A new report published yesterday by the UN indicates that 67% of the world’s population, or two-thirds total, are mobile subscribers- far outweighing Online access.

67% of the world’s population represents around 4.6B people, up from only 1B in 2002, indicating staggering continued growth.  In developing nations, however, the uptake is even more substantial with 57% of the total population in these nations being mobile subscribers, even though other technologies are scarce.

What's your Mobile Strategy?

Regardless of what you do... you need to think through this. How does it affect your business? Your constituents? Your congregants? Your members?

You don't have to be a business to have a strategy... you just need to understand that you have them right there. They all have mobile devices ... what are you going to do about it?

What's your call to action?

‘Economists, said John Maynard Keynes, should think of themselves as humble specialists, on a par with dentists. But his advice has gone unheeded. Over the past 50 years, economics and its jargon have penetrated every corner of human life. Decisions to marry and inject heroin alike are explained in terms of utility maximisation. Doctors, priests and scientists are lumped together as service providers or rent seekers. Schoolteachers are urged to “add value” to their pupils. The pig philosophy, as Thomas Carlyle called it, has become all-embracing.

Of the many harms inflicted by economics on the English language, “human capital” is the most grievous. Coined by Chicago economists Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker in the 1960s, it refers to the stock of personal skills and qualities that constitutes a worker’s economic value. Such skills and qualities are often costly to acquire and yield returns only over a long period of time, so are readily thought of as a kind of capital. Mincer and Becker’s work has provided the intellectual rationale for the huge expansion of higher education in recent decades. In an economy dominated by the knowledge and service industries, with personality and expertise at a premium, “investment in human capital” is the name of the game.

The phrase “human capital” is now so thoroughly naturalised that we seldom pause to ponder its implications. What is capital anyway? Capital is not a particular kind of good, but any good viewed in relation to certain interests. A donkey is capital to the wood-carrier. A derelict church is capital to the restaurant entrepreneur. Capital, in short, is wealth viewed not as an end in itself but as a means to more wealth. The phrase “human capital” insinuates that human beings too are to be viewed in this light—as instruments of the productive process. We have all of us attained the status which Aristotle reserved for slaves, that of living tools. What a triumph for the dismal science! Keynes naively supposed that economic growth was for the sake of personal cultivation. His modern successors have put him right: personal cultivation is for the sake of economic growth.’

Brilliant. ‘Human capital’ shall not pass my lips again.

Neither will it cross my lips (I hope).

So are your employees assets? Capital? Furniture?
Are they only a means to an end? That end being making a profit for your shareholders... for you?

How you view your employees will determine how well they perform for you and how difficult a new implementation will be. If they feel valued and taken into account they will take ownership of the work and the new tools you are providing for them. If it is mobile technology... how will it help them? Will it improve their workflow? Their work-life balance?

If we see them as assets they will only perform to their stated specifications. If we see them as collaborators in our success they will give more... much more.

Yesterday I spoke with City News‘ Kris Reyes about the challenges businesses face in customer service in the age of social media. In Toronto we’ve seen numerous recent instances of “citizen journalism” highlighting problems at the TTC – a TwitPic of a TTC worker sleeping; a video of a bus driver’s unscheduled coffee break in the middle of a route and finally a perhaps ill-advised Facebook page set up by some TTC staff.

It’s a tough time to work in a customer-facing job. It just takes one slip-up and, if you’re unlucky, you can find yourself all over the news – online and offline. This is especially the case if you work for a publicly-funded organization.

For now it is just a link.

As you visit the original article and watch the video (click on link below)... one thing to note is that it is all enabled through mobile phones.

http://citynews.video.citytv.com/?bcpid=29650505001&bctid=65662189001

The new tools allow Google Apps Premier and Education Edition administrators to manage enterprise smartphones directly from the Google Apps control panel, without having to deploy additional third-party mobile device management software offered by vendors like Sybase iAnywhere and Good Technology (formerly Visto).

IT administrators can lock down and remotely wipe data from lost or stolen mobile devices and establish more complex password administration protocols. Google Apps Premier business customers pay $50 per user per year, while educational institutions receive the service free.

Google Apps supports almost every device on the market today, including RIM BlackBerry with the introduction last year of its Connector for Blackberry Enterprise Servers. However, interestingly, Google has yet to produce enhanced security and mobile management support for RIM BlackBerry or even its own Android phones like the Droid and its recently unveiled Nexus One.

When it comes to entering the enterprise, Google’s moves, so far, appear deliberate and calculated. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported Google plans on launching an online business software store packed with third-party applications that seamlessly integrate with Google Apps, which may replace today’s Google Solutions Marketplace. Google would not confirm the plans, saying only, “We're constantly working with our partners to deliver more solutions to businesses, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”

The company also remains mum on when it will commit fully to an enterprise Android strategy. A Google spokesperson told Channel Insider, “To date, Android-powered phones have been targeted toward consumers. Future versions of Android will introduce more functionality for IT managers to deploy enterprise devices, which will be of particular interest to our Google Apps customers.”

