Finally, there are a variety of ways that PalmPilots can be used by departments outside of your IS organization. These are just some of the ones that I have seen companies employ.

1. Rewards for the best new suggestion in a company idea box
2. Use them as a signing bonus package for new recruits
3. Internal rewards for meeting sales quotas or other important goals
4. Gifts at Christmas parties or other company events

These are only the tip of the iceberg. You can probably come up with many more yourself.

Using PalmPilots for promotions
If businesses are just beginning to use PalmPilots internally, there is already extensive evidence that they are using them even more frequently outside their four walls. What kinds of things could you do with a PalmPilot outside your organization? Check the list below and see how many you recognize.

1. You can use them to draw people to your web site. Many times over the last several months, I've received an email message or seen an advertising banner advising me to register to win a free Pilot. I performed a very brief search of the web looking for sites which are giving away PalmPilots and found these two without too much trouble: http://www.arg.com/arg/contest/ and http://www.placements.co.nz/PalmPilot.htm.

   These sites are particularly effective because PalmPilots are especially attractive to executive, computer savvy people or skilled knowledge workers, a demographic which is in great demand by advertisers and placement firms.

2. You can use them to draw people to your booth. At the time that I was writing this article, I was attending a technical conference in Orlando, Florida. In the vendor showcase section of the conference, there were approximately 200 booths. Of these 200 booths, 7 were raffling off a PalmPilot. The price of admission to the raffle: your business card. In speaking with the people who were manning the booths they told me that booth traffic had increased around 20% compared to when they didn't offer the PalmPilot. That's a very high return on investment for a promotional items which costs less then $400. The next time you go to a technology event, look for the companies which do this and see if there isn't more traffic in their area.

3. You can use them to draw people to your company's events. IBM is currently offering NT training for its network server platforms. The event is several days long and priced accordingly. To entice people to attend its seminars over its competitors offerings, IBM is giving away an IBM WorkPad (which is really just a PalmPilot with a black case) to everyone who completes the seminar. This offer was prominently displayed on the outside of the envelope to keep their marketing material from being filed in that round plastic file cabinet that we all have under our desks. Did it work? I read the materials and at least became acquainted with what it was they were offering. Couldn't your marketing department use something like this too in its mass mailings?

4. You can use them a thank you gifts for customers. The next time that you complete a large project or land a major account consider using a PalmPilot as a thank-you gift. Instead of a round of golf or an expensive dinner why not give your customer or client something that will last for a while. The trick here is to pre-load the Pilot with as much information as possible about your company. If the Pilot contains the fax, phone numbers and email addresses of the relevant people within your organization, you're making it that much easier for the customer to do business with you instead of someone else. If the Pilot also contained product information or specifications, project outlines or company information, you've now put this information in your client's hands in a form that they will take with them wherever they go. Contrast that with printed materials or a web-site.