Having a blackberry and a text plan is akin to bottled water: You already have it, so why buy it again?

I’m still amazed that the masses don’t understand a text message (SMS) is nothing more than a phone number turned into an email address.

So when I use my blackberry, I can compose an email to my friend that has Verizon by entering MOBILENUMBER@vtext.com. You too can do this from any data device (iphone, blackberry, PDA) and hopefully realize that you can disconnect your bottled text plan.

**side note** When you speak with your carrier about disconnecting your text plan, it is important that they REMOVE the pay-per-use option. This way when your buddy forwards you frivolous chain messages, you don’t pay-per-use at $.20 per message.

Below are the domain names for each carrier’s “text messaging” address. If you have a blackberry, iphone, PDA, or any data device that requires a data plan for email, the information below is reported to you as a tip when you upload your cellphone bill at FixMyCellBill.com. The site will save you a few bucks off your price plan and give you free tips on how changing your calling behavior (not amount) helps your bottom line.

Verizon Wireless: MOBILENUMBER@VText.com

AT&T: MOBILENUMBER@txt.att.net.com

Sprint: MOBILENUMBER@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Nextel: MOBILERNUMBER@messaging.nextel.com

T-Mobile: MOBILENUMBER@tmomail.net

US Cellular: MOBILENUMBER@email.uscc.net

Enjoy!

Cutting Corners, Bumpy Roads and the Digital Economy

All these headlines and noise: The economy is a-l-m-o-s-t turned around.

I know, I get it.

But does the country? You know, you and me... the ultimate bureaucracy that truly makes the North American wheel turn. There's only so much OH'Bama! can do, we all need to take part in making it better.

It’s the simple things. It's getting to work early, appreciating your job, playing an active role in the world you live in. Do a good deed or three. Smile and evolve.

Smart operations for any successful company are symbiotic savings and clever ways to automate the arduous. Are our leaders grasping this concept? More importantly are we?

My area of expertise has always been in the world of wireless, that's my career. I've met wonderful people along the way and have been lucky enough to work with visionaries and pioneers of an efficient tomorrow. I know from personal experience that businesses and consumers have a hard time with their cellular bills. I'm not alone: J.D. Power and Associates reports that "More than four in 10 customers (42%) contact their provider with a billing-related service inquiry, with 55 percent of these contacts attributed to inaccurate charges." There are two fundamental problems with this:

1) Why are millions of people scratching their heads every day over a cell phone bill?

2) Why do ANY customers have to spend time on the phone, relieving said itch? So here we are, all of us swimming in the information age. All the options for us to choose from, but with an element of confusion.

What has changed? What IS changing?

I look at GMAC, Chrysler and Ford. What are they doing to make their businesses run better? Should they have drowned in the quantum laws of capitalism to make room for more innovative-thinking companies? The Big 3 should be pounding down the doors of any consulting help they can find.

Or all of us for that matter: Instead of the Accounts Payable or IT Managers manually auditing their company's cell phone bills, why don't they use a wireless bill calculator? This miracle-wonder automates the method of finding errors and drafts an email to the carrier. Each company has multiple vendors and it is a travesty they are charged with the gargantuan task of symmetrically solving their cell bill statements.

In a nutshell my childhood passion was basic: cut corners and pave a convenient route for others to follow. My mother always pointed this out "David you spend so much time looking to cut corners, that you could just do the existing way faster." So very true... but I also learned early on that everything has a successful edge to it. As an adult, I adhere to the ideals of process-improvement to help customers cut corners.

Go on America. Find a way, cut your corner. Don't worry, it's our secret. Get some.

Imagination and Inspiration

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968)
American civil rights leader
Nobel Peace Prize winner

A fitting quote to start the week in memory of MLK Jr.

Life and Business imagination and real world inspiration. It takes a special blend of dynamic thinker, and true thought leadership to command both, and to do it with flare is something that is not seen very often . Fortunately for some, myself included, a unique opportunity presented itself to be in the humble company of some extraordinary people who fit into this very elite category.

Great people can change the world and they are doing it everyday. With the pervasive speed of our digital growth, both social and economic, now more then ever, is the time for others, to stand up and inspire. If your business needs to be inspired, the collective team at iFridge is the perfect start.

Oh and by the way, if I had a photo on my fridge, it would be the one you see above. Dream big.

Social Velocity

Web 2.0, Mobility, Enterprise 2.0, Communities, Wiki's, Blogs, Social Marketplaces, Social Workplaces, SaaS, PaaS, what do they all have in common?

Each of these contributes, (of course) to our ever evolving world of electronic connections, which is propelling a new wave of 'social velocity' right before our eyes.

New boundaries are pushed each and every day when it comes to personal connections on platforms like Facebook, global enterprise connectivity and international trade improves beyond traditional lines of business through creation of hybrid ecosystems that promote scalable and monetized marketplace interaction.

And it is all happening faster then most strategists can or care to measure.

What does that mean for you personally? It means you can share foodie tips with someone on the other side of the globe with just a few keystrokes, or talk about your favorite sports team, or travel destination with more vigor and passion then you do with your school mates or neighbors. Social connectivity has never been so easy. There are rules of engagement and generally speaking the communities are self-policed, so it’s real easy to follow the crowd and get involved. Try it, send a tweet this week. It’s fun.

