Rudy de Waele’s collected the opinions of 50 visionaries in the mobile industry. Significantly narrowing his focus, and likely heightening his impact, Mobile Trends Africa brings together the predictions of 30+ industry professionals and local entrepreneurs in Africa.

via The Next Web

Wayan Vota published a great article summarizing a the findings of a report authored by Vital Wave Consulting and sponsored by the GSMA Development Fund and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women.

In the post, he includes this illustration (courtesy of a presentation authored by mPay Connect) which does a brilliant job of explaining the many facets of mobile money. The report says women are the face of growth for the mobile industry in the developing world – 66% of all new mobile subscribers will be women – and there is a huge untapped potential for business interests and for social impact.

In October, 2009 I attended BarCamp Africa, an event hosted at the Google Campus in Mountain View. BarCamp Africa brought people, institutions and enterprises interested in Africa – as a topic, an opportunity, or a place of action – together in one location to exchange ideas, build connections, re-frame perceptions and catalyze action. It was a fantastic event. Here were some of the highlights:

Build Africa by Building Business

The day started off with an interesting panel of knowledgeable folks who have direct experience with the issues Africa is currently grappling with, namely education, governance, economics and health. Professor Wanjiru N. Kamau-Rutenberg started by sharing how historically, there is a perception that Africa is considered a place where funds (both philanthropic and private enterprise) go to die; that it is truly difficult if not impossible to see a return on investment. She spoke of the third wave of democratization that is transforming the continent as a hopeful indicator of change. All the panelists agreed that building a vibrant middle class is critical for these fledgling democracies to succeed and flourish. Building a vibrant middle class will require support on many fronts, but many of the panelists and speakers throughout the day felt that building business and enabling economic empowerment was a natural place to start.

Designing a Product… AND the System to Support It

As an aid worker in Africa, Martin Fisher observed first-hand countless water projects that had fallen to the the tragedy of the commons. People had and continue to fail at taking into account the ecosystem necessary to sustain projects. Fisher stressed that developing businesses that can self-sustain is imperative. As the inventor and co-founder of the lauded KickStart Pump, Martin shared how the success of his product is the result of:

- understanding a fundamental human need

- understanding the culture and motivations of the market

- developing a product AND the ecosystem to support the product.

Martin shared the how the ecosystem currently being used for KickStart uses charitable donations for the marketing of the product, whereas the product itself is for profit and will continue to do so until the pump reaches a tipping point and can support it’s own marketing efforts.

He felt the three proof points people designing products for Africa need to keep in mind are:

1. Prove Impact

2. Prove Cost-Effective Impact

3. Create a Sustainable Exit Strategy

Martin as well as others stressed that understanding the needs of the African population is critical to designing successful products. What motivates people? What is a particular person’s value system and how can your product or service fit into that perspective? We as westerners bring many assumptions that do not fit into the cultural perspective of most Africans, yet possessing a firm understanding is required in order to develop products for the African market that have an impact. How do you get that insight? The overwhelming response of most of the speakers throughout the day was, “you have to go there and experience it.”

Mobile is the Future in Africa

Far and away the most exciting speakers and topics for me were the ones related to mobile innovation in Africa. David Kobia of Ushahidi, an open source platform that crowdsources crisis information, shared the amazing mobile work from his team. They’ve developed a variety of mobile input interfaces that allow people to easily enter information through their mobile devices. Moses Sitati of Nokia in Kenya shared how his teams focus on using participatory design and development processes – both for inspiration and feedback throughout development – to ensure the products and services designed by Nokia fit the needs of African users. I found out from a few folks that M-PESA is still vibrant and growing. A guy from Kenya told me he knew someone who had $20,000 stored on a SIM card. Amazing.

The event got me thinking about the emphasis we in the UX field put on mobile vs. PC experiences. Yes, they are fundamentally different experiences and we need to be thoughtful about the differences. But, there is probably no meaningful distinction between a mobile phone and a desktop PC for people living in Sub-Saharan Africa besides accessibility. As much as we focus on the distinction between the two experiences, the more we probably are losing sight of what really matters to people – access to information and the needs that information can serve.

Professor Wanjiru N. Kamau-Rutenberg said, “… the force in Africa is like a river trying to find a way.” It seems like it is a force that could redefine how we think about mobile technology.

