Checkmate - Technology

5 reasons why "polymath" people & E2.0 technology are fueling a PR renaissance

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:33:00-0400

Wednesday I experienced a cool one-two punch: Enterprise 2.0 & Vinnie Mirchandani.

If you’re not familiar with Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) it’s an annual event focused on online collaboration/ social media tools that engage and transform people at work. (Full disclosure: one of our clients, NewsGator, is a leader in this industry).

If you’re not familiar with Vinnie Mirchandani, he’s a former Gartner analyst, active blogger and author of “The New Polymath.”

What’s a “polymath?” It’s the Greek word for Renaissance Man (Vinnie needs to integrate an equivalent word for women). From DaVinci to Franklin, polymaths innovated the problems of the day; as Vinnie said, “they are good at many things.”

Vinnie was presenting at E2.0 because it’s a place where technology polymaths and polymath organizations hang out. Smart companies understand how a unified, communicative workforce outmaneuvers a fragmented one. Instead of keeping employees in the dark, or relying on outdated technologies like email to communicate, they’re embracing tools that foster meaningful collaboration.

Vinnie said the characteristics of E2.0 organizations are these:

Ambitious community from day one – aiming for “enterprise” not a single tech category
People, more than machine, centric
Early adopter of social networks
Well connected around globe
Ethical – advocates for transparency
Media/PR savvy

He believes “polymathing” (if I can turn it into a verb) is the key to innovation because it encourages curiosity and “an openness to accept ideas from left field.” It also triggers the “building of widely-rounded enterprises” that are more adept at discovering new markets and technologies. Polymath thinking is helping our world tackle and resolve the “grand challenges” of our day.

Vinnie believes the world of E2.0 is creating a need for more “black swan” public relations as crises reveal themselves instantly and spread more virally than ever before. “Look no further than BP and Toyota,” he said, “it could happen to any of you.”

For communications professionals, branding gurus and PR experts, there are five takeaways:

5. Good communications starts internally, not externally. Engage and empower your employees first – start there. Adopting new enterprise 2.0 technologies will help.

4. The functions of communications/branding/PR no longer reside within the confines of a “department.” These walls are breaking down and should keep breaking down.

3. Communications 2.0 must be holistic, embracing the entire organization and all stakeholders. Communication experts can strategize, monitor and help shape, but “non-communication experts” will positively contribute to brand enhancement when properly engaged.

2. Transparency remains a vital idea, not a cliché. Top-down autocracy is dead. Two-way communication triggers curiosity and fresh ideas.

1. Public relations is in an ideal position to catalyze this historic change. Remember what Vinnie said: the world of enterprise 2.0 is defined by organizations that are “people-centric,” “globally well-connected,” “advocates for transparency” and “media/PR savvy.” That’s us, right?

Hollywood, technology & innovation

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:42:00-0400

Scott Kirsner, the popular columnist and contributing writer to Variety, Business Week, The Boston Globe, New York Times and Wired, was in town last night talking up his new book “Inventing the Movies: Hollywood's Epic Battle Between Innovation and the Status Quo, from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs” The packed event held at the Portsmouth Public Library was sponsored by Borealis Ventures and the NH High Technology Council.

Kirsner wove a fascinating tale, connecting Hollywood, technology, chance and persistence.

Leave it to Kirsner – a master storyteller – to find a compelling link between two seemingly disparate worlds. It turns out there are three kinds of people common to both Hollywood and technology: innovators, preservationists (trying desperately to hang onto the status quo) and sideline-sitters. They’ve existed for a century in the movie business and for 50 plus years in high technology.

Did you know, for example, that it took 24 years for Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation (given birth by MIT alums, btw) to gain acceptance and widespread use in Hollywood? 24 years! It wasn’t until “Gone With the Wind” in 1939 that color movies were finally accepted.

That’s a lesson for technology entrepreneurs who impatiently believe their new product should be met with instant, wide-eyed acclaim and adoption.

Sometimes it takes persistence to succeed.

Did you know people couldn’t envision a day when movies with sound would be preferred over silent motion pictures? Amazing. Irving Thalberg, an MGM executive said “Sound is a passing fancy, it won’t last.” It wasn’t until popular vaudevillian Al Jolsen starred in “The Jazz Singer” in 1927 that people could finally envision a different reality. There was no looking back.

