360DigitalInfluence

Nowadays, we worship and rely on Google. Can you actually remember what your life was like before it? Pretty hard, isn’t it?

While in New York earlier this summer, I got up to speed on a great service (and probably one I should have known about before), but it is perfect for those of us not always completely sure where we are going or just haven’t updated our electronic  rolodexes on a regular basis.

Google Mobile makes our lives more streamlined, more on time and far less confusing. Simply text commands to 466453 (”Google” - as I’m sure you could have guessed). Commands can range from product prices (ex: PRICE Apple iphone) to weather (ex: WEATHER san francisco) to places (ex: Magnolia Bakery nyc). Other commands include sports, stocks, movie times, and directions. What more could ask you for?

Google Mobile is a great resource to have in the palm of your hand as you’re out and about going to meet a client, need to get a cross street for a lunch spot or just want to be able to obtain the necessities instead of dealing with the browser on your smart phone.

Now get those fingers typing and get on the move!

A really interesting IDC study, titled “The Hyperconnected: Here They Come” was released this month which talks about the exploding “culture of connectivity” and the implications that hyper-connectivity has on the enterprise and business practices.

Whilst on a fact finding mission, another interesting point that I came across is that the global mobile workforce continues to grow unabated - IDC expects the global mobile worker population to increase from 758.6 million in 2006 to more than 1 billion in 2011, representing just over 30 percent of the worldwide workforce. [see more details here]

The thing that really struck a chord with me is that we are becoming a generation addicted to connectivity. We are seeing our younger colleagues enter the workforce as ‘digital natives’ (an idea widely discussed by Peter Sheahan) - they only understand communication via IM, email, text messaging, social networking and so forth. This is the ‘conventional’ that they seek and the ‘unconventional’ that the rest of us are all so keen to adopt. Today, we are spending more time connected and switched on in both our personal and work lives - so much so that we are now seeing a blurring between the two.

More and more people are starting to leverage Web 2.0 tools in business (a term coined Enterprise 2.0) such as shared wikis, IM and social networks in order to better facilitate information sharing and collaboration between workers and provide a competitive edge to those businesses that embrace it.

I think we will see Enterprise 2.0 increasingly extend beyond the office as wireless technologies such as in-built 3G, WiFi and WiMAX become faster and more efficient for business users to access personal internet on-the-go, and as mobile devices become sleeker and lighter for users to carry with them.

The IDC study predicts that “hyperconnected business users will likely rise to 40 percent in five years”. Another five years down the track, I am sure we will see a substantial increase on this figure. Application and web developers, mobile device/ notebook manufacturers and telecommunications providers will need to cater towards making this hyper-connected experience for users a more seamless one.

Watch this space!