On-The-Go Gadgets
How two business owners mix (a little) work in with play.
By Daniel Roth

(FORTUNE Small Business) – Audiovox 6600

• The river guide had one main rule: No business on the raft. To navigate the rapids of the Cache la Poudre river near Fort Collins, Colo., he explained, he would need complete concentration from everyone. Mike Miller, on vacation in July with his wife and four children, replied that he had no intention of following that edict. The founder of the Miller Group, a St. Louis firm that manages databases and develops websites for companies such as RE/MAX and Tyco Healthcare, Miller had a contract in the works worth more than $300,000 and was waiting to hear from the client. He had his cellphone with him, an Audiovox 6600 smartphone ($450) equipped with GoodLink, a $300-a-year service that syncs e-mail, address books, and calendars with subscribers' cellphones. Miller told the guide he would make it worth his while if the phone stayed dry.

As the raft shot through the rapids, Miller kept glancing back as his prized gadget bounced around in its waterproof bag. At lunchtime he checked the phone. Minutes later an e-mail with an attached Excel file arrived from the client. Miller marked up some changes--the phone gives him access to Microsoft Office--e-mailed the file back, and returned to his family elated. "I love vacations with my family," he says. "But if there's an opportunity and it only takes ten minutes out of lunch, I'd go for it anytime. It was a sweet deal." The guide thought so too--Miller tipped him generously.

Sidekick II

• "I am one of those women who actually like gadgets," says Julie Chaiken, founder of Chaiken Clothing, a 30-person apparel-design firm with offices in New York City and San Francisco. Judging by her products--women's wear with simple lines, sold in stores such as Barneys and Nordstrom and in boutiques across the U.S.--it's hard to imagine her hauling anything heftier than a razor-thin cellphone. But Chaiken, 37, goes hardly anywhere without her Danger Sidekick II ($300), a bulky cellphone-cum-personal organizer that operates on T-Mobile's wireless network. It offers e-mail, web access, and instant messaging, but Chaiken uses it as a design center too. When she's on the road, she'll use the Sidekick's flash-enabled camera to snap some image--say, a cuff detail that might inspire a design in her next collection.

Back in San Francisco, the Sidekick comes with her when she ducks out of the office for afternoons with her 18-month-old son--a break that she tries to fit in most Tuesdays. When the fog lifts, the two can be found playing in the park in the Presidio. "Beaches, the zoo--I respond from wherever I am," she says. "If people have to wait 24 hours for an answer, it's a lifetime." Her son doesn't seem to mind. "He thinks that anything with buttons on it is the greatest toy," she says. In fact, he carries a Sidekick of his own: Chaiken's old version of the device, no longer operational.