If TripIt's automatic-import feature doesn't play nice with your email system (it's most compatible with Web-based services, such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail), simply forward a copy of each of your travel-related email messages to a standard TripIt address. TripIt will automatically organize and import details associated with your flight confirmations, hotel and dinner reservations, car rentals, and the like into a trip itinerary, which you can then add to your personal or business calendar. You can access the program on the go via apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 devices, too.
Beyond that, you can easily share the travel information you store in TripIt with other third-party services, including preexisting business networks on LinkedIn, Yammer, or Xpenser (an expense, mileage, and time-tracking application). At the very least, these third-party add-ons can cut down on the amount of paperwork or digital files that you'd have to produce for every trip.
Productivity
Businesses large and small would be well advised to look into Google's free Google Apps for Business collection. All you need is a domain name: Google takes care of the rest with minimal configuration nonsense. Once your Google Apps package is set up, you're tapped into Google's Gmail email service and contact database, Web-based shared calendaring, Web-based word processing and spreadsheet apps (complete with collaborative editing), and Google Drive cloud storage, all branded with your business's name.
The catch? If you want Google to manage the core of your communications for free, you get only ten user accounts, each of which is entitled to 10GB of storage. That's sufficient for many small businesses, but larger entities will need to pay up. Google charges $5 per user per month, or you can save a little cash by signing up for one year of service at $50 per user.
You can still make use of Google's standard services on the cheap if you don't mind doing a little extra legwork. Integrating Google Analytics into your small business's website, for example, is as easy as setting up a Google account to represent your business, and you needn't use the account for anything other than logging on to the Google Analytics tool. Your employees can use their personal Google accounts to collaborate on shared documents and files via Google Docs or Google Drive; alternatively, they can create new, work-only Google accounts and link them to their personal accounts if they want a thicker wall between their personal and professional lives.
Cloud Storage
