Monday, April 10, 2006

The Mouse Mouth Chronicles: Notes for the ISOBAR Summit

I’m down in Boca Raton, Florida for the ISOBAR client summit. I have to say, this is a bit like a homecoming for me. There are three people here that I worked with during the very heady late nineties at a place called Red Sky: Julian Aldridge, Deirdre McGlashan and Tim Smith.

As for the title of this post, it occurred to me that “Boca Raton” is (more or less) Spanish for “Mouse Mouth”. Hmm…hopefully I can get a good explanation of that. In the meantime, Nate Elliott and I are trying to spread the meme; by tomorrow morning, when we’re on stage for a search-engine session, our goal is to have everyone know our translation.

The big headline of the day, so far has been the release of new data from ISOBAR and Yahoo! called “Fluid Lives”. It’s a significant undertaking, placing wireless technology directly into the homes (and lives) of families in five countries. The data is going to be available soon, but one particular thing truly struck me.

Of course, use of technology goes up when people are given (duh) technology. The more interesting thing, and the heart and soul of Fluid Lives, is that pervasive technology, such as that which comes with the installation of broadband and WiFi. This was driven home by a single slide. I haven’t got the slides, so I’m going to go from my notes to communicate the data:

More involved politically: 26%
More involved with my community: 29%
More involved with organizations related to my interests: 55%

This is amazing. The technology doesn’t simply connect people; it lets people get connect to themselves, to the things they want to do an be. I imagine that most people want to be involved and connected to their community. I know I do. But the fact is I haven’t truly got the time to go to the meetings. However, I certainly do love the fact that I can dip into the Portola Neighborhood Yahoo! Group.

No wonder people claim a feeling of being “lost” without their Internet connection. Suddenly, the connection that you had (to people, not to other computers) is gone.
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