The same thing happened in the minicomputer era when the PC was born. And it’s happening now in Hollywood – 95 percent of major motion pictures shot in 2008 were shot with film, despite the availability of superior digital technology.

Sometimes it just takes the right actor.

Did you know one of the first standards battles occurred in Hollywood? Vitaphone and Movietone –two different sound standards - battled each other, the latter eventually winning out because of its ability to print audio optically on movie film. VHS nixing Betamax was another example. Standards technology battles continue today, the latest being HDDVD vs. Blue Ray. High tech has had hundreds of standards battles; everything from operating systems to networking protocols to disk formats.

Sometimes it takes a major battle to win the war.

Did you know it took 26 years for the VCR to win acceptance? Bing Crosby, the father of the VCR, wanted to record his voice, perfect things and play recordings on his NBC show. They didn’t like this idea; in the early days of radio everything was performed live. So Bing created “Crosby Video” and had to journey to ABC to use it. Crosby eventually sold the technology to 3M. That was in 1956.

In 1982, the evil threat of recording was still alive. Jack Valenti told Congress “I say to you the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

It took Andre Blay, an AV dealer from Michigan who envisioned a big payday, to make the studios see the light of day. It worked. Ten years later, movie studios earned more from home video sales than ticket sales. Are you listening RIAA?

Sometimes you have to forge the right kind of alliances.

Did you know the first movies were individual, not group, experiences? People watched 30-second movies in individual booths in a few major cities. Thomas Edison, who invented the movie camera (which he called the “peep show machine”) said, “We will only need about 10 of these in the whole United States.”

The first movies were ridiculous. For example, a man on a tightrope bouncing up and down, in black and white. Kirsner said the same thing is happening today with You Tube. The highest viewed video is a silly little piece produced by one performer with zero budget. Called “The evolution of dance,” it’s been viewed by over 100 million people. Like the first peep show movies, we’re still trying to figure out what really lurks in YouTube. Someday, its raw potential will unleash a different world.

Sometimes big ideas lie beneath seemingly ridiculous content.

Innovators, preservationists and sideline-sitters are all around us, shaping, delaying and eventually adopting inventions that capture our imagination and reshape life experiences.

10 branding communication lessons from the '08 presidential campaign

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:17:00-0400

Checkmate readers are corporate communications, branding and public relations professionals. They’re Independents, Republicans and Democrats. There might even be a few Libertarians in the mix too.

Recognizing this reality, today’s blog is bi-partisan, focused on the top 10 communications lessons gleaned from this year’s campaign:

Crisp, consistent messaging still rules - Obama started off his campaign with “change” and “hope” and stuck with it until the end. McCain, by contrast, embraced multiple messaging points, particularly in the last month of the campaign. Maverick. Country first. Fighter. Experienced. Leader. Independent. Straight talker.
Social media changed the ballgame forevermore - both candidates embraced social media. They both understood its power to engage, mobilize and raise gobs of money. Obama had more success, yes, but they both leveraged it. There’s no going back.
The big three got bigger – Facebook, YouTube and Twitter emerged as vital strategies. Obama’s Facebook network exceeded two million and McCain’s was nearly 600,000. Obama's YouTube presence was five times greater than McCain's, including subscribers and videos.Obama has over 118,107 Twitter followers to McCain's 4,942.
Traditional TV was still king – although millions were spent online, the big bucks went to the “it’s so yesterday” boob-tube. Obama spent more than $100 million alone; his half-hour infomercials exceeded $3 million.
Storytelling works – prior presidential elections used this technique, but in ‘08, it was more popular than ever. Tales were told through colorful characters, from Joe the Plumber to the 106-year old lady. Proving the value of storytelling, the latter example was used in the very last speech of the campaign by Obama Tuesday night.
Soundbites stick – people remember a few oft-repeated phrases and slogans. Hockey Mom. Joe Six-Pack. Maverick. Socialist. Lipstick on a pit bull. Soundbites are not only vividly recalled, they also shape our perceptions and opinions.
Teleprompters are double-edged –yes, they improve delivery but teleprompters can also create a false sense of reality. Sara Palin, for example, did a terrific job at her coming-out-party speech at the RNC, but subsequent interviews created the impression she was effective when controlled and scripted, but less so in impromptu conversations.
Body language matters –the Town Hall debates helped shape public opinion when people had the chance to see the candidate in more natural settings. Voters repeatedly stressed Obama’s calm demeanor. Polls revealed McCain came across erratic and less even-tempered.
Repetition works – both candidates understood the benefit of repetition. No new taxes. Yes we can. Essential points have to be emphasized over and over to break through and stick.
Great Web sites are part of a larger conversation – official campaign Web sites were vital but only one element in a much broader conversation that took place online, in real-time, everywhere. News, ad campaigns, campaign accusations and rebuttals broke on YouTube, Twitter and social news sites long before they appeared on mainstream media. The debate was shaped online.

