New sounds

I am one of those people who when I go to the bathroom in a public restroom I am as quiet as I can be and becomes super sensitive to sounds around me. I know I am not the only one. Well lately I have noticed a new sound in public bathrooms. No, don't think disgusting. It is a clicking sound. See, I work for a company that provides Blackberries for all of their employees and what I have observed is that people can not stop using these things. In meetings, at lunch, while they walk, and yes, while they go to the bathroom. People can not put down the phone. Whether they are texting, checking their email, or surfing the web, these little devices seem to be the next addiction for people both where I work and elsewhere. For me this raises the question of both reasonableness and etiquette.

I can not deny the usefulness of these tools. I had a chance to play with an IPhone the other day and was in awe of how powerful all of its features were. But when do we need to put them down and pay attention to what is going on around us. It reminds me of children with DVD players in the car; missing the scenery outside the window on the family trip. And yet these most powerful of personal data assistants have a place in a meeting where some use them to take notes and run presentations. How do we, as the users of these powerful tools, define what is appropriate. As we become a society driven by instant communication, decide who should always be in constant contact and who should not. When the President or the United States of America is stating that a Blackberry is an essential tool, how do we define the boundaries for such a tool; and for whom do those boundaries apply?

On a security front, these ever so mobile and multi-interfaced devices possess all new security challenges. Do you allow a user to have a voice and data plan on the same device? Do you allow a personal Smartphone on your corporate data network? Do you allow an individual to synch their smartphone or PDA with their corporate PC? Do you allow email synchronization but not data synchronization? do you provide a vlan for wireless mobile devices, separate from the rest of your wlan? These are just some of the security questions that need to be addressed when confronting the mobile device issue in your corporate environment. Developing a unified solution from the top administrative levels of your organization down will help to ensure that your plan will stay intact as it grows across your infrastructure. Plan for the future not for your needs today. Don't always start your first project with administration. Administrators are very busy and can not always give up the technology once they have adopted to it. You first pilot should be with users that are flexible and can use the technology, spend time with the administrators of the technology and give up the technology at any given point. remember the reason for a pilot is to test new technology. The implementation of mobile devices is new for most of us; especially when rolled across the entire organization.

You might as well jump into this technology feet first. It is not going to go away any time soon. And when it does it will only be because it is obsolete.