IT Pros: What's In Your Bag?
We all carry them. They're the backpacks, messenger bags, and attaché cases into which we stuff the tools of our daily work lives.
IT professionals share all sorts of tips and tricks, but we rarely get into long conversations about the contents of our bags.
Some of this silence is due to thinking that no one cares about our bags. We think that's wrong. Some of the silence is due to thinking that our bags are personal -- that little enclosed space that is fully ours in an environment that includes things like cubicles, shared desks, and office hoteling. We think that's understandable and unfortunate.
It's unfortunate because many of us are forever searching for "The Perfect Bag," a magical container that will help us keep our stuff safe, organized, and available while also causing as little physical pain and fashion-based humiliation as possible. And that's why we're asking for the community's help.
We'd like to know about your daily IT professional bag. What kind of bag is it? And what do you put into it? We'd like to know -- and we'd like to show the rest of the InformationWeek community how their peers are making bags work. Let's show you a couple of examples of what we're talking about, taken from InformationWeek staffers ...
Editor's Bag (Take 1)
The first bag comes from Scott Ferguson, InformationWeek's director of audience development. Scott says:
"So the main item is the Lenovo ThinkPad T430, running Windows 7, which is my primary work laptop.
"There's also an iPhone 4S, which is for work and is primarily used as an email device and phone.
"I also carry a Samsung Galaxy S5, running Android 5.0 as a personal smartphone. There's a Kindle Paperwhite for reading books, and the umbrella, gum, and Advil for more practical purposes.
"The bag is from Columbia and serves both business and personal uses."
(Image: Dave Harding for InformationWeek)
And since I don't want to ask anyone to do something I wouldn't do ...
Editor's Bag, Take 2
This bag belongs to me, Curt Franklin, InformationWeek's executive editor for technical content. Even though I work from a home office, I'm on the road often, and I enjoy working from a local coffee shop even when I'm home.
My bag is an Osprey Stratos 36: It's big, but it carries whatever I put it in quite comfortably.
Below the bag, moving clockwise …
There's a Targus cooling laptop riser.
My 15" MacBook Pro Retina.
Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad.
A small blue cloth bag, made by a friend, that holds stevia packets, condiments, and bags of my favorite teas.
Sennheiser MB Pro 2 headset.
A small neoprene case that holds cables and wall warts.
An Anker 18,000 mAH battery for recharging phone and tablet.
An electrical tri-tap (so I can be a good citizen in the coffee shop or airport concourse).
A Nikon CoolPix P330 (because it takes camera RAW images that I can easily fix in post, as well as decent HD video).
An iPod Touch.
The power brick for my MacBook (in the round case).
Two carabiners (because you never know when one will come in handy).
A composition notebook.
An iPad in a case that looks like a composition notebook.
(Image: Curtis Franklin, Jr., for InformationWeek)
So how can you join us in sharing your daily bag with the rest of the InformationWeek community? There are a couple of ways: You can post a photo to Instagram with the hashtag #iwk_it_bag or head to Flickr and post a photo in the InformationWeek IT Pro Daily Bag group. In either case, we'd love to see what you carry with you to get your job done -- and have you join the conversation about what works, and what doesn't, for mobile IT pros.