In an interview with The New Small author Phil Simon, Zane Safrit asked a great question about essential business tech tools. It got me thinking about the  five tech tools my business can’t do without:

1. Access. People talk a lot about the cloud and cloud computing, but what good is having your documents and work processes offsite if you can’t access them? To me, being able to work anywhere today is dependent on a hard-wired Internet connection, a good router, a broadband card, and/or great WiFi.

2. WordPress. If Simon hadn’t mentioned WordPress in his top-5 list, I might not have thought about it. But WordPress is an essential technology platform because it powers my Web site and my blog–the “home base” for my business.

3. SmartPhone. It seems hard to fathom that I once walked around without a portable phone. Now I can’t imagine not being able to check e-mail on the go. And that doesn’t even touch on all the other productivity apps I access daily–and, of course, the mobile phone. My current phone of choice: Motorola’s DROID.

4. TweetDeck. My Twitter client of choice, I don’t just use TweetDeck to keep up with trends, breaking news, and my Twitter community. With its real-time streaming, it’s also great for tweetchats. In addition, I use the platform to monitor LinkedIn status updates and my Facebook feed.

5. Google Reader. I don’t know why anyone says RSS is dead. Between the 130+ blogs I read regularly and the alerts I’ve set up, Google Reader makes it possible for me to organize and process a great deal of information. I also like that I can follow smart people and aggregate–right in Google Reader–what they are curating. Plus there’s a terrific mobile app so I can catch up with my reading on the go.

What tech tools are in your business arsenal?