Smart Phones - The Gateway Toy In Everyone's Pocket.
This week I am at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. There is a passionate bunch of people in the publishing field interested in social tools here. Many are working in very traditional companies and some are hacking out new trails. And I have already met a couple of people who signed up for this conference with one mission. But, recently laid off, they are here with a new mission - to reinvent themselves. This is a good place to do that. Chris Brogan's, "Blogging and Social Media," workshop was an A to Z from the best of the best. And with Cory Doctorow in the front row asking astute questions, that is as good as it gets. And to top this experience off, Chris Brogan gave me a 30 minute interview on the topic of "Mobile Meets Social." I will share this on my long form blog Ugotrade soon. Oh I nearly forgot to mention how chuffed I was when Chris named checked me during his talk for my 9000 word Ugotrade posts.
One example of many of Chris Brogan showing his stuff as THE social media business strategist was his reply to a question about corporate firewalls and social tools. I asked him to recap his response for me after his talk. There is a passionate bunch of people who want to use these social tools who aren't being allowed to do so by way of their corporation's firewall rules and policies. My opinion is that people are already through those walls. But they are going another way. They are using their smart phones. So in the world of New Blackberries, and iphones, the Chocolate Phone and the Storm and all that, there is now a gateway toy right in everyone's pocket that they can bypass all of that technology blocking and do it on their phone. It is not ever as good as the desktop experience but it gives them a voice out into that world. I think it is important for IT departments to be aware of that in a positive sense. To say, oh well this isn't going to impact my technology and yet this is going on. Are there ways I can facilitate it? Can I be helpful? If they are going to do it anyways, is there someway we can do it to even measure and be aware? Because then if it is on the phone then it is also not being monitored. As an HR manager, there is that other negative question of how long are you using this all day long? If you are on your phone and not doing your real work, I can track that too. But I think it is an opportunity though. I think it is an opportunity for companies to take a guarded step into a new space by allowing that opportunity to happen on a phone.Turning a blind eye, perhaps, for a little while and see what the real impact is because I don't think we can predict that.But, if you are out on your own and no longer have corporate firewalls to worry about (there was more bad news today, Anderson News Suspends Operations), the excitement is tangible in some areas. There was a huddle of ebook publishers in the media room with a very buzzy energy field around them, including Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords and Paul Biba, of teleread.org, gpspassion.com, and palmaddict.typepad.com.
