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Ringtone Lessons - Digital Lifestyle Management

Schoolchildren are to be given lessons in how to avoid excessive ringtone charges according to the BBC. The lessons will look at business models and also children will be given a chance to create their own sounds.

It’s an interesting move since schools are often environments where mobile phones are seen as subversive and disruptive and usually banned but this change demonstrates just how much  convergence technology is becoming a part of our daily lives. With digital channels such as mobiles and Web 2.0 technologies becoming part of everyday transactions it is vital that children are taught the skills to manage their digital lifestyles.

Convergence technologies, such as mobile phones may well be disruptive when used in certain contexts but they are also incredibly useful. The same institutions which ban mobiles will have staff members using them to keep up with email, text updates to parents and phone home when a meeting over runs. Keeping the technology outside the classroom also keeps the life skills outside as well. The intiative announced today will help children with business, lifestyle management, music, technical learning and no doubt many other skills. Helping them take their place in the emerging digitally converged world.

Posted 18 November 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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World Usability Day

It’s World Usability Day and this year its been marked by a focus on greener travel and by visiting the site you can measure your carbon footprint.

Does this have anything to do with usability?

Absolutely, from the site the mission of usability is described as “‘Making Life Easy’ and user friendly” and in that respect our transport needs not only to be ‘enviromentally friendly’ but also easy to use and access. There is a big role for convergence technology in helping improve our environmental record. For example teleconferencing is a great cost effective way of bringing people together across the world for regular meetings, without the cost of flights, trains and transfers.  I was once asked at very short notice to attend a meeting in London (about 200 miles from my North West base), in case I was ‘needed’. This meeting was scheduled for 20 minutes and there was a vague chance that some technical questions might come up that needed answering. It would have cost close to £200 to travel and have taken at least half-a-day out my schedule with traveling. My solution was simple; I gave the meeting hosts my phone number and said I would be by the phone during the scheduled time, if a question came up and they needed my input they could call me. It worked fine.

Telephone and video conferencing are widely available technologies and increasingly are helping businesses make better use of their financial resources, improve efficiency and reduce their environmental impact. There are other convergence technologies that can help bring added value and greater efficiency to a business, 3 Sheep would love to discuss those options with readers. The example I used in this post was extreme but the solution was simple and worked really well. It used technology any business has access too, was usable and brought people together cheaply and without costing the earth. What ways can technology help your business reduce cost and environmental impact?

Posted 13 November 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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Convergence Offering New Opportunities

The power of the mobile is growing. Smartphone technology is no longer the preserve of business users and devices like the iPhone and Android Phone show that consumers are seeking ever increasingly sophisticated interactions via their devices.

‘Mobile Phone’ is an increasingly poor description for the devices most of us are carrying in our pockets or bags. They are our cameras, videos, TVs and productivity centres. They capture our most intimate moments with family and friends and tell the boss when we are late. I described the mobile recently as a modern totem and it is. Throughout the world the mobile phone is the device that links us together.

…And that is powerful. Many organisations put mobile interactions at the bottom of their ‘to-do list’ but is this the right place? Right now the world is still reeling from the aftermath a massive global financial crisis the likes of which few if any have seen in their lifetimes. Yet in a time when ‘cash is king’ and every channel of communication needs to work as hard as possible for business significant numbers still choose to leave out the one channel that is truly global and always with us.

Imagine:

  • Customers placing orders with you whenever they want to wherever they are. Their mobile phones allowing them to compare prices and research best deals.
  • Students learning in the field and ‘on the go’ using mobiles to send back feedback and interact with tutors and colleagues.
  • Carrying out banking wherever you are. The mobile web means no long telephone queues to check you balance or move money.

These are just some of the activities convergence technologies can and are allowing. With the right interfaces customers do not need to queue up or ring customer services, they can connect, browse and transact all from their mobile, whenever and wherever they want to.

So where does that put your business or organization? Are you ready for the global opportunities? 3 Sheep is well placed to help your company take its place in the connected mobile world. Please contact me to find out more.

Posted 09 November 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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Guido Calling

In the UK we have a strange mix of traditions, which converge on each November 5 and we commonly call ‘Guy Fawkes Night‘. Although the name is a link to a foiled 17th Centuary plot to blow up Parliament, its roots go back to pagan times and ancient fire festivals. Today it is primarily a good excuse to see a firework show.

