GearBits

Optimal Use of Mobile Technology

As an academic researcher, I study how technology can be used by organizations and businesses to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of what they do. This line of investigation often leads me to think about how we, as users, have many of the same issues that corporations do. That is, how should we purchase, implement, and use various technologies to bring about the best personal results for ourselves?

Companies have a lot of techniques at their disposal that help them measure their existing and potential technology decisions: time-and-motion studies, return-on-investment (ROI) assessments, business process re-engineering...the list goes on and on.

However, the tools available to Joe User (you and me) are much more limited. Granted, you and I don't have corporate boards we need to answer to in order to justify our technology investments (although spouses might serve the same purpose). But, is there any less reason that we shouldn't be able to systematically examine how we individually use and apply personal and mobile technology, and then strive to make better investments? Does it not seem reasonable to want to get the most bang (in terms of usefulness and enjoyment) for our technology buck?

What I'd like to see is a set of software tools. The first type of tool would probably be PC-based, and it would help us analyze our cellular use and develop a cellular profile. For example, I suspect that about 85% of my mobile minutes are spent on data calls, but I don't really know that for certain. It could actually be 50% -- I just don't know. Understanding this aspect of my usage would help me decide what kind of device(s) I should be looking for (data-centric, voice-centric, or mixed?).

The second type of tool would be an application, or family of apps, that I can run on the various devices I use. It would give me a breakdown of how I operate my devices. For example, how often do I turn on each device? How long is each device on each time? How much time do I spend doing different things (e.g., using PIM (personal information management) functions, browsing the web, listening to music, playing games, etc.)? Again, knowing all this in a more thorough and systematic way would help me determine what kind of device(s) I should be looking at.

Finally, the third type of tool I want is a comprehensive decision-assistance tool. This could, and perhaps should, be a web-based tool. It would include information on all the various handhelds, phones, and related devices (MP3 players even, maybe). Then, by entering in my personal usage information (from the above tools), this app would determine which devices best fit my user profile.

Of course, that assumes I'm a mature technology user and that my current actual usage best suits what I need to do. If someone wants to change how they use their devices, this type of tool would help with that as well (need to do more mobile email? no problem).

In short, I'd like to see this happen. Will it happen? Most definitely not, for no one person would benefit enough from doing it to produce it all, and it might require the assistance and/or blessing of way too many device makers for such a project to be feasible. So, is there a subset of this dream, a whittled-down core concept, that would still be useful? Possibly...I'm still thinking about that.