Now how about those enterprises that everyone is talking about? How do they use this new social paradigm to their advantage? What are the rules of engagement? How easy is it to follow along? Well, times up. Do you have the answer? Truly, we are still within the very early stages of seeing enterprises push the boundaries of social velocity both in a marketplace setting as well as in a workplace environment. There are no blueprints, and no simple ‘Facebook for All’ type answers. One could assume that with so much jargon being thrown around by so many ‘flavor of the week’ vendors, this stuff must be easy. Not true. Since there is no single approach to creating true or realized social competence within a marketplace or workplace, organizations must turn to the thought leaders within the industry to help them navigate these waters. The vendors who are trying to ‘cash in’ on the ‘social hype’ and talk the talk with clients, without walking the walk remind me of the Y2K scenario. Lots of resources used, spend lots of money, no tangible or measured ROI, but there were lots of busy people!

Enterprises must work with the companies who understand how to walk the walk. Talk is cheap, time is money, and social velocity will pass you by unless you grab on, jump in, and start your enterprise strategy cycle now.

Social Software and Mobility

Over the next 3 – 5 years mobile devices will become even more pervasive within our current workplace, and mobile social software will be a key driver in pushing that growth and usage. Social Software breadth, depth, not to mention user dependency within these handheld devices will continue to expand very rapidly, device capacity and speed will improve exponentially, all of which results in a dramatic improvement in how workplace participants access people, process and content. The organizations, who understand how to harness the mobile social software platform, will become more efficient organizations; through better lines of communication, leverage intellectual capital more effectively and execute to the market more seamlessly. Social Software is in the very early stages at the moment, and it has yet to truly realize its actualized potential within the mobile ecosystem.

The Power of Now. Social Media

Social Media…it’s all around us. But is everyone really listening?

Social Media, as well all know takes on many forms, and illicits many different definitions depending on who you ask. Some participants are conscious and active within various communities, and take on ‘power or influential’ social media roles within the ecosystem. Super guru’s they take on industry wide status of some elite, higher form, typically a position that you cannot lobby for, it’s something you earn over time and the masses will bestow such a rank upon you (sorry but you can’t interview for this). It should be noted that corporations and brands can and do, take on powerful and influential social media presence, which is independent of the social media guru roster that they may/may not have assembled within the collective corporate employee base.

While most of us see Social Media to be something that can be found all around us, it is still remarkably easy to find participants who are dismissive to their social media interaction. For instance, someone told me the other day at a conference, “Oh I have no idea what Social Media is……but I am on FaceBook now” (See Boomers Flood Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/l4j9ko) We still need to consider these personas as part of the Social Media Club, even if they are a little new, and perhaps naïve to it all.

Beyond the naïve there are individuals who are neither conscious nor absent minded when it comes to social media, the activities, benefits, and overall upside. They fall into the category of, ‘individuals with time constraints’. They look to others for a crash course in how it all works, then typically re-produce their new found knowledge as gospel. It’s interesting to watch these types of people. I am sure you know of a few!! :-)

Show me someone who does not read the paper (includes online), watch the news on TV or keep up to-date socially through their collective network of colleagues/family/friends with current events and I will show you someone who is one step disconnected from what is going on. Similar theme can be extrapolated to Social Media. The further removed you are from the epicenter of social activity, the less you comprehend/understand what is really happening, your peer/colleague influence is drastically diluted, and most importantly your thought leadership suffers as a result of not being vetted by the crowd.

Social media is around us, the sooner you figure out how you want to leverage it, the better off everyone else will be. Most of us are listening, but who has time for Social Media? - The Movers and Shakers do!! Get some.

My suggestion is to pick one of the following, regardless of whether you are a corporation or individual when thinking about what to do with Social Media: Watch (with purpose), Follow, Participate, Lead or get out of the way!

The epoch of 2.0

As we view the road ahead, it becomes quite clear that providing consultative type thought leadership is important. Interested to hear feedback on the following areas that can either make or break adoption of 2.0 technology. From a sales perspective our teams today understand a prospects corporate culture and their understanding of technology, however, the Rank/Hierarchy and Generational aspect of what Bloom is, becomes something new for us. Adoption of Records Management while probably more mandated, is less likely tied to your generation, where as adoption of social networking (if not mandated) is much more aligned to a generational aspect of oneself. (All things being equal. Budget, Vertical, Geographic HQ location, Current technology environment, Existing business and partner influence/relationships etc..)

4 interesting areas affecting adoption:

Culture - The culture within an organization will ultimately help predict whether or not they will be successful with a SMP and SWP.(Likewise with our existing ECM technology)

Technology - Do individual members have an aversion to it or not (Likewise with our existing ECM technology)

Rank/Hierarchy - Who will be using the technology? Senior executives or information workers? 60 laywers from a law firm may use records management but not use SWP technology, but good chance their 180 legal assistants and clerks would utilize a SWP environment. Bloom helps us drive depth.

Generational - What does Generation 'Y' prefer over Gen X? The information worker of the future will be all about access. Do not inhibit my ability to access people, business process or content. Using same law firm example as above. If those 60 lawyers are all 65 they may not use SWP/Bluefield type functionality but their assistants/clerks would. However if the lawyers are all 30-35 yrs old then it may be said that this group would embrace SWP environment ALONG WITH their clerks/assistants. UI and personalization is key.

Understanding Culture, Technology, Organizational Hierarchy and the Generational demographics within an organization helps us to be proactive in our positioning.