Does Twitter chatter matter?

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:46:00-0400

I was speaking with a high-tech company’s social media guru yesterday. To fill dead air, I asked, “You guys doing anything with Twitter?”

I didn’t expect much of an answer. To be honest, Twitter kind of annoys me. It’s like reply-to-all on steroids, with an extra dollop of vanity (canceling my meetings, taking my Ferrari for a spin along the beach). The handful of people and companies I should follow would be buried by the twitter litter of others I should maybe cancel.

“Absolutely,” the guru replied. “Twitter is our number one way of spreading news online these days.”

Wow. Yes, I’ve heard the celebrated stories of giant companies putting out fires with angry consumers via Twitter, but I gathered they were the exception proving the rule. Maybe not. Here’s what the guru’s company is doing:

News: The company as an entity tweets from time to time to let followers know about events, training opportunities, updates, offers, cool Web pages and the like with links to more details. All the bloggers who follow the company and many of their traditional media counterparts are on Twitter, pretty much all day. With one click, the bloggers can break the news to their followers, and so on, until the word is out fast, in a big way.

Customer relations: Many of the company’s customers are on Twitter, too, and are picking up on the news as it’s announced. Web site copy and news releases still have their place, but in a lot of cases, you heard it first or got the link from Twitter. Customers are also picking up on valuable tidbits not really worth trumpeting over any other medium.

Access: Several of the company’s key employees and execs, one of whom is an industry rock star, are on Twitter. Followers are delighted to have access to him, as well as the other company reps, on an ad hoc, sometimes real-time basis.

Listening: The company learns things from its customer base it would never learn through a formal feedback process: suggestions, modest proposals, gripes, observations, etc. Worthy ideas are captured and go to product developers or whomever will make use of them. The company also uses Twitter to toss out an occasional sounding board question to the community – e.g., what would you like to see at our annual event?

Good will: The ability for customers, bloggers and others to have Twitter conversations with the real, caring humans behind the brand reminds everyone that there are, well, real, caring humans behind the brand who are open to ongoing personal relationships. That really means a lot. “There’s a sense we’re out there listening and participating versus throwing out marketing messages from afar,” the guru says.

Final thought. Our social media guru thinks of Twitter as something far more appealing than reply-to-all on steroids:

Imagine a cozy bar in your neighborhood open 24/7. You and your friends were first in the door when it opened 20 years ago on opening day and grabbed the best table, a large one, and never gave it up. None of you live at the bar, but you have enough friends coming in and out around the clock that your crowd always has the table. Everyone’s having conversations everyone else can overhear, but if you need to, you can pick one person out and whisper.

I think I’m starting to get Twitter. Is Twitter paying off for you?

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Dec. 29, 2008 update: CNN names "Ascendance of Twitter" a top tech trend of 2008.

Texting: what's kinda old is new again

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:48:00-0400

We call them cell phones, but they’re also little text machines. Now it’s official: Americans are doing more texting on them than talking. Youngsters 13-17 are leading the charge, with the 18-24s right behind them, says a Nielsen Mobile survey. Only at age 45 and beyond do calls still outnumber texts.

Hmm, in a world supposedly becoming less literate and more urgent for gratification, we now type more than talk. I wonder why. Finding tiny keys with clumsy thumbs and communicating at a fraction of the pace of natural speech doesn’t exactly scream efficiency or ease of use. It feels like a regression to the telegram era (telegrams on steroids, of course, with texting capacity in the hands of just about everybody in the developed world).

Then why so much texting? My guesses:

Kids are texting when talking is impractical, like in class, like when parents are “over shoulder,” like when they’re in a group and want to have a back-channel conversation. OMG, cn u b leev she’s wearing that?
Texting is convenient. You don’t have to “answer” it like you do a ringing phone, so we’re texting a lot for the same reason we email a lot.
Texting is polite. Rather than interrupt someone’s meeting, sleep or vacation, you can quietly send a text.
Texting doesn’t tie up the phone, so you if you have fast fingers, you can carry on multilateral conversations not just bilateral ones.
Texting makes driving exciting.

