When the term ‘mobile’ is used, it generally refers to being on the ‘go’, i.e. away from work or home. In this new connected age every second counts as we interface with businesses and customers around the world. As businesses and business people, we want to impress clients and compete with quicker response times. Customer needs, on-the-spot trouble-shooting and fast sales-cycle are examples of real time operations that can benefit from being always on. Yet, sometimes it can be a challenge to maintain a balance between our business and personal lives while being always on.
Personally, I have been experiencing this challenge the past few years as a founder and executive here at SoonR. We have a company with offices in the US and Europe, and are engaged with customers on 3 continents. My phone rings a lot. Text messages come in at all times of day and my inbox grows like weeds. I think I have over 4 thousand messages in my inbox, but that’s another story.
One consequence of this is that I have to turn my smart-phone off when I go to bed, simply to get some quality sleep and not be woken up by constant ringing or other sounds from the phone throughout night. The down-side is that I have had to get a regular alarm clock instead of using my phone. In the morning I prefer a gradual wake-up rather than jumping out of bed immediately. I have come up with a new ritual which I call ‘mobile in bed’.
The idea to use my Nokia N800 internet device, connected with SoonR from bed. The N800 is an amazing on-the-premise device with fast WiFi connectivity, a great browser (Opera) and scaled down Linux-based architecture. To me, the N800 is a great example of a light internet based device. I hope the UMPC manufacturers are paying attention to this device.
SoonR and the Nokia N800 are great companions; they act as the perfect remote control for my laptop and its applications which is left in my office. I get access to all my emails and attachments (no spam thanks to the spam filter in Outlook) from multiple email accounts (soonr, yahoo-mail and gmail) under one interface. I can easily forward documents and slide-shows as SoonR provides me with access to all my remote PC’s (including Mac’s) where the documents reside. “Mobile in Bed” means I can have a nice slow awakening in bed where I handle the most urgent business matters before I get up. When I eventually get up and start working on my laptop; all the work I have been doing with SoonR is also synchronized back on my laptop automatically. I can see which emails were sent earlier, meetings scheduled etc. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my smart-phone and use it a lot, but I find myself using it more when I am mobile in the traditional sense: on the train, walking on the street etc.
Viewing the Desktop Folders on the Nokia phone
Viewing photo thumbnails on the Nokia phone
I think this is an example of how we will see work habits change over the years to come. The definition of mobile will expand to not only cover when we are physically away from our primary workplaces but also to when we away from the constantly changing digital content that is so critical in our jobs. Work is no longer 9-to-5, its more integrated into our life-style and it can take place anywhere and anytime. At SoonR, we are very focused on understanding the key use cases in this life-style and delivering meaningful solutions – even in the bed.
