Saturday, September 5, 2009

Vodafone and mobile evolution

Last Thursday I gave a little interactive presentation to a couple of user experience guys at Vodafone in Paddington. It was so interactive that we only got halfway through my slides before the hour was up and they both had to head off to other meetings. However, I got loads of great insight and feedback in that time - these interviews and presentations are helping me to build a very rich picture of the evolution of the mobile phone from a diverse range of perspectives.

Of particular interest was a discussion on whether on an abstract level, the evolution of the mobile product category could be compared to that of the bicycle, and if so, what is the equivalent stage or product in the bike category that could be compared to the current maturity of the mobile. The answer was not clear cut - depending of the level of abstraction, different parallels could be drawn. One problem is that mobiles don't stand alone, there are so many external factors acting on them from networks, subsidisation, operating systems and their homogenisation with other products and functionalities. This is an area that I will need to explore in more detail in my thesis (which I'd better get back to).

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