What does hyper texting mean for business? Well, phones with QWERTY keyboards are no longer status symbols; they’re standard tools for anyone who interacts with a team or customer base. If you’re not texting, it’s time to learn. And if you’re texting on a phone-style 0-9 keypad, you really should think about upgrading.

For communications and branding, the ascendancy of text means words still have a central place in a world dominated by images and icons. Just remember to kp it brf.

Greening the grid: Big Brother or big savings?

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:17:00-0400

Homeowners tend to cast a cold eye on their electric utilities, particularly when it’s time to pay the bill or when the power fails. So it’s no wonder that a new clean technology initiative from the utility industry called Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) has consumer advocates suspicious with some calling it a Big Brother-like intrusion into folks’ homes.

In a nutshell, AMI aims to help conserve energy by enabling two-way communications between the home and the utility through a wireless network of smart meters and smart devices in the home. Picture a smart air conditioner that the utility can turn down remotely when an over-extended power grid starts straining.

AMI will let consumers and utilities work together to conserve energy consumption in the home during peak energy demand periods. It will also let homeowners see when, how and why they’re sucking down kilowatts so that they can make smarter, greener lifestyle decisions. Consumers benefit by saving energy and getting discount rates for playing ball with the utilities. Utilities benefit by avoiding brown-outs and black-outs during demand response periods.

Despite the obvious merits, it’s a potentially huge PR challenge that the utility industry has yet to take seriously, which is unfortunate because the critics are on the wrong side of the debate this time, IMO.

What’s not to like? Opponents claim it's a waste of ratepayer money that hasn't proven it will reduce electricity usage. They say that fluctuating time-of-day pricing will give utilities the opportunity to raise, not lower, prices. And they don’t like the idea of giving the power company the power to reach in and have their way with your home. Ratepayer advocates such as TURN, The Utility Reform Network, have already launched aggressive legal and political campaigns against the initiative in California and elsewhere.

As a skeptic who never likes to pass up an opportunity to stick it to The Man, I should be wary too. But homes and buildings are worse polluters and energy guzzlers than cars. And ever-growing energy demand, wars for oil and climate change are just a few good reasons for taking risks on new technologies that stand to conserve energy in homes. It will be interesting to see how well the utility industry can counter the ratepayer backlash and rally support for its new initiative.

{Disclosure: Beaupre client, Ember, makes wireless chips that enable AMI applications}

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UPDATE: Celeste LeCompte at GigaOM covers the issue from the home appliance perspective.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal also weighs in.

Facebooking business communications

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:12:00-0400

Interesting stat I stumbled upon:

Although 7 out of 10 enterprise end users think Enterprise 2.0 will benefit their companies, three out of four enterprise end users are “very unclear” on what the term Enterprise 2.0 actually means.

Hmm, strong support for something no one really gets ….at first glance, it sounds like Enterprise 2.0 might just be the latest big thing for gullible early adopters. But what’s impossible to ignore is that so many people are finding value in Enterprise 2.0 technologies – social networking, RSS, blogs, widgets and the like – to streamline operation of their … personal lives.

Take Facebook. Millions use it to stay connected, keep up on the scuttlebutt, and block out the noise that has made email and web surfing a gaping time sink. Everything you want to know about your social connections is focused and fed to you on your Facebook page. You don’t have to plow through spam and irrelevant Google hits.

My point: Why can’t business communication be a little more like Facebook*?

When assessing the value of Enterprise 2.0, I for one will start from the conviction that the ROI on Enterprise 1.0 is getting more disappointing by the day. In Enterprise 1.0, we waste an enormous amount of time digging through all manner of patently useless email for relevant nuggets of information. In Enterprise 1.0, we pore through 10 irrelevant search results for every one good hit.

If Enterprise 2.0 can keep me tight with my most important business contacts, if it can feed me focused information, and if it can unclutter my life, I can smell the ROI already.

*Disclosure: this link points to a client Web page.

