Is the desktop dead? Scoble and friends face-off on mobile
As part of the BusinessNext and (New Media Expo) conference, held this past January in Las Vegas, I asked a couple of interesting and highly accomplished friends — Robert Scoble and Vala Afshar — to discuss the impact of cloud, social, and mobile in the enterprise.
Read more from the Beyond IT Failures blog
Famous blogger, author, and Rackspace executive, Robert Scoble, spends significant time with large and small companies to learn about their latest products and innovations. Robert is widely regarded as one of the most influential startup evangelists in the world, and he is currently writing a book on contextual computing with co-author Shel Israel.
Vala Afshar is an author and Chief Marketing Officer (also Chief Customer Officer) of networking equipment manufacturer Enterasys. [Disclosure: Enterasys is a consulting client for market strategy, positioning, and messaging.] Vala's role at Enterasys gives him a unique perspective on mobile, with projects like providing wireless for 70,000 seats at the New England Patriots football stadium, specifically to help the team enhance its fan experience with social computing, video content, marketing, and other mobile applications.
Also read: Professional sports innovation: Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox, and Bruins
The panel discussion covered a range of topics including:
- Consumerization of IT
- Impact of "bring your own device" (BYOD) on employees and the organization
- Growth of mobile computing
- Machine-to-machine communications and the Internet of things (IoT)
- Contextual computing
- Big data and "weird data"
- Future of call centers and customer service
- Implications for the CIO
This panel was great fun for both participants and audience, as evidenced by great enthusiasm in the room and high ratings received afterwards.
Watch the entire panel in the video below; I'm sure you will find it enjoyable and informative.