Russell Beattie is really outraged by the lack of any understanding about mobile technologies in his latest post, Where’s the Mobility?
Does Silicon Valley have blinders on? Did they get a technology-lobotomy? These entire conferences could be filled with *nothing* but analysis of mobile tech – their impact, their influence, the opportunities and more. What are these organizers doing? Do they not read? Do they not travel outside of the country ever?
Actually, Russ answers his own question. Most people in the Valley think New York is a foreign place and London is a capital where you go to buy a suit, and Italians make fast cars. These guys, and I mean from VCs to company executives have to get themselves over to Asia and see mobility at work. Laugh at GSM, but it rules the planet. (Voice only please!)
Read my posts on the impact of Cell Phones in India, or check out Smart Mobs for latest on the mobile culture. I think if these blinders don’t come off, it is going to be lights out. Russ, thanks for saying what really needed to be said.
You know what the mobile industry needs in the U.S.? An evangelist. We need a Mobile Guy Kawasaki. There’s no point-person right now for this stuff. The GUI had Jobs, the web had Andreeson, blogs have Winer. We need someone to explain to the masses the difference between what “wireless” means and what true “mobility” is.
Russell, you know what your next job is. And on Kawasaki, well he is someone who does not understanding the impact of IM. He is part of a Silicon Valley order, which has all the money, and hence the power, but not a clue.
Indeed Kawasaki doesn’t get it. He gave a speech about a year ago to his hometown crown at the University of Hawaii. In his presentation, he suggested that only the physical water cooler is useful and certainly doesn’t understand distributed intelligence coming together under one organizational brolley. He also unfairly whacked a bunch of UH college kids who asked him for his advice on how to grow their Linux consulting business. He said something like, “How do you expect to get to a $100M market cap as a Linux consulting business?” — clearly Guy himself did not have the answers and thus could not provide a more positive response to these kids who want hope for the future. Shame on you Guy Kawasaki — you’re getting old and you don’t even see the paradigm changing. Perahps Guy’s problem is the problem of most Silicon Valley VCs (they’re getting older and don’t see the higher level social paradigmatic shifts taking place as a result of technology — exception is probably J. Doerr).
I agree with you Simon. I think the traditional view of the technology industry has changed, and it is just a shame that very few people get it. the technology now is on the edges, i.e. people decide what is cool, not some guys wearing a blue-shirt-kahaki uniform and living in california unreality.