I’ve just got back from a local one at Woodford Community Centre, which although on the outskirts of the Greater Manchester area was still a massively packed event with long traffic jams for the 20 minute show.

Community Centre’s are not known in the UK for a rapid adoption of convergence technologies and this event was no different but it was interesting to see how mobile technology was being used by the different groups of friends and families to manage their participation in the event.

The main patterns of mobile usage were: telephone calls and SMS (aka texting) to manage co-ordination of people in the dark and the use of the device as a beacon.

Using mobiles to bring groups together are now part of the landscape at events in the UK. However, it was particuar interesting to note that tonight the mobile was mainly used for voice contact. I observed very few people texting. Given the noise level this was especially surprising as it was very loud but when a phone was spotted it was usually with someone deep in conversation shouting directions. This possibly suggesting a difficulty with conveying enough meaning in a text message?

The use of the mobile as a beacon was a kind of fun acknowledgment of its place as a modern totem. Not many, but some attendees were using it as a light beacon to attract other members of their groups, waving it in the air. This was particularly effective on the Nokia N95 with its lightsaber mode ;)

The event didn’t have a mobile website and the centre’s website only adapts to a certain extent on to Opera Mini (my preferred browser on my Sony Ericsson w890i). Much of the useful information on the website is lost in the page restructuring.

The lack of a mobile friendly website at such an event is not really surprising. However, the event would have benefited from considering how to use mobile technologies such mobile phone cameras etc.to consider how to capture shared community experiences and reinforce the community identity it was trying to evoke.

Posted 05 November 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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Turning Buildings in Liverpool

This post is the part of the 3 Sheep Explores strand on this Blog and considers the convergence technologies options in Liverpool in its current role as European Capital of Culture and its Biennial art event. The Capital of Culture is not just one event but a year long series of events, some of which are specifically created for the time or some (such as the Biennial art programme) that are existing events and are incorporated into the theme. This particular post considers how mobile devices can help (or not) navigate the Biennial art street programme.
Mobile users view the Turning Place movie clip.

Liverpool 08 via Opera MiniThe role of casual and opportunistic tourist was adopted and the first challenge was accessing any information about Liverpool’s status as Capital of Culture via the mobile web. A search on Google via Opera Mini on a Sony Ericsson W890i brought me to the main Liverpool 08 website. Any readers familiar with Opera Mini will know that one of its strengths is its often valiant attempt to render websites designed with desktop computer access in mind suitable for mobile access. It struggled with aspects of the Liverpool 08 site mainly because the webpages were really getting too long for mobile friendly webpages, with too many assets being downloaded and the Information Architecture didn’t really led itself to mobile adaptation. The difficulty meant that a lot of information was lost. Another search of Google relating to the Biennial event specifically didn’t produced any websites that were mobile focused. So again Opera Mini had to work very hard to deal with the desktop site. This was harder than the Liverpool 08 site and several times I was asked for different versions of JavaScript and Flash when all I needed was a bit of a guide as to what was on. The BBC seemed to have been the only significant players aware of the mobile web. Their BBC Liverpool site has information about how to connect to the mobile version of the site but it’s very limited and with nothing obvious about the Biennial art street shows.

Biennial website via Opera MiniThe difficulty with navigating the forced mobilised version of the Liverpool 08 website meant that we were left with little option but to gather paper information on arrival at Liverpool. Although there were lots of big bold banners about Liverpool’s current status there was very little information about what was happening and where. The racks of leaflets at Lime Street Station had a lot of advertising but nothing about Liverpool 08 or the art shows. Eventually we found our way to the World Museum and consequently found our way (via Google Maps for mobile) to the start of the Biennial outdoor trail. It is also worth noting that Liverpool is a busy and often noisy place and the mobile web is ideal (if available) for quick access to accurate information. Without access to the mobile web the opportunistic tourist is left having to queue for considerable time to try and find out information, taking up quite a bit of time for the ‘day tripper’ ;)

Once on the trail we found some fantastic art, including the amazing “Turning the Place Over” by Richard Wilson, a clip of which is embedded in this post. The art was challenging and involving, certainly well more than a day’s worth. Google Maps for mobiles proved invaluable throughout the day as a means of working out exactly where we were. However, again an opportunity was missed as there was little coherent information tagged about the art exhibits around the city.

