The True Promise of the Mobile Society - Access, Communication & Business | SMLXL - Business and Communication Innovation from Alan Moore

The True Promise of the Mobile Society – Access, Communication & Business

October 3rd, 2008

I am speaking at an event in Slovenia in November and I was asked to write something about my presentation. I thought it was worth sharing

It is often said that that what works in one country, does not work in another. Especially when it comes to mobile – an argument I wholeheartedly refute.The reason being that human beings as a race, are in fact more alike than we care to admit. We share the same gene pool for a start. This is important when we understand that we are programmed to be a "we species" – a social and networking species – with an innate need to connect and communicate.

And that is why we inevitabley move towards the Mobile Society, where our mobile devices become the remote control for life. Any piece of technology that allows us to better connect, communicate, share knowledge and information, get stuff done – will be adopted.I often muse on the reasons why sms is so universally adopted as a communication tool. It's because we as a species do in fact communicate via short messages – constantly. A behaviour that we learnt millennia ago.

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 already exists, dotted across the 4 corners of the globe – yet it does not exist in any one country. This is because we are in transition from one type of economy to another, the collapse of the banking system recently perhaps a painful symbol of that transition.

But also the reason why it is not universally adopted is because there are vested interests that do not want the mobile society to flourish – as it signifies [1] a re-ordering of business models, [2] flows of communication [3] the appearance of new gate keepers in the information distribution wars. This is a natural pattern when society changes structurally.

So the way forward is to truly understand how the Mobile Society can benefit us all – business being but only one piece of this jigsaw. In my recent work I have come to the conclusion that we have separated commerce from community, we have lost sight that in fact the society of consumers is in fact us – people, who need more than shopping to give them richer lives. Again, the epic and sudden collapse of the banking system demonstrates how removed commerce has become from community and that ultimately leads to hubris – and ultimate demise. Curiously its the taxpayer that has been asked to foot the bill.

The Mobile Society can promise I think a richer life as in the same way that Gutenberg's 42 Line Bible released information from the church and brought us the Reformation, the Mobile Society will bring flows of communication unprecedented – and it is these very flows of information and communication that are the engines of innovation and commerce.

Bookmarks: