Smartphone Technology and the Designer

Smartphone technology is one of the single fastest growing technologies afforded to businesses today and has changed the way many businesses operate. More and more firms are turning to Smartphone Applications to enhance the way customers interact with their products and services and even boost their bottom line. In today’s world, customers expect to have everything at their finger tips and receive feedback on a timely manner, if companies can’t provide that information quickly the results can be devastating. Providing an application for clients will assist in keeping companies on the mind of your customer and give the company a modern, up to date appeal.
A modest Smartphone Application can cost between $6000 to $8000 dollars to create and implement, and most companies will see this as a wise investment for improving Company Client relations. Even Small business can have an application with less features and buttons for around $2000 dollars.

History

Smartphone Technology emerged in 1993 with release of the Simon by IBM; this phone contained a calendar, email, world clock, calculator, notepad and a couple of games. Since that day Smartphone Technology has evolved into what are basically, small computers, offering the same characteristics as your desktop or laptop. In the mid to late 1990s PDAs became all the rage and the technology advanced to start offering applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, music, cameras, wireless Internet and so on. Today there is not much a Smartphone cannot do and the technology is advancing with leaps and bounds every year.

Benefits of Smartphone Technology

The benefits of using Smartphone’s are enormous to any company large or small and offer tons of features and applications that can assist you in your daily business or private life.

• Keeping you organized - Smartphone handsets can function as personal organizers, with electronic diaries, contact lists, and automatic reminders
• Flexible working - as with a PDA, you can use your Smartphone to take notes, review and edit your appointments, contacts and documents, all while you're on the move.
• Information at your fingertips - Access to maps and directions to television transmissions with news coverage or weather reports to traffic information and scheduling alerts - which means your business can always stay one step ahead of what's going on.
• Never out of touch - you can connect to the internet for e-mail and web access 'on the move', or connect to your computer network to access relevant data, wherever you are, making it easier for remote workers, or a mobile workforce to stay in touch with the business.
• Faster communication - web access is quicker, making it easier to access e-mail and information from the Net. Some models and carriers offer an 'always-on' internet access service making connection easier.
• Sell and Promote Products – Personalized Applications for companies allow mobile users to browse and purchase products from any location via a wireless connection. The power is in the hands of the consumer which holds the Smartphone where ever they go.

Who is using the Technoloy

Many Companies are already using this technology already, Pizza Hut, Amazon, Dell just to name a few. Break Down Way, a small company from Pomeroy Ohio is an online company that provides guitar and bass lesson to their clients. David Wolff, owner of the company has found a new way to attract customers by offering an application that will provide lesson via Smartphone technology. The plan offers 5 free lessons and for those who wish to continue to use the service a small $29.99 monthly fee will be charged which will give customers access to the full catalogue of lessons taught by artists including Jorma Kaukonen from Jefferson Airplane and Michael Falzarano from Hot Tuna. That’s just one small example of the technologies many uses and the best part is that any company can benefit from it.

Problems Associated with Smartphone’s

As with most technology Smartphone’s due have some problems and business and consumers need to be aware. The most pressing issue is with security and if plan to do online banking or transferring data be cautious, stealing IDs and data transmission is a common type of fraud. Another concern is that in todays fast pace world people are using Smartphone’s while driving and it has been a factor in many auto Accidents and Fatalities. Many States are now passing legislation to ban there use while driving in effort to reduce such accidents.

Smartphone’s and the Designer

As a Designer understanding and being able to design applications for customers will afford us a means of revenue, far into the future. Smartphone Applications are not trends that will go away in the near future, they will continue to grow and evolve as the needs increase, which by all predictions are immense. Smart Designers will take the opportunity to learn and become fluent in this technology so that they can keep ahead of their competitors and offer clients that extra touch that is so valuable in today’s economy.

Flash CS5

The upcoming release of Flash CS5 will incorporate many features for designers to create all types of mobile phone applications for a wide range of phones including the iPhone. Designers will be able to create applications and compile them to run in apples native code for the iPhone, other Smartphone’s will be able to load SWF files in regular Flash format through the web browser. Some of the many features are listed below

• Accelerometer Input – A new class allows developers to read acceleration values in X, Y and Z axes and control them with Actionscript 3.
• Screen Orientation – SWF content adjust automatically between Portrait and Landscape modes or remain consistent with the way the application was built.
• Graphics hardware acceleration – a GPU based vector renderer replaces the software renderer on the Smartphone resulting in faster rendering performance while using less power.
• Reuse Action Script 3 Code – You can use existing code long as the phone supports the functionality on available devices, Just make sure it is web optimized adjust for mobile

Designer who take the time to learn this technology will reap the benefits of an ever growing market and the market is one of the fastest growing technologies of today. Some say that Smartphone’s could replace computers altogether for the regular person and business, I don’t think that will happen, however; I do feel that it is wise to understand and offer this technology as a service in my business for future success and stability.

Links of Referenced Material

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125071635069144197.html
http://www.laptopxl.com/devices/smartphone/
http://www.is4profit.com
http://www.scmagazineuk.com
http://www.taterboy.com

Change Agents

Interactive Media vs. Digital Media

One may ask what is the different between Digital Media and Interactive Media, I bet if you asked 10 different people you would get 10 different answers. The terms have evolved along with the technology that drives them and will continue to change as technology advances. If you go back a few years, even an overhead projector was considered “Multimedia”, but the arrival of the digital age caused a need to differentiate between analogue (linear) and digital (Interactive). Terms began emerge like ‘New Media’, ‘Digital Media’ , ‘Interactive Media’ and more, although the terms Digital Media and Interactive Media have become more stable and are being used increasingly. Let’s look at the definition of Interactive Media.

Interactive Media: Interactive Media is the integration of digital media including combination's of electronic text, graphics, moving images and sound into a structured digital computerized environment that allows people to interact with the data.

If you interpret Interactive Media by the definition above, then it will lead you to the conclusion that they are one in the same, Interactive Media is consuming the term altogether. I personally like the term Interactive, when you think about the word itself you picture a person who is involved and interacting with his environment, whereas the word digital means ones and zeros so to speak. However, I think that both terms have a life in today’s world, in my view the terms can coincide together and complement one another. I view Digital Media as a form of one singular media at time such as Video, Audio, and Text and so on and Interactive media would be the culmination as whole, a finished product that masses interact with.

Change Agents

You have all heard the phrase that the only thing in life that is certain is “Death and Taxes, If I act as a proactive change agent and modify phrase to incorporate a new word, the only thing that is certain is “Death, Taxes and Change”. As a person who has worked in management as a Systems Manager for over 20 years, one thing that I have learned is that change is inevitable in today’s workplace. Change can often be a scary frontier at first glance, the safety in business as usual affords us piece of mind and comfort, but we have to embrace change and growth.

I’m afraid that companies, especially small ones, who fail to incorporate change will not survive or remain competitive in the fast past of modern technology. Change can help if we give it a chance. I would encourage everyone to actively embrace and search for new technology that can deliver your message better to the consumers, Promote change in the workplace and allow information to flow freely and efficient. Don’t change for the sake of change, Change for the sake of improvement and efficiency.

Technology in the Future

I think that no single technology will have an impact more so than any other, it’s the embracement of multiple technologies that will have the greatest overall impact. My plans in the future include Photography, Videography and Website Design. This is an ever-changing field where advancements in equipment and software change yearly, if not faster. Rapid advancement in computer chip technology is allowing much more data to be stored on much smaller devices. The equipment is smaller, faster and with much better resolution than in years past. The technology of change itself will be the contributing factor in most cases, seek all the technology that drives your business and learn from the market that is what will have a lasting impact of success of my company in the future.

Why Blog

Blogging was introduced by a student from Swarthmore College named Justin Hall in 1994, since then blogging has evolved from only a few to over 112 million active blogs by the end of 2008 according to Technorati. Today even presidents or potential wannabe presidents have blogs to inform potential voters of their platforms and agendas. As for the people who read blogs how about a whopping 346 million blog readers globally, now that a target audience worth thinking about.

Why should a Company Blog?

There are many potential reasons for a company to get involved in blogging, but first you have to understand that blogs are a form of media, just like video, print, audio or a presentation. Blogs, if done correctly can deliver results. Below are just a few reasons a company should consider blogging.

• Customer Relationships
• Media Relations
• Internal Collaboration
• Knowledge Management
• Recruitment
• Test Idea or products
• Rank High in Search Engines

Customer Relationships: In a forum where you are not selling anything, blogging will give you a better personal relationship between you and your clients. It's a great way to provide tips and insights or receive feedback.

Media Relations: It a smart idea to create a blog so the media can regularly check up on what you have to say instead of being the recipients of the boring press releases.

Knowledge Management: Blogs are an easy way for the readers to find information and resources they want or need, also blogging could be considered on the job learning.

Recruitment: Blogs help portray your company as a thought leader and good potential employees who are searching can read your blog and see what you have to say and chances are good that you will attract them.

Test Ideas or products: Blogs are informal, it can be a place where people can comment, and the blog can provide you with a measure of value. Publish an idea and see if it generates interest.

Rank High in Search Engines: This is perhaps the most important reason for getting into blogging, Google and other search engine reward sites that are updated often and that link to other sites and most importantly, that has many inbound links. Blogging will boost your ranking.