Liverpool 08 has some fantastic things to see and be involved with but in terms of making the most of digital devices in tourists’ pockets and making their exploration of the wonderful city easier an opportunity has been missed. The problems with accessing desktop websites via transcoder technology (e.g. Opera Mini) demonstrate the risky nature of not having a clear mobile web strategy and its negative impact and distraction from the event itself. Much of what was missing would not have been costly to implement. Actually, a good mobile web strategy could well have been cost saving; since less paper would be needed and tourists’ time saved, giving them more chance to shop and use the commercial facilities of the city. The lack of even a basic information site in a mobile friendly format means that visitors are forced to lose time seeking out information from other sources rather than simply reaching in their pocket and finding out ‘where next’.

Posted 01 November 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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Living Mobile - 3 Sheep Explores

I am starting to research how mobile digital devices and convergence technologies affect our everyday interactions whilst ‘out and about’. In particular I am going to be looking at digital mobility and event interaction. A good starting example would be a trip to an art gallery or community event and considering how mobile digital devices, especially those we always have with us such as mobile phones, help enhance or distract from the experience of the event itself.

Mobile devices remain controversial in many public forums. Taking mobile phone calls on trains as well as the use of personal audio equipment has led to the introduction of ‘quiet carriages’ on trains in the UK and theatres and cinemas insist on devices being switched off. However at many events participants are increasingly encouraged to ‘text’ in or send pictures etc. from their mobile phones. With an increasing public awareness of the Mobile Internet and the interactivity it can bring new opportunities are opening for digital interaction in public spaces in new ways. For example it can be far easier to read information via the mobile web than hear it in a public space when there could be crowds and traffic to make accurate hearing difficult.

Also, there is the cost; both environmental and fiscal to consider. Many events generate huge amounts of waste in terms of paper information, which is quickly discarded and often out-of-date within hours of distribution. This is costly in terms of money and also with regards to the environment. Personal digital devices may well have their part to play here as well.

My own interest in the use of mobile digital devices has been encouraged by experiences at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in which the art was beautifully explained through their use of small digital devices. Since then I have become increasingly interested in how we can use digital devices to help inform and communicate these experiences in public spaces. I would very much welcome comments on these posts, which although research based will also personal in reflection. You can follow the strand by bookmarking http://www.3sheep.co.uk/tag/3sheepexplores/.

Posted 01 November 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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South Africa Texting Health Care

South Africa is set to use mobile technology to try and manage part of its HIV and AIDS problem (BBC). Free text messages sent out by Project Masiluleke will encourage people to be tested and treated.

The project will be sending out one million free messages a day to the population. The use of the technology to manage this health project shows how embedded mobile phones are in South African culture. Many countries do not have an established hardwired infrastructure and are looking to the mobile network as means of mass communication. For countries with a growing population this can be crucial as the South African project demonstrates.

Previously other media, such as radio, would have been used for such work but the South African project demonstrates the importance of considering all channels for outreach.

With mobile devices increasingly offering access to the Internet via the mobile network then the opportunity to use them for delivering vital services such as medical services information to remote parts or areas with poor infrastructure becomes very important. The United Nations has already published research that suggests these devices might be the best way of bridging the global digital divide.

Of course Internet enabled phones are still at the more expensive end of the mobile infrastructure but they are becoming increasingly common and with 3G networks being established worldwide an affordable usable mobile Internet is fast becoming a reality.

Posted 25 October 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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Mobile Banking Continues

Despite the credit crunch innovation in the banking sector continues and Lloyds TSB have recently announced the expansion of their mobile banking services. The service is mobile focused and offers access to recent transactions and funds transfer as well offering pay-as-you-go mobile customers the chance to to-up their mobile.

This expansion of mobile services may perhaps first seem ill-timed with the current global banking crisis, however it could also be seen as an agile response to the need to change. Mobile banking gives Lloyds TSB customers another chance for interaction on the go, which may mean less telephone calls to help centres, less customer queuing and frustration and of course ultimately reduce cost.

It also shows the maturing of the mobile web. With the availability of services which demand high security the mobile web is now demonstrating higher consumer confidence and an increasing interest in a wider vareity of mobile services other than those focused around leisure.

