I’m currently riding in an airport shuttle, writing on a smartphone using blogging software that didn’t exist 5 years ago. When I finish, these words will be zapped up to the cloud and automatically broadcast via Twitter and LinkedIn to people around the world. I’m traveling, appropriately, to the Market Research in the Mobile World conference. And I’m presenting about how technology is changing the way we do things, including research.
Interesting times.
This is the first business trip in my life where I am traveling without a laptop and feel completely at ease about being able to accomplish my traditional “information worker” tasks. When I finish at the conference and leave for a brief vacation, it will be the first such trip without a physical magazine or book.
These seem like minor little things, obvious points to the frequent traveler. They are not minor changes in behavior. Technology continues to displace products and industries, and to do so with increasing speed. Companies that ride that wave when it hits their industry can become giants; the only alternatives are to be battered ashore or drowned by it.
Mobile is a HUGE wave. In my industry (games) the smartphone is gobbling up the Gameboy / Nintendo DS / PSP mobile gaming market like PacMan dots. It has utterly destroyed a thriving ecosystem in less than 5 years. I don’t think we are anywhere close to understanding or actualizing the full impact of all these personal computers following around every human like a tattoo. But now is the time to think deeply on the subject and to have a few toes in the mobile research waters.