The print evolution

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:51:00-0400

Steve Rubel recently posted a blog theorizing there may be a perfect storm shaping up which may eventually take down the print publishing industry as we know it. Three factors, according to Steve, are causing publishers to really get their arms around the print vs. online debate:

1) Increased gas prices are negatively affecting distribution costs for print media

2) Consumers are environmentally aware that print magazines/newspapers are killing trees

3) 3G-enabled smart phones are becoming easier to use and much more affordable

Having seen the high-tech publishing business evolve first-hand over the last 15+ years, I believe Steve is on to something. Today’s “perfect storm” won’t likely kill the print industry overnight, but it will put a dent in it. InfoWorld went online-only in April of 2007, and online sites like TechTarget are thriving. What’s this mean for PR practitioners? The more things change, the more things stay the same, if you ask me.

We have to learn and understand how all types of publics operate, whether they’re online, print, blogs or micro bloggers (e.g. Twitter). Good PR people did the same exact thing 15 years ago, communicating with reporters based on what they were looking for, not on what we wanted to give them. If you give ‘em what they want, they’ll value you as a great resource.

Technology M&A remains endgame of choice

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:21:00-0400

Late last year, Wired spoke hopefully about technology stocks going IPO in greater numbers in 2008, “after three dismal years.” Some VCs, like Glen Kacher at Integral Capital Partners, forecast technology companies “coming out of a long dry spell; we’re only in the first year of an active IPO market.”

It ain’t happenin’ folks.

Nearly six months into 2008, tech IPOs are stalled. Some like Glasshouse Technologies, for example, have been on the back burner for seven months. CNN Money.com said the IPO market “has slowed to a crawl” and “can’t seem to get out of first gear.”

And they’re talking about every market, every industry, not just tech. Ouch.

There’s still plenty of action in M&A. Yes, deal activity is down 26% from last year (so far), but global deal volume is up 3% to date in 2008 vs. the same period in 2006 according to The Wall Street Journal. Let’s not forget that 2006 was the biggest year in M&A history until 2007 rewrote the record books.

Updata Advisors says global M&A deal value in Q1 08 rose to $33 billion – an increase of 32% over $25 billion in deal volume in the comparable quarter last year. Although this is a slight decline (8.3%) from Q4 07, it’s still a damn robust market. With a slowing economy, organic growth is tougher to achieve, so companies keep acquiring to maintain growth rates.

Our own lens confirms this reality. More than 35 Beaupre clients have been acquired, most over the past five years.

Last week, Microsoft acquired Beaupre client Navic Networks, a cool company that provides real-time TV audience measurement for interactive media placement. They joined earlier Beaupre clients acquired by Microsoft including Groove Networks and Parlano.

Updata Advisors think a strong M&A market will continue because “strategic buyers” (think tech industry gorillas) represent 90%+ of the deal activity.

It’s all about the endgame folks, and M&A continues to be the endgame of choice.

Mobile World Congress 08: Mobile ramblings from Barcelona

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:25:00-0400

“La Rambla” is a one-mile pedestrian walkway that stretches from a famous Barcelona square to the busy waterfront. It’s the place to be and be seen, a congested cacophony of sights, sounds and real-time experiences that define this upbeat, world class city.

Mobile World Congress 08, set in Barcelona, was a lot like “La Rambla.” Mobile Industry News ranked MWC the # 1 annual tech conference any cutting edge cell phone lover should attend. They were right. There aren’t many tech markets more dynamic: one million mobile phones are sold everyday worldwide!

MWC is a four day kick-ass show. It’s the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry; 60,000 people literally flurry among nine different pavilions featuring 1400 exhibitors. I was blown away with the diversity of emerging mobile technologies, the pace and sheer excitement. Even Robert Redford, Isabella Rossellini and Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am made appearances.

It’s nearly impossible to summarize all the buzz, but I’ll give it my best shot:

Mobile apps on the cusp and/or ready to explode include: social networking; search; gaming; mobile advertising (sorry); consumer-created content; mobile TV; mobile movies; mobile theatre sound; and payments.
Some new buzzwords from Barcelona: “V2IP” which stands for interactive two-way real-time multimedia on the phone; “on-device portals,” which capture content via a browser to use less online time; and “3-screens,” which means a large home screen + a desktop screen + phone screen all sharing the same digital content.
Despite Apple not having the impact it had at last year’s GSM , the iPhone has nevertheless shaken the mobile market. In Barcelona, the major handset makers (Nokia, Samsung, Sony) waxed about the need for simpler interfaces and better mobile software. LG and Samsung showed off touch-screen capabilities. The term “tridgets” made their debut in Barcelona, meaning mobile devices that depend 100% on the network for all controls and data. The iPhone is the tridget du jour.
While handsets are increasingly richened (see exceptions below), the real play, of course, is content. The mobile business is focused on giving consumers the experience they want; the content they need, when they want it, how they want it. Nokia’s Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said at MWC: “New services will touch time, place and location.”
Perhaps the hottest technology in Barcelona was mobile satellite, or GPS-enabled phones. “Geo tagging” was a new term bandied about; it refers to snapping a photo with your phone and then GPS receivers tagging it with its actual location on earth. Semiconductor designers – including NXP, SiRF and CSR – have built GPS systems on single, very low cost silicon chips. GPS navigation will be available on mobile phones at less than $3 to consumers. Mind boggling.
With more mobile apps running on Windows Mobile 6, more attention is being paid to security. Samsung and Sony Ericsson handsets, for example, run Windows Mobile 6. McAfee talked this up at MWC. McAfee’s 2008 mobile operator survey revealed that 79 percent of the 3 billion subscribers use unprotected devices. Scary.
Gemalto, the $2.2 billion digital security leader had a very busy booth. OnePin was one of their interesting partner collaborations. These guys market CallerXchange, a peer-to-peer application that enables mobile phone users to automatically send, insert and update contact information in SIM phonebooks with the click of a button. It may sound like a niche app at first glance, but it isn’t. The proliferation of contact information is the heart and soul of phonebook content: the more names and numbers, the more calls. Mobile phone operators like this a lot. The cool part is that it’s simple and universal but also permission-based.
One of the vendors that surprised (or scared in the case of telecom software vendors) people at MWC 08 was Huawei. The Chinese vendor’s software division came out guns-a-blazing with their expansion into the network equipment market. These guys have lots of software in many different flavors and they can low-cost themselves into emerging markets.
Mobile is huge for consumers, sure, but it’s also growing like a weed in the workplace. Mid-sized and large organizations are increasingly arming their people with mobile devices. There’s huge upside here. Just ask companies like RIM which cut its teeth in business first.
Some visionary, yet historically traditional, telco vendors are reinventing themselves, leveraging their rich customer data to get to a new place. At MWC, vendors like Ulticom (a Beaupre client), showcased very cool new capabilities in the area of identity management. By connecting 2 billion subscribers all over the world to telecom networks, Ulticom can enable premium consumer apps like geo-location, mobile TV, video-on-demand, bank authentication and pay-per-view.
Similarly, vendors (think Sun, IBM, Oracle, Alcatel-Lucent) are urging telcos to leverage their data to support customer apps like real-time campaign management, advertising and personalization.
Africa is the next big mobile market, with South America right behind. Mobile marketing is of “particular interest” to companies in South America, according to One Point, a mobile survey company that polled people at MWC.
Despite all the high-end mobile phone hoopla, vendors are also focusing on the massive opportunity in the non mobile rest-of-world. Spice launched the People’s Phone, a stripped-down, $20 product that doesn’t have a screen and only does voice and text (Braille keyboard option available). Remember that 5 billion people don’t use any communication technology; phones like this will be very appealing.
Music and movies are hot emerging apps; some new devices enable music and motion picture downloads in an under $25 phone. Dolby Labs’ “Dolby Mobile,” touted “surround sound on the move,” rivaling theatre quality.
IBM (a Beaupre client) had many announcements and plenty of momentum at MWC 08. They collaborated with Vodafone to demonstrate how social networks can be extended to any mobile device. They showed how mobile phones and “presence” technology – combined with health records – can provide a potential ‘good Samaritan’ with information on how to help people in critical medical situations. And because businesses and consumers are demanding more defense against voice, video and Internet mobile viruses, they demonstrated advanced security that keeps carrier-grade network services free of malicious traffic.
Former Beaupre client (and great guy) Steve Chambers, President of Nuance, talked about “voice dialing,” also called “voice-to-screen,” a capability that enables text messages to be spoken. The auto makers will like this one.
Google’s Android platform was a prevalent buzz topic. It will feature a touch capability in a device rumored to have a 300 Mhz processor – half the iPhone’s current capability. Imagine the kind of mobile apps possible with this kind of efficiency.
Smartphones have been slow to get traction in the U.S. We typically want to take our phones out of the box and start using them without figuring out complex features (or in my case, ever reading the manual). The Touch UI from Symbian has an operating system that’s open source; encouraging momentum for lots of third party applications.

All in all, an amazing place to hang out for a week. I was blown away with the pace, vigor and innovation.