My BlackBerry is my favorite gadget of all time. I don’t even have a fancy one, just a 7250. The ability to check email at any time is wonderful (to me).

Of course BlackBerry etiquette is something I have to constantly keep in mind. It is probably not a good idea to pull out my device and check my email in the middle of interviewing a candidate. Nor is it a good idea to do so when my mother-in-law is talking to me. In fact, I have found there are all kinds of less obvious siutations where it isn’t appropriate to use my BlackBerry. Luckily, my wife is often there to provide me guidance.

I have had a lot of devices including Palms and iPaqs. But the BlackBerry is far superior. Firstly, the devices can be remotely managed using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). Secondly, wireless email access over the wireless carrier network is a must (but now available in the other device flavors). Lastly, I have found the BlackBerry to be robust, but very reliable. While it isn’t quite bulletproof, it is much more reliable than the other platforms. My iPaq was not acceptable.

One of our executives is quick to point out that a BlackBerry only makes you more productive if you are the only one that has one. If everyone has one then you are only keeping up with the additional emails that everyone else is cranking out on their BlackBerries.

I highly recommend one if you have the means (Ferris Beuller reference).

eWeek.com has a slide presentation on The Best IT Advice I Ever Got. I thought it was excellent.

What would you add? Some thoughts (I hope to add more later):

• Over-communication is not effective communication
• Don’t under-estimate your talent. Your IT team will raise their performance to meet your expectations, even when you don’t expect that to happen.
• If your leaders can’t describe the problem, they can’t solve it – no matter how much software you buy.