Hello all, my HUG eGroup postings have dipped recently as I have been putting out fires and lighting new ones (controlled burns - usually).
I did want to express my thanks to Rob, Ben, Andy and Angelika for spending some time with me in DC and NoVA last week. It was great to see folks in three dimensions, share some insights, and catch a bite to eat. They really do wear those orange t-shirts!
I learned a lot and got very excited by some data Rob shared regarding the migration from PCs to mobile devices. Wall Street analyists have put together some very convincing data with direct relevance to our work. Social/professional networking is here to stay - total users and percent of bandwidth dedicated to it is absolutely skyrocketing. That is really no surprise. But what I had not really contemplated previously was the astounding rate at which mobile devices are becoming dominant. The next 5 years will see an tremendous upswing in mobile devices being the primary connection point to the Web in the US - reaching the majority sometime mid-to-late this decade. Japan promises to be a preview of the future for North America. And with strong mobile networks in places with no pre-layed cable, other countries are skipping the PC altogether - driving innovation from "the outside". I had never seen it from the perspective Rob and Ben shared with me.
In our professional society at least, the average age of membership may be delaying this trend as compared to all online. But when at the rate companies are putting a Blackberry in the hand of members, the delay is a short one at best.
We really don't have much of a choice on the matter - I think we all need to give the new mobile membership platform a full and solid vetting based on what I learned. The question seems to be when, and not if, we will need to make this kind of resource available for use of our connected communities.
I have to commend HL on this point. They value this kind of data and are anticipating - rather than reacting to - technological innovations and market developments.