I am Helen Keegan, a veteran of mobile marketing, advertising and media since 2000. This is my diary and musings about mobile since 2004. I am part consultant and part events organiser in London, Barcelona and beyond (Swedish Beers and Heroes of Mobile). I write here about mobile technology and media and other things I'm interested in like theatre, art, crafts, business and life.
This thought leadership piece by Konstantine Buhler at Sequoia is well worth a read. I remember a conversation over a decade ago about AI with futurist, David Wood and he told me at the time that the dot on Google Maps showing us where we were was a type of AI. We don't call it that any longer - it just works on our phone and the technology is invisible - as many of the best technology tools are. I can certainly see how it will become quite commonplace to use tools like Bard or ChatGPT and not think anything of it. It will just be part of our routine use of phones, laptops and smart speakers.
I'm now beginning to see the rise of many of these tools as, perhaps, more like the switch from DOS to Windows - a much more intuitive interface with which to do what you need to do to get your tasks done. Or the switch from using laptops to phones which gave access to the internet and digital capabilities to many millions more people across the world.
And yet, what is coming feels like it's so much more than that and more far-reaching in terms of giving anyone the ability to engage with digital tools using talking or text chat. That feels revolutionary to me rather than evolutionary. Or is it way over-hyped and it will all calm down again in a few months? After all, this AI thing has been in the human imagination for more than a century with the first place about 'robots' being written in 1921. And it has been in development for more than 70 years. We are now living in the future that scientists were imagining back in the 1950s and 1960s.
I can't remember when I first met Ben - I'm guessing it was at least a decade ago, maybe even 15 years ago, at either a Mobile Monday event or one of my Swedish Beers parties. He always had great insight into the mobile industry and knew what was going on and could see the many of the trends coming way before the rest of us.
That hasn't changed and he's published his latest presentation on future tech trends- Three Steps to The Future. He's clearly put a lot of work into this (as usual) and it's chock full of info and insights. It's well worth a read and a ponder. It's certainly something I'll be coming back to. There's too much to take in properly in one go.
Anyway, you'll find it on his presentations page along with some of his previous years presentations. And I also recommend that you sign up to his newsletter - it's always full of interesting things, as is his Twitter feed which is where I found out that Ben had published his presentation last night!
So - I published a new presentation, on technology in 2021 and 2022: 'Three Steps to the Future'. https://t.co/7v8Hcmulf8
As a long-serving veteran of the mobile marketing, advertising and media community, I have seen how the sector has evolved over time from its lowly beginnings with SMS. I spend time mentoring and meeting under-graduate and post-graduate students of business and marketing and I'm always surprised at their lack of awareness of the opportunities in the mobile sector. I'm also painfully aware of the lack of teaching on the topic at undergraduate and post-graduate level. And I'm wondering if that is having an impact on the innovation (or lack of) in the sector and in turn, if that means we're missing a trick somewhere. And that's why I've set up this survey.
A couple of years ago, the Mobile Marketing Association published a report on the opportunity in the mobile sector in the US, and as part of that, highlighted the skills gap. I can remember thinking it looked pretty stark at the time - a huge opportunity on the one hand but not enough people with the right skills and attitude to deliver on the other.
I know this is partly addressed by companies with their own in-house training, but I'm wondering what else can be done to both make the sector more attractive to both new graduates and more experienced people looking for a career change and also make sure that the people coming into our industry have the skills and tools they need.
To that end, I have a first meeting with a senior academic from one of the fastest growing universities in the UK on Monday 10th October 2016 to discuss the skills and teaching gap in mobile marketing, mobile advertising and mobile media and to see how we can address that. And I'd like to hear your opinion on what they are.
Whether you're a seasoned professional with a decade of experience under your belt, or you're new to the sector, I'm interested in your point of view. If you are hiring, what skills are you looking for? If you're new to the sector, what would have been helpful for you to learn before you started the job?
Although this questionnaire is geared towards the UK market, I'm also interested in hearing opinions from our friends in other countries since it's a global industry.
This questionnaire will remain open past the meeting date so don't worry about filling it in after 10th October! The conversation will be ongoing, as we work towards understanding and addressing the skills gap. If the form below doesn't work properly, please use this link instead.
I recently held a series of five events with my friend and collaborator, Lloyd Davis, at Truphone's rather splendid offices in Canary Wharf. I did a round-up of all the events over on my Heroes of Mobile website so please follow the links below to see the videos of the talks and to find out more about what we covered and links to further coverage and reading.
Lloyd and I are working up some new event themes for the New Year. If you're interested in hosting and sponsoring the next series in the UK in the Spring (it doesn't have to be London), please get in touch.
I can't believe it's November already and it's just nine weeks to Christmas. Where does the year go? But as the evenings start to draw in, it's time to gather round campfires and tell ourselves stories about the battles we've won and lost, the monsters that lurk in the dark and the bright future that is waiting for us on the other side of winter.
