The “data highway” has expanded from a single lane to an eight-lane highway, speeding and expanding ways to run your agriculture business. Smartphones, laptops, netbooks, and tablets are making it easier to share emails, text messages, pictures, videos, social media posts, blogs, and ag applications. All are part of business in this digital age. [emember_protected custom_msg=”Click here and register now to read the rest of the article!”]
Now that our Internet broadband infrastructure is expanding, we can work faster — in new ways. For agriculture, that means you can talk on your cellphone or access the Internet in the fields and groves where you couldn’t before. It means you can run software applications over the Internet that were once too slow. You also can use WiFi or wireless devices in remote areas by turning on a “hotspot” on your phone for $10 a month. And you can share that Internet connection with up to 10 others!
Let’s see how this looks in the field. Say you’re a harvesting field supervisor managing contracted harvesters using offline software to collect labor information and piece counts. The contractors also keep track of harvesting using tickets. You can drive up in your truck, turn on your mobile hotspot, and have your harvesting crew leader upload all your data from the field.
These enhanced communication abilities will become more helpful as demand for information increases with worker immigration reform and expanding farm safety regulations/reporting requirements.
CREDITS
column by RICK MONTNEY
BIO: Rick Montney is the Vice President of ProPak Software. His extensive experience spans over 35 years in business information systems technologies with previous employment at Exxon Office Systems, Information & Computing Services, and IBM. For the past 20 years his focus has been on agricultural software technologies. [/emember_protected]
