Right now there's an ad on TV for ATT Wireless. It mimics a scene from one of those shows where folks take their hoped-for, supposed, and suspected antiques to experts to find out if they're worth anything. The expert looks at the item on the table in front of him and explains that it's an old time phone.
"See this hole back here," he says pointing to the place where the phone line plugs in. "They actually had cords that they connected to the wall."
"Ohhhh," says the hopeful person who brought it in, "That's weird."
It is weird and the only reason we don't think so is because most of us have grown up held in place by cords of all kinds. There are power cords, of course, but also printer cables and telephone lines.
Every one of them holds us captive and limits our movement. But not for long. Let's go back to that ad for a second.
"Want to know what it's worth?" asks the expert, referring to the old wired phone.
"Sure," says the hopeful person quite hopefully.
"Diddly squat," smirks our expert, using a colloquial phrase meaning "nothing at all."
Today that's not true, but the expert may be right sooner than most of us imagine. Those wired devices will be replaced by wireless tools that will make us more productive and let us work more naturally.
It's not natural to be tied down. That's not how we want to work. We want to be able to move around, and go where we want and we don't want to be limited by the length of some power cord or phone cord.
The first cell phones went on the market back in 1984. Now, almost twenty years later, more than half of Americans over the age of twelve have one. Americans spent an average of $53 per month to talk 442 minutes per month in 2002, up about 100 minutes from 2001. Nearly 60 million Americans take their cell phone to work where they make about 40 percent of their business calls using a cell phone.
The latest phones have all kinds of fascinating technology, but the technology is not the really fascinating part. What's most fascinating is the way the technology changes the ways that we live and work. Consider what happens when someone gets a cell phone for the first time.
They start out with a kind of fascination with the device. Watch as they take it in and out of a pocket, briefcase or purse. They put a couple of numbers in memory, dial their friends to tell them they're on a cell phone, call their landline phone and leave a message so they can hear what they sound like.
In the beginning most folks figure they'll only use their cell phone for a limited number of calls. That starts to change rapidly and as the number of calls increases, so does the impact on lifestyle.
One impact for most folks is that they become much more flexible in their time planning. They find that the cell phone lets them change their plans at the last moment and makes it easier for them to coordinate activities with friends and family.
"I'm just leaving the University," says the Most Beautiful Woman in the World when she calls me in the evening, "Can you put dinner on now?" or "I'm going to stop at the supermarket, do we need anything?"
That's the kind of phone call that was so rare as to be almost non-existent before cell phones, but has become common today. Couples and groups of friends coordinate shopping and errands and social schedules on the fly in ways they simply couldn't with wired phones.
Back then they had to hunt up a phone to make a call and hope that the person they wanted to reach would be at the phone they were calling. There have been similar changes in business.
In Woody Allen's movie, "Play It Again, Sam" Dick Christie calls his office from home to let them know where he's going to be. "I'll be at 362-9296 for a while. Then I'll be at 648-0024 for about fifteen minutes. Then I'll be at 752-0420."
Dick obviously spends a lot of time away from his desk. He's in good company. Research carried out for BT Cellnet found that employees spend an average of two hours a day away from their desks. A study by Sun Microsystems found that their people spent about a third of their time away from their desks.
Today Dick wouldn't have to work so hard. He'd just carry his mobile phone. And he'd carry on a lot of his business in public.
That's something that folks take a while to get used to. When they first get their phone they're likely to say that they're never going to carry on a private conversation in a public place. They tell you that they'll never be guilty of "Cell Yell." But in time they get comfortable doing their business on the phone and in public. And we get used to hearing them.
Being cut free of wires on our phones and computers changes a lot of things. We're only beginning to come to grips with the changes in social norms that we're bound to make. Without a formal or conscious process, we seem to have decided that it's worse etiquette to confront a public cell phone talker than it is to talk loudly on the phone in public. Other decisions are still up for grabs.
I've heard cell phones go off in business meetings, almost bringing work to a halt. Some top executives are taking action about that. Tom Rotherham of RSM McGladrey fines folks fifty bucks if their cell phone rings during a meeting. Other executives have tried similar strategies and given them up. Some have banned cell phones from meetings all together.
Ringing cell phones aren't the only distraction that the wireless revolution brings. In college classrooms and business meetings folks sit there with their laptops open, but instead of paying attention, they're answering email, sending text messages to colleagues, or just surfing the net while the meeting or class is in progress. Some professors and some executives have banned laptops in those situations. The results have been mixed.
In the public sphere frustration leads to legislation. Starting in April New York theatergoers caught making calls, talking on cell phones, or whose cell phones ring during shows will be in violation of a new law. Pagers and beepers that make noise are also banned. The law also applies to concerts, movie theaters, museums, and libraries. And, of course, there are laws on the books that are supposed to stop you from using your cell phone while you're driving.
We're clearly in the midst of the change to a wireless world. If you want an idea of how that world will look, just spend some time at a local mall. Watch the kids.
A study by Frank N. Magid Associates tells us that over half of all teenagers have cell phones. That seemed low to me, especially for teenagers from middle to upper class homes. So I did some intensive research.
The intensive research consisted of asking Joanna, daughter of the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, if any of her friends didn't have a cell phone. She couldn't think of one. Joanna is eighteen and a freshman in college.
Then I thought about all our children. Between us, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World and I have six children. They all have cell phones. Not one has a landline phone in their own name. That's the future.
The young folks I've seen have all the social behaviors that researchers have identified in older folks. They use their phones as a way to coordinate their schedules and the details of life. They do a lot on the fly. They talk on the phone in public. But there's more and it's that "more" that gives us a glimpse of the future.
Young people treat their cell phone like their wallet. It's always around.
The phone is a primary way to stay connected to their social network. They chat with friends about all kinds of things and in all kinds of places.
US young people are a good leading indicator, but there are some places where the young folks are even further ahead of folks like me. Those places, like Japan and Scandinavia, give us even more insight into what the world may be like in just a few years.
In those places wireless phones are already part of the social fabric. In Norway they are a popular confirmation gift. In the US we're just starting to see parents give a cell phone to their child at some special age, like sixteen.
In the US lots of young folks with new phones have text messaging. In Japan 90 percent do. Japanese young folks use text messages as a way to share things privately and as a sort of "knock on the door" to see if a friend is up, or able to talk on the phone. Often a text message is the first point of contact when asking for a date.
In the wireless future we won't have cords that tie us down and limit our movements. We will have more freedom and more flexibility, especially in our schedules. In that world that old landline phone will indeed be weird relic. Don't throw it away though. It might make a good investment as an antique.
