Today i have had one of the most interesting days i have had for a long time at a mobile working party meeting in London. I came away buzzing with lots of thoughts and theories that unfortunately stopped me from catching some sleep on the train on the way back to Norwich but one point of discussion keeps coming back to me.
On the train on the way back i sat reading emails from work on my Blackberry and then checking my personal email on my iPhone while checking out the linkedin profiles of some of my fellow working party members. The concept of "always on" is of course nothing new and the curse of the "crackberry" is well known. However how far will this go with the huge expected growth in the sales and use of smartphones. When everyone is permanently connected to the web by a device in their pocket how do we as a society switch off so to speak.
One potential outcome could be a move in holidays where people pay to to go somewhere where they cannot get access to the web. Where Centre Parcs has made a reputation for banning cars and high end hotel chains run TV campaigns pushing the fact that they are adults only how long will it be before one promotes itself as a blackberry free zone. Although many business people would think this will never happen, if they ask their partners i suspect they would get a very different response.......
An interesting idea but as computer manufacturers are increasinly interested in the development of handheld devices like the iPhone and HTC its unlikely. With mail able to be sent to a phone using the most basic of mobile connections the only way to disconnect will be to leave your device at home, turn it off or visit somewhere with no signal.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively we can all change the way that we work and take a leaf from Tim Ferris of 4-hour working week fame.