Paradigm: Mobile

As mobile computing becomes increasingly more commonplace in the corporate world, we must shatter many misconceptions surrounding this technology before its true potential can be fully realized. The common stereotype of devices like the Pocket PC is that they are simply a personal organizer with possibly some games, multimedia, or wireless Web surfing. Although mobile computers possess all that functionality, its their capabilities are blatantly understated. They do not merely replace your personal planner, cell phone, Walkman, or GameBoy. Devices such as the Pocket PC 2002 are, in reality, fully-enabled computers operating within a different paradigm--a mobile paradigm.

The mobile paradigm is changing the way we work, play, and communicate. It breaks the chains binding the information worker to his desk, all the while opening up entirely new dimensions of business capability and productivity. One of the most valuable commodities of the 21st century is information, and the mobile paradigm enables that information to go places and to do things otherwise impossible. If you will learn to think within this mindset, you can give your organization an enormous competitive advantage.

As you encounter people of other professions throughout your day, turn on your imagination and take a moment to identify ways that they could use mobile computers. From doctors to inspectors, waitresses to salesmen, you will see how the mobile paradigm can open up bright new opportunities that will help people do their jobs better, faster, and more efficiently. You will learn to see how paper-based forms can be eliminated by entering data directly into a handheld, and how reference manuals and inventory sheets can be replaced with a database-driven mobile application. You will not only come to understand how this technology can replace existing functionality, but also how it can create completely new capability.

Once you are able to think on this level, the next step of entering into the mobile paradigm is to attempt to apply it to your own business and job function. For many, this is extremely difficult to accomplish. They are used to the way things always have been, and this paradigm shift requires a large amount of fundamental change that is bound to be hard for some people. Most business processes are designed to be as efficient as possible given a set of intrinsic limitations (e.g. staff productivity, technology capability, etc.). Radical new technologies that require a paradigm shift have a completely new set of capabilities and limitations. This type of technology often can not be applied to existing business processes because the processes themselves were built around the limitations of a different technology. If the new technology is applied anyway, the result will likely be extremely inefficient. In order for the new technology to be productive, new business processes may have to be developed. You must keep this in mind as you're attempting to apply the mobile paradigm to your company, because change will be necessary and it won't be easy.