Hampus Jakobsson presented a fantastic talk at this year’s MEX conference about the “wild west” gold rush mentality surrounding mobile app stores. Hampus warned most players in the mobile space are merely mimicking Apple’s model, leaving many user experience challenges that hinder the app store experience unaddressed. This talk inspired a host of great discussions about many of the fundamental user experience issues that plague app stores and ways to improve the process through design.

However, Hampus’ talk brought focus to a question that’s been lingering on my mind for a while now. As the once innovative app store strategy quickly becomes “hygiene” for many in mobile, I can’t help but wonder if all this fast follower behavior is an incremental step to something much bigger.

What if the real problem with app stores doesn’t stem from Apple’s ridiculous application approval process, scalability problems, or mediocre social recommendation functionality? What if the real problem with app stores is what they are selling?

What if the real problem is the notion of applications on mobile phones?

Applications as a means for both expressing and manipulating information in a mobile context is an interaction model we’ve borrowed wholesale from the PC. While application stores have solved many issues – ease in application development, downloading applications to a device, payment – it’s easy to forget the application model was originally developed for a fundamentally different context. A static context.

What if we haven’t figured out how to accurately express information in a mobile context and we are simply borrowing the wrong model?

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about the notion expression – how artists, engineers and designers have used creative models and methods to express information, points of view, and the possibilities of their time – and moments when breakthroughs around creative expression have occurred.

The web is a great example of inventing new models and methods to express information.

Back in the days of “Web 1.0” the internet was a vast and unexplored frontier, ripe with untapped potential. While the internet provided an entirely new way for people to access, distribute, and experience information, in 1996 nobody really knew how to create “web experiences” that unlocked that potential.

Legions of print designers applied their knowledge of graphic design and print design to the Internet, giving rise to the phenomenon of brochureware. Some designers applied immersive spatial metaphors to the web, like the famed SouthWest Airlines homepage circa 1996. And who can forget those web sites where pages had the look and feel of pages from a book. Regardless of the model, the strategy was similar; borrowing. We first borrowed models we understood, found our footing and were then able to invent new and more sophisticated ways to express information in a this new context of the web.

Art movements have followed a similar arc. A favorite example was the transition between Medieval and Renaissance Art.

A defining characteristic of Medieval art was it’s lack of dimensionality. Artisans from the Middle Ages hadn’t figured out how to represent form in perspective. Subsequently the work was highly symbolic and representational. It remains valuable and interesting work. However, from an art-making perspective, Medieval art is a study in abstraction. Artisans from the Medieval period lacked the art making methods to represent form in the way humans visually perceive it.

In contrast, Renaissance art celebrated the discovery of perspective techniques such as foreshortening, chiaroscuro and the use of balance and proportion in the art-making process. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael became masters of depicting form in a way that closely mirrored how humans perceive it. Humans were always able to perceive volume and spatial relationships, but it wasn’t until artists of the Renaissance discovered and honed perspective techniques that artwork reflected these qualities.

Data is similar to physical form in that it has perspective. We think about it along lines of place, time, and social dimensions… yet mobile applications rarely allow us to truly experience the multi-dimensional aspects of information. Instead, similar to Medieval art, mobile applications flatten data. Users are forced to either burrow deeply into single application or pogo stick across a host of lightweight applications, often with no through lines for the data. As we begin to prism data through more and more devices – televisions, car dashboards, screens in public spaces – the application model becomes brittle. It locks us into a way of thinking about information that doesn’t accurately represent the multi-dimensional ways we perceive and use it.

What if the app stores and “wild west” application development we’re seeing today in the mobile space is a re-enactment of the evolution of the web? What if mobile applications we download through Apple’s app store are the “brochureware” of what we will experience five years from now? What if applications are a borrowed and broken model we’ll ride out until the “perspective techniques” of data representation and manipulation in a mobile context are discovered and celebrated.

