In an article in the New York Times Tuesday, October 23, 2012 titled In Mobile World, Tech Giants Struggle to Get Up to Speed, authors Claire Cain Miller and Somini Sengupta write about the massive impact that the "rise of mobile devices" has caused the high tech industry.  Many of the traditional powerhouses of technology including Google, Intel and Facebook are struggling to find their footing in this mobile tsunami.

Industries such as books, music, hotels, TV, PC manufacturing and electronics of all kinds are being forever changed or eliminated.  Forrester Research analyst Charles S. Golvin is quoted in the article as saying, "Companies are having to retool their thinking..."  We must ask ourselves, "What is it that our customers are doing through the mobile channel that is quite distinct from what we are delivering them through our traditional Web channel?"

Social is right there with mobile.  They are growing hand in hand and benefiting each other.  Today, 6 in 10 Facebook users are accessing it through the web.  In fact, eMarketer reports that people using mobile devices for surfing the web, using apps, playing games and listening to music more than doubled in the last two years to 82 minutes per day.

Mobility is causing a mighty shift in so many things.  Has your team thought about how to respond to this shift?  Is mobility and these mighty shifts on your 2013 strategy session agendas?  Are you considering this shift while developing your budgets for 2013?

The authors of this article also said mobility is able to change so much so quickly because the web already exists.  The web, and wireless connectivity to it, are what makes all these changes so quick and potent.

I teach workshops on mobile strategies and SMAC - social, mobile, analytics and cloud.  In the enterprise space today, it is hard to separate the components of SMAC.  They are really a convergence of all four parts.  Just think about using your smartphone to search for a restaurant.  You are using a mobile device, with search analytics, you may access Yelp, a search engine/social site for reviewing restaurants, and it is all in the cloud.

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