Ok, so maybe we don't have an actual campfire this time but we do have a beautiful converted Methodist Chapel in Leeds to hang out in. So this means that November is chock full of brain food from the team who brought you theHacklandsfestival in August (you missed a cracker if you weren't there) – I'll be working again with Lloyd Davis of Tuttle Club fame, the fab aql team in Leeds and and James Tagg ofTruphone.
On Tuesday and Wednesday next week, we're all up in Leeds for theHeroes of the Mobile Fringe Goes Northseries – two days of talks and conversations about the future of work and mobile tech with contributions from Lesley Cowley, Bernard Ginns and Patrick Smith and includes the legendarySwedish Beersfor the first time in the North of England. I'm also co-hosting a fabulous ladies lunch at Harvey Nicks. Fellow ladies in mobile and tech, you don't want to miss this!
Come to as many of the sessions as you like, they're all free to attend and our friends at aql will make you very welcome indeed. There's plenty of space to hang out and co-work between sessions too.
And if you fancy making the trip from down South to Leeds, then may I recommend using http://hotwire.com for your hotel. I got a great deal there when I booked last week. Expedia also had a comprehensive list that included B&Bs and not just the big hotels.
In case you hadn’t noticed, it's less than two weeks to go until Heroes of the Mobile Screen http://mobileheroes.net ... and there's still new stuff to announce... I haven’t been this busy with a project since launching ZagMe with Russell Buckley back in 2000. Anyway, I digress… back to Heroes.
So, first up - lovely sponsors who are helping to make all this happen for us. We can now confirm that Blackberry is a gold sponsor and Windows Live and Windows Phone are silver sponsors. WINplc is event sponsor. Smaato is sponsoring the lanyards, Kemp Little LLP is supporting the event and we'll have a few more to announce this week. And not only that, Blackberry has given us a bunch of Mobile World Congress passes to give away to delegates coming to the conference. Keep an eye on the Heroes twitter feed http://twitter.com/hotms and blog http://mobileheroes.net/blog to find out how to get your mitts on those lovely free passes.
Secondly, we have lots of lovely new speakers announced including Hugo Barra from Google, Oded Ran from Microsoft, George Nimeh from Iris, Phil Cox from Silicon Valley Bank, Giles Rhys Jones from Ogilvy, Mark Watts Jones from Orange and still more to be confirmed. Read all about them over at http://mobileheroes.net/speakers
Thirdly. You can still get involved. Well, of course you can buy a ticket (everyone who buys a ticket really makes our day and lots of lovely people have already bought tickets!). But there's also a way you can score a free one... We're still looking for companies who are targeting teens (age 17/18) with their mobile product, service, game, application or device and who want to get some constructive feedback from their teenage audience. Don't worry, it's not scary. Julia Shalet (pictured) is running this session and she knows what she's doing and has briefed the teenagers thoroughly. And she'll also brief the companies we choose thoroughly too so it becomes a useful experience for everyone involved. Anyway, we've had some people apply already, but we want to remind you that there's still time to apply and we really do want to see what you're made of. If you're interested, please email me ( helen [at] mobileheroes [dot] net ) or Dominic ( dominic [at] mobileheroes [dot] net ) to express your interest or to find out more about what's involved.
And finally, there are still some sponsorship opportunities to support the networking party afterwards. If you want to get involved in that, then please talk to me - ( helen [at] mobileheroes [dot] net ).
I spoke at the Future of Mobile conference recently and stated silly mobile tariffs were holding us back as an industry. And they are silly. They're complicated, there are too many of them, there's lots of very small print (which I can't read even *with* my glasses on), extra roaming charges on a per megabyte basis (who knows what a megabyte is anyway and how do you know the size of a page *before* you click on it?) and well, they're just so unnecessary.
And if you don't believe me, go take a look at MobileMeg who has attempted to collate all UK mobile data tariffs (albeit I suspect it's a little out of date as I know Tesco has recently introduced a new mobile data tariff - yet another one!). It's not pretty and it's not clever. Network operators - sort it out! Complexity is not a good thing.
Or at least that was the title to my 6-minute talk at yesterday's Future of Mobile conference at Kensington Town Hall. I was one of the 6 x 6 bloggers (alongside peers Vero, Andrew, Ewan, Whatleydude and Jemima) and I had 6 minutes to wax lyrical about any topic I liked.
There was a sharp intake of breath as I announced there was no future to mobile. As you might imagine, as an advocate of all aspects of mobile technology, and especially mobile marketing, advertising and media, it was not a sentence the audience expected to hear coming from my lips.
There are 6 reasons why, if we carry on the way we are going, there will be no future to mobile.
1. We carry on focusing on technology rather than people
The technology is a hygiene factor and not the raison d'etre. The technology needs to be reliable, affordable, usable, fast and context relevant. There are very few folks out there who care which gizmo or platform you're building on. They just want it to work. The technology needs to be invisible and seamless. And of course that's a challenge to developers and service providers, but the fact still remains that this is all about the people and not the technology.