If applications go away, what will replace them? Compelling data visualizations? Adaptive interfaces? I’m not sure, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts…

I found this recent paper published by the Nokia Research Center (via Putting People First) an extremely interesting read. It echoes and builds on some thoughts I’ve been having recently about mobile user experience and interaction design. What has long excited and inspired me about mobile user experience is how it presents the opportunity to explore new ways for people to interact with information. The Nokia paper depicts a future where people and their mobile devices will be part of a self-organizing ecosystem of data. It’s exciting stuff, but the question remains for me… How do we begin to design for that future?

One mobile user experience trend I’ve been tracking is the slow erosion of a task-based interaction model. Most software, web sites and web-based products we use today have evolved around the task-based model, and it has served us well. PCs are great tools for efficiency and “getting stuff done”. Designers are well armed with a vast set of tools and processes that support this approach – use cases, task flows, task analysis – just to name a few.

The thing is… mobile isn’t a great platform for accomplishing tasks. The small screen and variability of the mobile context leaves most users feeling lost in a labyrinth of menus.

If PCs are great for getting stuff done, mobiles are good at exposing possibilities. More and more, I’ve been thinking that to create great mobile experiences, designers need to say goodbye to tasks, say goodbye to done… and explore new or different interaction models that leverage the things that mobile is good at. Exposing possibilities.

Here are three emergent interaction models that I think support the idea of exposing possibilities in the mobile context:

1. Accrue value over time

2. Facilitate exploration

3. Sense intent
Interactions that accrue value over time

This interaction model shifts the focus from task completion to surfacing information and making it easy for people to participate. A great example is Twitter. I’ve long heard folks who’ve never used Twitter ask, “What’s the point?” Compared to a similar experience that uses a more task-centric model like email, Twitter’s value is only revealed as users engage with the service over time. The value of the interaction is not around completing a task – typing a response to “what are you doing?” – but rather the conversation that can happen as a result.

Interactions that facilitate exploration

This is an interaction model that calls to mind two of my favorite iPhone apps – Koi Pond and Bloom. These are open-ended interaction models that are easy to enter and exit. The interfaces usually have built-in affordances that inspire curiosity and play. They usually have some type of clear and immediate feedback, are visually rich and engaging, rely on animation to aid in cognition, and often orchestrate touch, gesture and sound into the experience. Pointless? Perhaps. However, there is something so completely intriguing and fun about these interfaces that is far more emotionally satisfying than clicking a send or buy button on a web site.

Interactions that sense intent

This interaction model is one I’ve been tracking for the last 18 months and is perhaps the most exciting of the three. This model uses information from sensors, use patterns, GPS data and algorithms to anticipate needs and deliver intuitive options that make sense in a particular context. Devices are already doing this today. Sensors and accelerometer data on the iPhone can sense the orientation of the device and adjust the interface and screen orientation accordingly. The mobile Google Maps application anticipates that users will want to use their current location and automatically integrates it into the interaction. This model seems to be less about enabling users to complete discreet tasks and more about sensing what users want and delivering intuitive options.

I doubt tasks will ever be banished from our mindset completely and they shouldn’t be. The task-based model has been a good friend that’s served us well. However, it feels like the only way we can realize the opportunities that mobile interaction design presents is to say adios to our old friend, “the task” for a while and focus on making some new friends.

US mobile service providers are not warm and cuddly characters. They remind of my Grandma Jesse, who passed away ten years ago at the age of 94. She was a staunch woman who grew up poor in the rural Midwest and survived the Great Depression. My Grandma Jesse was a bully. I vividly remember her berating my mother to tears for paying too much for a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread. I didn’t like her very much growing up — especially compared to my other grandmother who let me drink Mountain Dew ‘til I shook. As I grew older, I understood her better and learned to see beyond her gruff and insensitive behavior. Throughout the course of her life, she experienced more tragedy than a person should bear. She had survived her circumstances yet was never able to transcend them — they haunted her and colored every relationship she had throughout her life.

Similarly, US mobile service providers are the gruff, insensitive bullies of the mobile landscape. They hide behind Balkanized billing services, Huckster-style contracts, and technical obscurity, all the while creating strained and contentious relationships with all who cross their path. Nobody really likes them, but most of us don’t have the energy or time to fight them. We just throw up our hands and say, “I’ll sign my life away for two years. Take my money. Just make my phone work.” Few realize that US mobile phone carriers, like my Grandma Jesse, were forged in a crucible of business brutality, and their gruff, insensitive behavior towards customers is an artifact of that historic legacy.