Tips to improve your company Blog

These are my 5 suggestions for making a company blog better, after all if no one is reading your blog it's not beneficial to anyone.

1. Write Interesting Articles in your line of Business: What people really want is, to read blog posts that are interesting and relevant to your business, things that they normally do not see or know. Things that your company is good at.
2. Make It Easy to Promote your Blog: Once you're posting interesting articles make it easy to share with others who read blogs on the internet, particularly on Social Sites. Including just one "re-tweet" button or a facebook link can drive tons of traffic to your blog.
3. Introduce your staff and show some Personality: Don't hide behind a user name of admin; introducing the human element on a company blog can be really effective in terms of relationship building and marketing in general. You will find that readers with then began to bond with you and your company on a more personal level.
4. Be Active in Your Corporate Blog: Set a timetable on how often you are going to update your blog and stick to it. Readers will become accustom to your posting schedule and know when to check back for more information. If you don't update it regularly then you will lose readers.
5. Respond Quickly to comments made by Readers: If a reader posts a comment on your blog requesting more information, then by all means, don't keep them waiting for weeks on a response. This will cause your readers to bail ship; they will see it as lack of good customer service.

Designers and Blogging:

As a designer I think it would be good to inform your fellow bloggers about the latest trends you are working on or that have reached the market. This tells your readers that you care and seek to stay knowledgeable in your field and they can trust you to make in right choices when they do business with you. A designer can also post his latest piece of his portfolio to show work that he particularly proud of. A designers work is never done, so getting feedback on avenues that you are considering could be a very interesting topic, not only for you, but others who considering similar approaches. Staying connected and developing a good network of friends, colleagues and clients will keep your business on the right track well into the future.

My First Blog

What is a blog:

In the most simple terms a blog is used by an individual, company or group to communicate thoughts, promote events and products or simply have an online diary. A blog can be about anything the author chooses to write about, with hopes that other will find it interesting and read it.

Blogging Tools

Before delving to deep into blogging one needs to consider some of the tools that best suits the blogger's needs, I will cover three free online blogging tools that you may wish to consider.

WordPress

word press is a free online download that you can install on your computer and upload to your website or you can publish your blog free of charge using the software at wordpress.com. Wordpress offers an easy sign up page to create a new blog. It features several templates to choose from as a main theme and you can change CSS to suite your individual needs. Wordpress also allows you to insert other types of media such as Images, Audio, Video and Polls with a simple click.

Wordpress also includes Dashboard that is the control center for your blog, there you can view your blogs stats and quickly add new content to your pages. It also allows you to edit in HTML mode and you can highlight text and with a click apply certain HTML tags. All media uploaded to your blog has to be under 3.0 GB total, however if you need more space it can be purchased for a an for a fee. It also give the user the ability of using trackback and pingback as a means of linking to other blogs to increase traffic your blog. The interface offers a lot to user but it takes getting use to. I found loading an image or placing media is not strait forth and requires a little figuring out.

LiveJournal

Live Journal is also free online at livejournal.com. You can use live journal in many ways; as a private journal, a blog, a discussion forum or a social network. Live Journal offers a quick sign up with minimal information. The interface is nice and allows you to edit your post in either rich text or html, the editor allows to add images and other types of media to your blog. One of the nice options in Live Journal is a menu below the editor that you can select the configuration of the posts. You can allow comments and even screen comments, insert tags for your journal for search engine optimization and configure who can view you blog.

Live Journal also allows several ways to post to your blog, Bookmarklet, Downloading from a client, IM posting, Voice Posting, Mobile Posting and Polls. You can use custom CSS to style your journal to fit your needs or choose from a wide range of templates they provide. I find that Live Journal is easy to use and provides some nice features to use. It's not the heftiest blog tool on the market but it's free and will give you all you need for your blogging needs.

Blogger



Finally I will talk about Blogger from blogger.com. This software is easy to use and if you have a google email account then your already able to use their site. The sign up is quick and they offer easy to use template to style the blog to your needs. The editor is painless and allows you to edit in html and compose mode and use custom css to style your pages if you so choose to. You can choose if you want to allow comments to your blog or not. Blogger also allows the user to insert images and video and other media to your blog, and the editor is very easy to understand even if your a novice in html.

My Results on Blogging Tools

My research has concluded that most blogging system offer the same thing in one way or another, the editor seem to be pretty much the same from one to the other with only a little difference here and there. The main thing is now what your going to be blogging about and choose the one that is right for you and that you feel comfortable with, you know some like Fords and others like Toyota's. I choose Blogger, not that it's really any better than the other but because for me it was the easiest to understand from a beginners blogger point of view. I'm ready to start blogging the only question is, is blogging ready for me? Only time will tell.