilson Electronics):

  1. It goes back to 1895: The father of long distance radio transmission was an Italian inventor named Guglielmo Marconi. Right before the turn of the 20th century, Marconi sent his first long-distance wireless radio transmission.
  2. The Star Trek connection: In 1973, Martin Cooper, then a Motorola employee, created the first personal cell phone, apparently inspired by Captain Kirk’s communicator.
  3. Working remotely: There are 2.4 million workers employed in the wireless industry.
  4. There’s always this career: Across the world, people spend $63 billion a year on accessories for their wireless devices – batteries, cases, hands-free kits, memory cards, etc.
  5. A club that most definitely has you as a member: A whopping 91% of Americans own at least one wireless device.

Learn more about the history of wireless communication in this infographic (click to view larger):

A Few Facts About Wireless Communication

Category: General, Mobile Technology / Tags: , , , , ,

Happy holidays from FieldOne

December 20, 2012 / Liz / No comments

Happy holidays from your team at FieldOne Systems! Wishing you a peaceful end of season, and a smooth, successful new year.

Happy Holidays from FieldOne!

Category: General / Tags:

Women commercial van drivers: the nicknames, the numbers.

November 20, 2012 / Liz / No comments

England’s familiar commercial van-driver nickname, White Van Man, may soon need to be altered to show a little more gender-neutrality. Or even simply, White Van Woman, perhaps?

A local UK company, AXA Business Insurance, recently conducted a poll on the topic and found that the title is becoming increasingly inaccurate: about a third of commercial van drivers in the region are women (MSN News UK).

Of those women, over a third found the nickname ‘amusing’ while, actually, less of the men surveyed – 29% – were amused. Then again, 14% of the women found the exclusive title downright insulting.

But good news for that (growing) minority of female commercial drivers: Participants were also asked how many have never received a traffic citation in the last 10 years. The women van drivers came out with a ‘slightly higher tendency towards cautious driving’ at 73%, than the male respondents (67%).

Category: General / Tags: , ,

Dream bigger: field mobility might have a fancy future with Bentley

November 6, 2012 / Liz / No comments

Combine your favorite sci-fi movie with your practical job mobility needs and you may just find that the not-so-distant future has you covered.

In the future we’ll all be working on the road, as reported on Mashable today. What’s known as the Bentley Mulsanne Executive Interior Concept is the car manufacturer’s luxury made-to-order version of their already upscale Mulsanne model.

Basically, your car could become an executive team’s home office.

The idea behind the car is the fact that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average American is now spending more than 50 minutes per day commuting to work. And it’s only going to increase in coming years.

Now, it would take some incredible industry boom to see a vehicle like this become a field service standard. But imagine the possibilities if some of these interior designs were implemented in more practical vans and other vehicles? For the broader workforce, car companies will have to apply this functionality so that it’s safe and accessible to folks who, well, can’t afford chauffeurs.

While nothing should replace a field service tech’s safe driving, perhaps having similar, adapted possibilities available could mean more productivity packed into field mobility. Imagine your field service software dashboard at your desktop, on your smartphone, across your tablet, and – available all around your car’s interior – including, well, the actual dashboard.

Or maybe we’d just like to be driven around in one of these puppies on the weekend!

Category: General, Mobile Technology / Tags: , , , , ,

A field service Olympics? 2012′s International Lineman’s Rodeo & Expo

October 11, 2012 / Liz / No comments

A world championship in doing your job flawlessly, safely and with excellence?

Inspiring, uplifting and electrifying – and taking place this very weekend!

Come on down to the International Lineman’s Rodeo & Expo, an annual competition held in Kansas, celebrating the linework trade.

The event attracts the world’s best linemen to compete in activities based on the industry’s traditional tasks and skills. This year’s championship will be held this Saturday, October 13th, in Bonner Springs, Kansas.

The Lineman’s Rodeo has a rich history, dating back to its first event in September 1984. Back then the competition saw 12 participating teams hailing from Kansas and Missouri. Since then, the Rodeo has gone international and now includes over 200 teams – including representatives from the Philippines, Jamaica, and Ireland!

How did something like this start up? According to their website, the three founders, Tom White, the President of TWSCO, a linework materials vendor, Dale Warman, a supervisor for Kansas City Power and Light, and Charlie Young, a supervisor for Southwest Line Construction, decided to organize the competition for the following noble reasons:

The primary purposes of the event then as now was to help maintain a focus on safety and safe work practices, to provide a forum for the public to better understand and recognize the technical craft skills the linemen have, and to provide an opportunity for the professionals craftspeople in the linework trade to receive recognition for their skills. One other purpose has always been for the participants to have fun while sharing work knowledge with others in their trade from different companies and different parts of the country.

If only every field service industry was as celebrated! Here are five facts about the linework trade:

  1. In the 1840s, as the telegraph came into widespread use, the occupation began and grew.
  2. The trade evolved during the 1940s and 50s, while household electricity became more popular.
  3. In 1958, the United States Supreme Court ruled on a case involving a lineman harmed while working for a South Carolina power company: Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc..
  4. Actor Richard Dreyfuss plays a lineman for an Indiana power company in the 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
  5. Linemen personal protective gear must be regularly tested using high voltage electrical testing equipment.
Good luck this weekend!

 

Category: General / Tags: ,
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