2. We continue to have silly mobile tariffs
Why are mobile tariffs, let alone data tariffs so complicated? Why are the tariffs, in particular data tariffs, focused on contract customers who are prepared to commit to an 18 month contract when 60% or more of the UK's mobile customers are on prepay phones and either won't (it's too scary, don't know what to expect, or are transient) or can't (poor credit rating) change to a contract. But more than that, why are they going to switch to a contract to use mobile data if they have no idea what the experience is going to be like?
Back in the early days of the internet, internet service providers, like Freeserve (now Orange), revolutionised internet access by introducing the penny a minute tariff up to a maximum of £12.99 a month. You knew that if you were online for 10 minutes, it would cost you 10p. You knew it would never cost you more than £12.99 a month. You didn't have to have a contract and therefore it removed the risk. Admittedly dial-up could be a bit flaky, websites could be a bit slow to load (sound familiar huh), but still folks could try it risk and commitment-free. And it meant a huge increase in internet usage.
3. We create applications and services for people like us
There was an excellent turnout at the Future of Mobile and I'm guessing that 99% of the people in the room were Promobs - as in professional or "super" mobile users. You know the type - have a N95 in one hand whilst checking their email on their blackberry in their other hand and live streaming qik at the same time.
The trouble is, the market is full of people who are *not* like us. Our customers are normal people. The ones who use their phones for talking and texting. The ones who have no idea that they may need new firmware or may need to change their handset settings. My family is a case in point.. bearing in mind I've been working in the mobile industry for more than 8 years, you wouldn't be able to tell that by my own family's usage of mobile technology...
My sister, well she's just about changed her ringtone and clings on to her Nokia 3310.
My brother has a Motorola Razr and when he got it, thought it was a seriously cool phone (and more to the point, thought I would think the same).
My parents are just too elderly now to get their heads round mobile technology. It's too complicated to learn, their fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be and they just don't have a need. They've lived their long lives without mobile technology. In fact a lot of their lives was lived without telephony in the home at all.
My nieces - well it's all about SMS and to a lesser extent listening to music (and sharing music files via bluetooth). The perception of mobile data to them is still that it's scarily expensive and a £5 a month commitment just so they can check facebook is just a step to far to the average teenager or twenty-something.
And my Auntie, well she just loves to chat. Whether it's a landline or a mobile, she doesn't care. She just wants to talk.
So my question to you is how do we create useful, relevant, entertaining, interesting services for Normobs so that we can bring them into our mobile world without dragging them there kicking and screaming in pain at the experience? How do we create that demand?
4. We continue to nurture the culture gap
Yes, there is. There's a culture gap between web people and mobile people. I've met a lot of people in both camps on the development and the commercial side and in the main, they really don't talk each other's language. Web centric folks can't understand why mobile folks put up with the complexity of the development task let alone trying to access the internet via a 2 inch screen. And then add in the disconnect with the handset folks and the web and the mobile development folks. And then add in the network operators. And then add in brands and agencies and we have a melting pot of folks who just don't understand each other. And in many cases don't even want to play nicely together in the playground due to perceptions about each other that are largely unfounded.
So I have a request that we are more open with each other. That we try to understand each other's points of view so that we can all move forward together in this brave new world.
5. We remain Western-Centric
The next billion customers are not going to come from the USA, the UK or the rest of Europe. The next billion customers are not in the West. This means that the "rest of the world" is not bogged down with the feeling that the internet on mobile experience is second best to the full fat internet on a laptop or desktop screen. It means that they can leapfrog technology rather than go through the evolution that we are still experiencing. And it means that there will be innovation based on needs today and solving problems today rather than working on 'the next big thing'. The speed of growth of mobile penetration in India, China, Africa, South America is phenomenal. This is where we'll see innovation. This is where we'll see real people come up with new ways to use mobile technology to solve their day to day problems or enhance their day to day lives.
6. We forget that the mobile phone is a communication device
It was designed for us to talk to each other. It was designed for us to be able to communicate with our friends, family, colleagues and lovers by voice, text, instant message, email, facebook, twitter, whatever. But it's about communication. In every region of the world, mobile data traffic is largely driven by social networking - whether that's Peperonity, Cyworld, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter - it doesn't really matter. It does mean that it's the human communication that's important to us and drives the desire to explore mobile devices further in order to find other ways to communicate with loved ones.
The mobile phone is personal, it's precious, it's an object of desire and it's our access to the outside world. It's also a necessity and a basic tool to participate in UK society (according to the latest Joseph Rowntree report).
So please, don't abuse my mobile life by clogging it up with stuff that doesn't work, stuff that is memory hungry, stuff I don't need or want. Think about the real people who are using real phones in real life and make their mobile life better. And maybe then, just then, there'll be a future of mobile.
Update: After my session, I did a short audio interview with the lovely Jemima Kiss discussing my talk a little more and it's now live on The Guardian.
Update 2: My talk was video-recorded by Mauricio Reyes. He also caught my fellow 6 x 6 bloggers.
The schedule looks really interesting and I'm very pleased to be invited to participate. There's also a day of workshops which will be of particular interest to the developers amongst you I imagine. Tickets are available now with a very attractive early bird offer of £100 discount on conference and conference/workshop tickets. And student tickets are just £45 for bona fide full-time students.