It all started with the landline telephone.

“Ma Bell Has You By the Calls”
In the United States, widespread adoption of landline telephones was fueled by the products and services of The Bell System, named after Alexander Graham Bell and commonly referred to by the nickname Ma Bell. The Bell System was a trademark and service mark used by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, or AT&T. Bell had a near-monopoly on the US telephone market because it owned a piece of every part of the supply chain: from the networks for local and long-distance service to the patents on the telephones themselves.

Bell was like tribe of war mongering mercenaries when it came to their business practices; they took no prisoners with competition or customers. All competitors were forced to pay part of their revenues as a licensee fee to Bell Labs. With control of the phone system, Bell could also effectively prohibit customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell companies to the system without leasing fees. An oft-heard remark of the time was, “Ma Bell has you by the calls.”

Bell’s monopolization was brutal and traumatic for all players. No entity was capable of any regulatory oversight of the market, turning it into a bitter and bloody competitive battle. In 1956, the US Justice Department attempted to limited AT&T/Bell’s power over the market by limiting it’s activity to “only” 85% of the United States’ national telephone network and “certain” government contracts. Before 1956, the Bell System’s reach was truly gargantuan and the struggle to break their monopolization of the market seemed futile. Even between the years 1956 to 1984, the Bell System’s dominant reach into all forms of communications was pervasive within the United States and influential in telecommunication standardization throughout the industrialized world.

Then a 1984 anti-trust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice brought an end to Bell’s monopoly. The case brought to light AT&T/Ma Bell’s shady and brutal business practices. The lawsuit alleged that AT&T and The Bell System were attempting to use its near monopoly in telecommunications to establish unfair advantage in related technologies, especially the fledgling computer industry. The Bell System was dismantled, but the cultural effects of their legacy have been passed down to the direct descendents of the landline phone and mobile carriers.

One would think a lot has changed since 1984 and the days of landlines, but it really hasn’t. Despite regulation and lawsuits, most US mobile service provider’s business practices reflect their brutal heritage, bullying customers, handset manufacturers, and each other. Veterans of the space are stuck in a deadlock, fighting each other in a bloody Red Ocean of feature parity and customer churn. Handset manufacturers must play the game and submit to the tyranny or risk having the distribution of their handsets choked. Customers feel it with every preposterous roaming charge or confusing billing statement. All are the artifacts of that “might makes right” struggle for money and customers.

While their history is interesting and valuable for sense-making, it’s the future fate of the mobile service providers that’s the stuff of grand speculation. What will become of the bullies? Will municipal WiFi make them obsolete? Will another technology or business model come along and blindside them out of business?

I believe the mobile carrier industry is obsolescing before our eyes. Perhaps a risky assertion, but I believe it to be true for one simple reason: tyranny in business fails because it stifles the mastery of the most important strategic strength of any modern business. Adaptability.

To quote Charles Darwin, “It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

Nothing lasts forever, and history proves that a strategy of tyranny towards customers and monopolization in business creates tunnel vision and weakness to market forces. Carriers need to adapt their businesses practices or people will find a way around them. How does a bully change their brutish ways? How do people transcend difficult histories and realize a different life for themselves?

They become heroes.

From Bullies to Heroes?
Strong. Brave. Honorable. Compelling. Timeless. Regardless of age or culture, the mythology of the hero captures our imagination because it reflects the human qualities we prize most; the qualities we want to possess ourselves. And what better model for mobile carriers to follow than the archetype of the hero?

Imagine a world where mobile carriers developed hero-like strengths that resonated with their customers. Instead of focusing myopically on technology and near-term competition, they invested deeply in making the most painful parts of the customer experience the most joyful. Plans would be flexible and fair, bills would be easy to read, cool and innovative services would be streamlined and simple to use. Anyone could effortlessly call a friend, find a business, or share photos. Instead of trench warfare, carriers would be vibrant and adaptable.

People, companies, and industries can allow their brutal circumstances to define them or choose a different path that reflects the human characteristics we prize. My grandmother was unable to transcend the brutality of her history. Mobile carriers have the opportunity to write a new history for themselves — and what better story of transcendence to write than the story of the hero.