Where do mobile technologies spark ideas, industry experts meet, and new ideas emerge? This fall, it's the M6 Mobility Exchange, September 15-18th, 2013 at the La Costa Resort near San Diego, California. I'm excited to attend this event - it's a meeting of the minds from 6 key industries like retail, banking, healthcare, media, automotive, and energy, as well as top software and mobile device companies.
Unlike other events, this is more of a discussion forum, where we can learn from each other, and showcase our successes (and challenges). Primarily, I've worked with retail, telecom, and financial companies in my career. At this kind of forum, its amazing to hear what people are doing in this ridiculously fast-moving area. There are a lot of clever ideas, interesting inventions, but sometimes there is more cool-factor than business results.
About 10 years ago, I co-developed a mobile Point-of-Sale solution, using, of all things, Palm-OS based handhelds. Remember those? Well today, companies in retail have adopted a mobile front end on a much sexier device, and never have to leave the customer's side. We're seeing new ways of using mobility now that real-time data is available and connectivity is almost ubiquitous.
My colleagues in sister industries like Banking have made huge strides in putting the bank in the consumer's hands - in fact, I use one of my bank's apps (developed by SAP!) on a near-daily basis. Cool, but with great utility for me, the consumer.
SAP is making huge strides in mobile payments around the world, and powering very clever retail solutions that customers love. Recently two Canadian organizations, Loblaw Companies Ltd. and the Societe de Transport de Montreal rolled out apps that are tops in popularity. Again, using SAP mobile technology.
The part I find most exciting is seeing the amazing ideas that our customers and partners develop using our tools - sometimes in ways I've never imagined. If I don't see you at the event, I'll try to report back on some of the ideas that I find most impactful. And if my battery holds up, you can follow me @colinhaig and I will try to add some insights to what I hear at the event.
Until next time, I hope you also hop on the mobile express !
- Colin
