BlackBerry's big London adventure

The BlackBerry trial (see previous blog) has stalled somewhat. I took it with me to London today and decided to consult its map section when I realised I had forgotten my little black book which has old fashioned maps on paper.

I had to speak at a seminar at the London Stock Exchange but was running on a mental programme installed during the 1980s which required a tube trip to Bank Station. Realising the exchange had moved, but forgetting the new location, I couldn't get the BlackBerry map to help me so resorted to that feeble non-digital standby of asking someone the way. It worked a treat.

Once installed at the venue with a bacon sandwich in hand I decided to look at some emails but the batteries were down so the seminar host offered to lend me his charger lead, plugged in to a floor socket. "But I might forget it there," I said.

"Don't worry, I will need to get my lead at the end," he said. An hour-and-a-half later we both took off in separate directions leaving the BlackBerry bleeping away contentedly all by itself, secure in the knowledge that its self-contained GPS system knew its exact position on the planet.

I had hopped on a bus, meanwhile, where I spent the next 10 minutes making faces to a toddler who was munching on half a Rich Tea biscuit. Switching buses I decided to check my emails. No BlackBerry. I believe now it is in the post, probably with my host's cable which I will need to mail back to him.

"You're not fit to have one of those," said Gill. I think she has a point.

Where's the "any" key?

I suppose it had to happen at some stage. One of BlackBerry's public relations people got wind of some work I was doing on the changing workplace and, since BlackBerry, understandably, believes it is part of that change, she offered me a month's free trial of one of their devices when she discovered I didn't have one.

I don't have a BlackBerry because I haven't yet felt the need for one and I'm wary about their "crackberry" reputation, not to mention the cost of use. I notice that nearly all those people I see with them are salaried staff. Their companies give them BlackBerries to help them do their work.

"They're great," said Neil Buckley in the pub last night. Neil is one of the FT's Lex team. He was running the Moscow bureau but came back to the UK partly so that his wife, Emma Simpson, a BBC broadcast journalist, could resume her career.

I have known Neil a long time, ever since he joined the FT as a graduate. He's a fine journalist and, quite rightly, values his family life as much as anyone. So it was a bit of a shock to the system, he confessed, when he discovered he needed to attend early morning Lex meetings at 8 am every day with demands to file the first Lex notes for the web at noon.

More evidence, then, of workplace change. When I started my career at the FT there was no requirement to come in to work before 11 am. The working hours, protected by trade union agreement, were 11 am to 7pm.

Lex material could be gathered throughout the day in discussions with companies and analysts usually after the publication of some company news or results announcement.

Now notes have to be composed swiftly, often when analysts are too busy filing their own reports to handle queries from journalists. Everyone is indulging in a mad scramble to be first. Of course the FT wants to be first and it wants to be right but the faster you move the easier it is to make mistakes.

Another thing is that the "day after" news was always supposed to be considered analysis and that too is more difficult in the heat of an event. Neil was showing me an "FT Reader" service, available on the BlackBerry device, that lists stories by sector. Neil is a very "grounded" individual, another northerner who doesn't have time for flim flam so his recommendation means something. But he too need not worry about the cost.

It's a clever little gadget I'm thinking, but is it for me? When I was discussing the merits of the BlackBerry with Gill, my wife, I argued that I would be able to check emails in "dead time" on the train.

"But what about looking out of the window?" she said. And what about the other things I do on trains - reading books, newspapers, making notes, thinking, and sometimes, as happened last night for the first time in ages, chatting with a fellow passenger.

By the time I was home the BlackBerry had arrived, the box had been opened by two of my boys and they were busy caressing it, proclaiming it "cool" and reading the instructions. Then one of them did the stuff needed to set it up. So it was all out of my hands.

I didn't look at it until this morning when it took me about 20 minutes to find the "on" button. I shared the confusion of Homer Simpson when asked to press any key on his computer and he said: "But where's the 'any' key?"

Then I looked at some emails in tiny writing and replied to one. The situation lacked authenticity since I was sitting next to my laptop at the time which had my emails open in brilliant technicolour with keys I could use without trying to stub minuscule squares of plastic. I checked the reply on my laptop and found it hadn't sent my mailing address. I suppose I have to programme that in - more work, not good. This meant I had to send another email with the address from my laptop - duplication, not good.

The thing is that I couldn't give a bugger whether the BlackBerry is cool or not. I want to know just how important it is to be in touch with my emails and the web when I'm travelling and unable to use a lap top(which is not all that often). I want to know how easy it is to use. And, unlike all those company employees who use them, I want to know how much it costs to run.

Hang about, it's flashing now. There's an email from the FT. They want me to do a feature. But I'm writing a book. I suppose I can do both. So this is how it works and I'm still asking the question: is this a good thing?

Birds or the bank?

Not such a tough call any more.