I am notorious for forgetting to pack important items when traveling. My problem started when I got married and took on the responsibility of packing for the honeymoon; a simple camping trip to Virginia Beach. We had received camping equipment for wedding gifts and I had the packing list under control with a new tent, Coleman stove, pillows, lantern and more. After driving for 12 hours, and setting up the tent in the dark, I came to the unfortunate realization that I had forgotten to pack sleeping bags. This marked the beginning of a long future of forgetting important things. Another camping trip, this time in the interior of Algonquin Park, I forgot the can opener and had mostly canned food packed. This past summer, again interior camping for 5 days, I forgot the bag that contained all of my three children’s clothes. Then there were the four times this year that I forgot to pack a hair brush on business trips…
Usually I am pretty good natured and can accommodate my poor preparation skills. Like having my young kids wear my clothes with sleeves rolled up 15 times and drawstrings pulled to their tightest, or brushing my hair with a room service fork in an emergency (yes, it happened). At least, unlike my SAP coworker, I have never packed for a week at Sapphire and forgotten to bring pants.
While on vacation in September, I realized that 16 years after the sleeping bag fiasco, I was on a trip and for the first time I hadn't forgotten anything! It was a turning point, a monumental occasion that I was proud of. And it made me debate the importance of good planning vs. immediate access to the right tools. I have never really been concerned about forgetting little things, after all you can always pop in to the corner store for a hairbrush. But it makes the trip way more enjoyable when you don’t have to.
This of course got me thinking about mobility. While I was on vacation, I was preparing for five mobile industry events in the coming four weeks. The next week I would be running the CTIA MobileCON and Boxworks conferences, both with partners who focus on Mobile Content Management. When I first saw demos of these partner solutions and starting using SAP’s own internal mobile content management solution, I was excited about the possibility of being prepared for anything with content at my fingertips. It’s like the ultimate packing list. A tool that guarantees you won’t forget your sleeping bag.
As a marketer, I know that distributing content to my stakeholders is critical to their success. Providing sales reps with the latest product information to help them sell our mobility solutions is important – doing it securely is critical. This week at SAP TechEd I was helping my colleage record a video with our CIO Oliver Bussmann about the most important issue facing CIOs today. His response hasn’t changed over the past year – mobile security – specifically the importance of securing all data, apps AND content – is job #1.
Offering the necessary base security and delivery of content efficiently is the next step in mobility. I’m personally looking forward to being sure my stakeholders are always prepared for their ‘trips’ to every customer meeting. Having the content they need on their mobile device automatically is like having their suitcase packed with a sleeping bag, hairbrush, clothes and can opener. A dream come true.
