Make mobile communication disappear

Maybe “disperse” is a better word than “disappear,” but futurist Mike Walsh thinks mobile communication already is disappearing. “When you look at new technologies like Google Glass, like Fitbit, things that are tracking our motion and steps, you are actually seeing the idea of mobile fragmenting, breaking up, and disappearing into our clothing, our eye wear, into our everyday lives,” he said.

Source: Ecourterre, Fittersift

“This is more than just about being cool or having new technology. The disappearance of the mobile phone is actually about a total integration between the digital world and our real world. And that’s going to change everything.” 

Everything? That includes how we communicate and how we behave. Communication is not about putting words, images or sound on any number of screens. Communication at work helps people understand and succeed. What if you receive an infographic with this hour’s purchase uptick after your new product introduction, exactly at the time you are delivering a presentation to your sales executive, sent to your aural or visual field simply because you are in a conversation on that topic? 

For one thing, you wouldn’t be heads-down in a digital screen to retrieve your most current numbers. And for another, you’d be out talking with people, having a conversation—the richest communication. How we communicate and how we behave will be different when smartphones, tablets, watches and glasses are truly contextual—aware of where you are and what you are doing—not a conveyance method driven by someone else’s delivery routine.

That’s been a problem employee communicators have faced from Day One. We can deliver messages, but their relevance depends on the receiver, not the sender trying to capture attention and drive engagement.

Employee communicators are trying out company-to-employee apps on smartphones, practicing limited context even as very early adopters are practicing integrated context in wearable computers like clothing or tattoos. Since more than half of adult Americans said in the recent Pew Research Internet Project it would be “very hard to give up” their cellphones, we as communicators have a path to bridge real life with smartphones into future, on-the-job, context technology.

Also from the Pew study, both the Internet and cell phones were more important to respondents than television, email, and even social media. In real life, people experience how cell phones connect them to others, and maybe intuitively they understand it’s the Internet that helps them find, create and share information, not to mention organize work, learn skills and do our jobs better.

So when you think of mobile communication, think of context, not merely delivery. Appreciating context, not just delivering information, is a good practice for any workplace communication.

Name that tune on Google Glass

Google Glass has a new trick, and it has turned into a game for me—name that tune. It’s simple. Ask Glass to identify the song you are listening to right now.

Yes, Glass can name the tune and artist and display the cover art often in four seconds or less. Sometimes, obscure songs take a few seconds longer, but those are the ones you could never come up with yourself at all. It’s impressive. The technology is Google’s Sound Search, an Android offering that recognizes music playing around you.

After the novelty wears off from asking Glass to listen to the music, what’s left? A deeper appreciation of contextual sensors. Cell phones have taught us that computers we carry around with us at all times can sense our location. Embedded GPS tells us where a photo was taken, which direction to head for a burger, and how to avoid traffic.

Glass will build on that concept with not only the ability to listen but also to see your surroundings from your point of view, knowing exactly where you are. It’s that complete context that will bring us a whole new level of computing power.

Wow. Whoa. That’s a lot to get our heads around, considering how easy it is to wrap Google Glass itself around our heads with a powerful computing device resting at eye level.

Thanks, VentureBeat, for showing Glass at work

Since the point of this blog is to consider how wearable computing like Glass will change the workplace and the way employees communicate in it, it’s an exciting time to just imagine what that might mean. Could Glass hear a conversation with a customer and offer prompts or reminders about a product feature for a salesperson to mention right then? Might Glass recommend someone who could answer a question that two people are discussing? Imagine an audio and visual roadmap that guides you through a cubicle maze, where everything appears the same to you, so you quickly reach the exact spot you will find the person you’re looking for.

Listing possibilities…this could go on all day, and we still wouldn’t think of them all or the long-term, valuable ones, for that matter. We have an early opportunity to start shaping wearable computing uses. Think how can it be developed at your company so that it contributes to the way employees understand company goals and news, work with colleagues toward innovation, and celebrate how the work they do each day contributes to success. Let’s name that tune.