I get my best ideas when I'm on the road, usually around the 2-hour -- or two pots of coffee -- mark, but because I don't have conferencing on my cell phone, I've never been able to inflict my brilliant, urgent thoughts on everyone I know at the very same time. Well, watch out, because I just signed up for Foonz, a free service that allows you to make calls to whole groups of people on your cell phone.

When you sign up with Foonz, you create different call groups (in my case, I'm starting with four groups: my immediate family, my close friends, my work colleagues, and all the boys my daughter hangs out with). Foonz assigns you a special number, which you dial to initiate a group call. Foonz then sends a text message to each member of your selected group to invite them to participate in the call. (Note to everyone in my groups: if you can't participate in a call, not to worry, I can leave you a long-winded message instead.)

Most people I know use their cell phones about ten times as often as their landline phones, so this service makes a lot of sense to me, especially for people who make frequent business calls while away from the office or people who always find themselves in the role of the party organizer among their friends. For me, this will be a godsend when the next family get-together takes place, and I don't have to call my brother who calls my mother who calls my sister who calls my other brother who calls me who calls brother number one again, and on and on and on.