The glittering allure of the mobile society

In February of this year I found myself on a cold and rainy day in Evian, at the behest of Microsoft at a international summit for CIO's.

As a consequence of that presentation Microsoft in the US asked me if I would write a paper on the future of the mobile society.

On Friday the paper was published for Microsoft CIO Community. I wrote in my opening

When it comes to mobile telecommunications, it is often said that what works in one country, does not work in another. I wholeheartedly refute that argument. Human beings are more alike than we care to admit. We are programmed to be a “we species”—a social networking species with an innate need to connect and communicate. I often muse on the reason why SMS is ubiquitous as a communication mechanism. It is because we as a species do, in fact, constantly communicate via short messages, a behaviour that we learnt millennia ago.

That is why we are inevitably moving towards the Mobile Society, where our mobile devices become the remote control for our daily lives. Because any technology that allows us to better connect, communicate, share knowledge and information, and get stuff done will be widely adopted.

The Mobile Society is completely different to the industrial society. It requires a new logic and a new way of thinking of how to create business, civil governance, health care, and education. The mobile society is seen as both an opportunity and a threat because it signifies a reordering of business models, new flows of communication, and the appearance of new gate keepers in the information distribution wars. Resistance is a natural response when society changes structurally. As a consequence, there are differing points of view on what exactly the Mobile Society can deliver, depending on who you are.

Carlotta Perez in Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital:  writes

With the emergence of the next technological revolution, society is still strongly wedded to the old paradigm and its institutional framework, the old habits and regulations become obstacles, the old services and infrastructures are found wanting, the old organisations and institutions inadequate.

The way forward is to better understand how the Mobile Society can benefit us all, the business of commerce being but only one piece of this complex jigsaw. I have come to the conclusion that we have separated commerce from community; we have lost sight of the fact that the society of consumers is in fact us—people who need more than shopping to give us richer lives.

The Mobile Society promises that richer life in the same way that Gutenberg's 42 Line Bible freed information from the confines of the church and redistributed it to a wider society, which subsequently brought us the Reformation , and the possibility that man and woman for the first time could make their own way in the world. The Mobile Society will bring unprecedented flows of communication and these flows of information and communication are the engines of innovation and commerce.

If you would like a copy of this paper, which is a significant evolution from this previous paper then please get in touch email me info (AT) smlxtralarge (DOT) com

I thank Microsoft for giving me the opportunity to research, think and write. It has been of enormous fun for me.

Comments

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Excellent White Paper Alan, congrats !!! Very good evolution on the thinking and excellent timing as this space is getting to be more real-world. Brilliant examples.

And thanks to Microsoft for helping spread the word.

Tomi :-)