With the 2012 Olympics not far away, many UK business now need to be making sure that their digital infrastructure is ready for the opportunities the games will bring. The mobile web will be available in the pockets of the many hundreds of thousands making the journey to the UK and the millions keeping in touch whilst on the go at home. Banking is one example of how consumers will be seeking to use their devices on the go. Now is the best time to make sure that your business is ready to do business in 2012.

Posted 17 October 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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High Street Suicide?

So at the moment I am suffering from a temporary disability that makes stairs rather difficult. Today I find myself in a bookshop wanting to get to the 1st Floor. It’s a relatively modern building on a busy street and I ask for the lift only to be told there wasn’t one or any other way for me to get help. I could start claiming disability discrimination but instead decide to vote with far more economic effectiveness and I tell the store an online retailer will get my custom.

The staff were not rude nor particularly unhelpful but its a good example of how the High Street is driving customers away. Actually, they had a lot of options to facilitate me and my purchasing power without installing an elevator but clearly lacked the imagination to employ any of them.

There was of course the straightforward solution of asking me what type of books I was interested in and bringing them to me to browse whilst I enjoyed a complimentary coffee in the ground floor cafe the store has. However, the store is often busy and this would probably not be cost effective on a daily basis.

A more strategic move would be to offer me access to their store directory via a mobile web interface. There I could peruse book choices, make a short list and then if I wanted to browse more in-depth get someone to fetch them for me. Or I could order copies, which were not in stock, without any staff interaction so cheaper for the store in the long run. This of course could be available to any customer, so not only accessible but inclusive as well.

The mighty Amazon.com already offers its customers the chance to shop via a mobile web browser. This means whilst I am in your book store coffee shop I could well be making price comparisons on your rivals websites and more importantly purchases. Where does that leave you?

The mobile web offers the High Street the chance to make the most of the best of the desktop web whilst still offering face-to-face service where it’s needed. My experience in the bookshop today could have been so different but they chose to loose a customer rather than meet the challenge.. seems like commercial suicide to me, especially in the current economic climate.

Posted 22 September 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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Beating the Crunch - Can Convergence Technology Help?

Without wanting to read like a scare-monger, money is tighter for many companies and individuals across the world at the moment. So can convergence technology help companies get out of this situation in any practical way?

Research by companies such as KPMG, Microsoft, The Future Laboratory and the UK Government (Yahoo article) show an increasing trend for home or remote working. This is an area where convergence technologies are often used. More than that though they can also help reduce costs for companies, increase real take home pay for employees and make a significant contribution to environmental savings!

That’s got to be too good to be true surely?

No it isn’t and let me explain why. Traditionally workers travel to the office for a number of reasons, e.g.

  • To access equipment such as telephones, computers and the Internet.
  • To network.
  • To meet colleagues
  • To work.

…and of course because they have to.

In recent years the reasons why employees, particularly in office based industries have to always be “in” have been decreasing. With communication and IT costs falling the home office is perfectly viable and for many organisations already working. It is often more because of culture than business efficiency that organisations cling to old practices that are best abandoned like a worn out comfort blanket, which no longer serves a purpose.

To put it in practical terms if an employee spends £50 a week (five days) on commuting but then starts home working for two of them, they immediately save £20. That’s £900 saved if they work around 45 weeks of each year. On top of that there will be reduction on time wasted in traffic jams and on environmental emissions. The employee will get more quality time at home and so the life work balanced is helped.

There are of course issues to be considered; not every employee will want or be able to work from home and there are issues such as Health and Safety to be planned in but this hasn’t stopped global companies such as BT implementing this on a large scale.

There are several advantages for Head Office as well since a move to flexible working can help with a reassessment of the management of real estate. With less workers in a building at anyone time, potentially less office space is needed and there is a chance to re-imagine how space is used. So that when colleagues come together it really can be about them working together as opposed to signing into their little cubicle space and working on their own, which can now be so easily and more cost effectively done elsewhere.

The credit crunch and threat of recession means that everyone wants to make sure their money is working as hard as possible, however at the same time businesses are facing the real need and pressure to address environmental issues. Remote working is not a magic wand that will solve all problems for everyone. However, it can help put money back in an employees pockets, reduce a businesses negative environmental impact, free roads from congestion and give space for thinking up those new ideas that will take us out of the credit crunch and on to the next success.

Posted 15 September 2008 † Stuart Smith §

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