Google’s silence is not stopping some business-to-business software developers and VARs from supporting Android, however. DataViz, the creator of Documents to Go and RoadSync, is experiencing substantial success in the Android Market, telling Channel Insider that it is close to reaching 500,000 downloads of its introductory version in the Android Marketplace. The company’s software also comes preloaded on RIM BlackBerrys, and supports Symbian-powered phones and iPhone.  DataViz also offers an enterprise version of its software, complete with volume licensing. The company has a variety of resellers like CDW and Insight.

Good Technology, a provider of enterprise mobile security and device management software as well as mobile e-mail and collaboration software, recently announced its support for Android. Good faces an uphill battle as its offerings are slowly being challenged with the release of the ActiveSync protocol and bundled versions of mobile device management and security offerings by Microsoft and Google.

Enterprise mobile application and platform provider Antenna Software supports Android as well, and sees the growing pervasiveness of Android in the enterprise as key to its business.

“Overall, we believe very much that device diversity is a wonderful thing—people love choice, and the fact that Google is creating choice is great for the market. We see a good amount of interest and pull for Android from our customers,” says Jim Somers, Antenna’s chief marketing and strategy officer.

The mobile OS wars continue to provide sport and plenty of blood-letting for those interested, and the fun is only beginning. Apple and Microsoft are facing a massive threat with the increased adoption of Android and Google Apps. Apple CEO Steve Jobs thinks he knows what Google wants, telling employees recently, “Make no mistake, they want to kill the iPhone.” Jobs continued, using an expletive to describe Google’s “Don’t Be Evil mantra,” which the search giant quietly dropped last spring.

Time will tell, but if Google’s early 2010 moves are any indication, the mobile enterprise is set clearly in the company’s sights.

Google is not going to ignore enterprise mobility. It is too big an opportunity to pass by.

As a Google Apps user I welcome any and all improvements to the Google Solutions Marketplace which is not very user friendly or intuitive. In fact it is the main reason I haven't really extended my Google Apps beyond the basic stuff.

Are there reasons to suggest that the iPad won't be Apple's third game-changer in a decade, following the iPod family of products and the phenomenal iPhone, which has turned into a mutli-billion dollar business in less than three years?

There are at least three things that give me pause.

First, I wonder if Apple hasn't actually created too good an interface for content providers. One of the things I love about my Kindle is it has just the right sets of features for reading books and many magazines. It is basic content delivered easily at reasonable prices.

Apple's device allows textbook publishers and others to pour on multimedia features like pictures and videos. Publishers love that option because it seemingly gives them options to charge higher prices. But is it possible that many customers don't actually want the extra bells and whistles? They just want the basic content at affordable prices.

Of course, that's not true for all customers, some surely want as many features as they can get, but it is possible that content providers jumping onto the iPad platform will overshoot the market's mainstream, providing more room for Amazon's Kindle and other simpler readers (of course, Amazon is trying to figure out how to get third-party applications onto the Kindle so it can compete with Apple).

Also, the iPad is entering a pretty crowded space. Not only are there are growing number of e-readers, multifunctional netbooks share many of the same features as the iPad (without the slick design, of course), and other major manufacturers are coming up with their own tablets as well. I'm sure there are a class of consumers who will look at Apple's device and not see a place for it in their arsenal of gadgets.

And that leads to my third concern. I wonder whether Apple is beginning to get into uncomfortable territory where it will face hard choices about the degree to which it cannibalizes itself. One of the great things about the iPod is that it was all new growth for the company. The iPhone might have cannibalized the iPod a bit, but for the most part it was all new growth for the company. Apple surely hopes the iPad slots in nicely between its phones and its computer lines, but if it doesn't, Apple might have a difficult balancing act on its hands.

It's hard to bet against Apple. The two things I admire most about the company are its ability to think holistically about business models (iPod + iTues, iPhone + the App store, iPad + iBookstore) and its willingness to keep innovating. Imagine how different it would have been if Apple stopped at the first generation iPod, or just rode the iPod for as long as it could. Its willingness to step out and enter into new categories is an important lesson for all companies.

The National Safety Council estimates that 28 percent of all auto accidents are caused by drivers talking or texting on cell phones.

To put that into perspective – if a figure that large really needs to be put into perspective – in 2006, 9 percent of auto accidents were caused by alcohol or drugs, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Cell phone use causes 1.4 million crashes per year, and at least 200,000 additional accidents are caused by texting.

“We now know that at least 1.6 million crashes are caused by drivers using cell phones and texting,” said Janet , president & CEO of the National Safety Council.

“We know that cell phone use is a very risky distraction and texting is even higher risk,” Froetscher said. “We now know that cell phone use causes many more crashes than texting. The main reason is that millions more drivers use cell phones than text. That is why we need to address both texting and cell phone use on our roads.”

At any given time, 11 percent of drivers are using cell phones. One percent is texting, which increases crash risk by 8 percent. Drivers using a cell phone for any reason are 4 times as likely to be involved in an accident.

I think many of us have been playing with fire and have been lucky (read: blessed) to not have had any accidents. This is something that employers should also consider when thinking through the mobile processes.