Missing the mobile hype

Mobile usage is skyrocketing and especially the use of apps on smartphones is already in overdrive for quite some time. That would suggest that companies are investing heavily into the smartphone and apps. One would think that mobile apps are the talk of the town at many corporate marketing departments and due to this a hot topic at many CIO meetings. You could expect that mobile is on the combined strategic roadmap of both IT and marketing.

A recent study done by Forrester shows that only 40% of the companies actually do have a mobile roadmap.

“Successful mobile road maps require investment in supporting activities. Making specific investments in mobile education and skills development, maintaining organizational flexibility to increase speed to market, and adapting to local markets are key to the success of a mobile road map.”

source: Service2Media

Indeed this is true however having a good mobile strategy can put your company on top of the food chain which is a comfortable place to be in the current economical period. When in a economical downturn market you want to make your brand (B2B and B2C) as visible as possible and you would like to offer your customers as much easy service as possible against a price as low as possible.

For example, you run a reservation line for restaurants. A common practice of people is to decide where to eat when they are with friends and such events are not planned well in advance. Due to the nature of the decision cycle a phonecall is commonly the quickest way to find out if there are still tables available. Every phonecall to a service agent costs you 50 cents. Calculating your ROI is quickly done and you also provide a second service to your customers who now can quickly browse available restaurants in the area from their smart phone.

The examples are numerous and the options are endless. Missing the boat on mobile can put your company at the bottom of the food chain. There are quite some good companies around that can help you plan your mobile strategy and do the full execution of this plan. Some good examples are Capgemini and Service2Media.

A doodle or visual thinking

I do love whiteboards, I love scratchpads, I do love to doodle and I love to work with photoshop. even though I do love to do this I am not a very good artist as some people are and when I draw a tree everyone starts wondering what it is. However, using it to explain things is a very usefull tools. Standing in front of a whiteboard with a couple of people and blueprint a new enterprise IT landscape on a whiteboard is the best way to take the first steps in my opinion. The main reason why whiteboard vendors sell whiteboards I guess.


One other thing I do love, most of the times, is the infographics, Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly. It is a real nice way to show you what people mean and explain complex systems very quickly. making them is an art in my opinion.

I always thought that just doodle something and draw your thinking on a whiteboard was something we humans are just natural to do... now I just learned that we have a very cool, fancy and hip word for it and, as it go's without saying, a way of thinking and very expensive management trainings for. It is called visual thinking; "Picture thinking, visual thinking , visual/spatial learning or right brained learning is the common phenomenon of thinking through visual processing using the part of the brain that is emotional and creative to organize information in an intuitive and simultaneous way."

I personally think it is just a cool way to display your thoughts and get things done. And if you are really really good you can make something like what Steven Johnson has done below. Making a cool video on "WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM";