A Change In Perspective on Mobile Content Creation

Over the past few years, I've championed the idea that smartphones are by-and-large consumption devices; not creation devices.

Someone asked me recently: Do you send email from your smartphone? Isn't that creation?

I suppose that it is. But I typically send bite-sized emails, SMS, and Tweets; not long-form content. But when you also share photos and videos and links and likes and plus-1s, smartphones are clearly creation devices.

This reflection challenged my previous perspective from thinking of content exclusively as robust documents to include rapid-fire info-blurbs. Where now is the dividing line between smartphone content creation expectations and those of laptops and desktops?

This question prompted me to try the previously unthinkable; to write a blog post on my mobile phone. This is clearly long-form, but still distinct from the rich authoring experience I enjoy on my full-fledged computers.

Perhaps then the discussion ought not be about content creation, but rather rich document authoring; the kind that often requires templates, detailed tables, complex layouts or animations, etc.

I managed to survive this little experiment (although I would have rather written this on a proper keyboard and had full formatting options available) and complete thus post on my smartphone while sitting on a bench in a museum. Perspective adjusted.

Comments

Improving Win Rates

Still here at the Gartner Local Briefing. In a session with Richard Fouts about customer win rates. Sharing Win/Loss Data Sales teams tend to advertise their wins, yet contain their losses. Why is this so? Q: How many global IT companies conduct win/loss on an enterprise scale? Less than 5%? About 10%? About 20%? A: Less than 5% Why? CEOs and Sales people say "I know why we win/lose". Some politics are touchy; people don't want you to expose what they did well/not (especially in competitive environments). "I clicked the won/loss checkbox in Salesforce.com" One company evaluated their win/loss data. They looked at 140 wins, and 55 losses. Looking at this data, they noticed a correlation between the wins and the fact that they beat their competition to market with compelling announcements in over a third of the scenarios. An IT services firm attempted to sell a more sophisticated solution. Upon evaluation of the win/loss data, they fo

Luck Is Not The Answer

As the 2011 season of the National Football League approaches, so does the rabid anticipation of its parasitic counterpart; fantasy football. Anyone who knows me knows that I love football (not fútbol); particularly the NFL . I grew up a dedicated Patriots fan and have since become more of a fan of the game itself rather than just a New England loyalist. I tend to keep up with NFL news throughout the year, and regularly download the Rich Eisen Podcast for listening during my morning commute. Rich's guest on the most recent episode was Michael Fabiano, the resident fantasy football expert at NFL.com. At one point during the podcast, Rich and Mike were exchanging viewpoints on what constitutes being an expert and how no matter how much of an expert you are, you need to be lucky to win a fantasy league. A similar sentiment was expressed during a 2010 podcast by one of the guests (I forget whom); that it's all luck and you can't really predict anything. I take exception t

Hiring: Scheduling Interviews

Interviewing candidates is never easy. There's a lot at stake . Many notable managers and companies will bloviate about their hiring processes; often in self aggrandizement but occasionally to share tidbits of wisdom. A successful hiring process requires that a lot of pieces be firmly in place. Corporate messaging. Job descriptions. Salary ranges. Benefits packages. Application process. Referral programs. The list goes on... One very important yet often overlooked item is scheduling, and that is the focus of this post. While interviewing a candidate recently, I was doing my routine pre-interview preparation and reviewed with whom and when the candidate had already spoken. To my confused dismay, I learned that the candidate had spoken to 5 people already on three separate days . I was to be the 6th interviewer (on day #4), and there was still one more interviewer scheduled for later that week. That's 5 distinct interview periods!!! After conducting the interview, I

Product Matters

Search This Blog