A controversial new study done in England suggests that 1 in 3 Britons are “addicted to technology”.

Professor Nada Kakabadse of Northampton University in the U.K. published results stating that up to a third of of the individuals they researched feel deprived if they are separated from internet access or the devices that provide it.

“You would be surprised how many people keep their PDA or BlackBerry next to their beds,” she told the BBC.

“Technology has become much more interesting over the past 10 years with the internet and everything. It is much simpler and much more portable which makes it more accessible.”

The study drew from a pool of 360 people, which is not statistically a broad enough reach to satisfy many critics. Otehrs, like the folks at Gartner (a mega-research corporation) say that the study doesn’t dig deep enough into what the Internet represents - is it the technology? Or the conduit it provides to the world?

However, most experts agree that the growing need of individuals to be ‘plugged in’ has become a widespread psychological phenomena.

So the next time your significant other insists you’re addicted to your new iPhone, you can point out you’re in good company!

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Here you go folks, Matt Westover’s final post from inside CES 2008!  It was a great week for MoGo and thanks for following it through the days!!

The Harsh Realities of…The Morning After CES

Where are all the camera’s?  Where are the producers? What happened to my limo?    Uh-O, CES is over and it is back to reality.

Reality started for me at about 1am Friday morning when I landed back in Boston.  My limo had morphed into a dirty cab taking me home.  Upon exiting the cab at the corner near my house, I accidentally hit the door handle getting out of the car and knocked my Blackberry out of my hand and onto the wet ground outside the car.  This would not have been the end of the world until I realized the cab was parked over a city drain and my Blackberry bounced off the grate and fell perfectly through one of the holes and splashed in the drain water below.  The screen light was on so I could clearly see my bberry sinking down and into the pipe with the rain water.  In one second, my phone and my database was gone. Yes it was gone forever.  How did I react?  It was an irreversible occurrence and had to get over it and figure it out in the morning.

The 6am wakeup call came very quickly and the day was going to be a busy one.  Once the kids were fed and off to school I was staring at a 9 foot Christmas tree in the middle of our living room that needed to be sent out with the trash.  Whoa, I just went from summer weather in the “anything goes” city of Las Vegas to rainy cold weather in Boston staring at a Christmas tree that needed to be cut in pieces and thrown out.  Clearly, I was back to reality.  Grabbing a power tool, I cut the branches off the tree and took it all out for trash.  One action item down; many to go.

Now, I was chomping at the bit to get to the cell phone store the moment it opened. Without my phone and email, I was out of contact with our MoGo team and had to get connected again.  The store was open and my replacement phone was in stock.  Now the challenge was restoring my database; if I could get it back at all.   After 20 years in the backup segment of the market, I had a backup of my bberry database and could quickly back off the proverbial “edge of the bridge” as the day was looking up at that point.

Now I could get back to work.  Or so I thought…..  It turns out I had to take our dog to the vet as it was one of my roles I agreed to when we bought the dog.  After a couple of hours and a little medication, our dog was back in action and I now I was back to work.  What happened to my life of luxury I had the day before?  It may not have been reality but it was much easier than this juggling act I was going through today!  And who needs reality anyway?

Ah, there is the twist.  Reality may have very wide or very narrow swings of its pendulum. It is for each one of us to manage the adversity reality can place in front of us at any moments notice.  This week of CES was all real and the pendulum swung broadly from the highs to the lows and it was up to our MoGo team and me to manage ourselves through it and drive the company ball down the field in 2008.

All the best athletes, doctor’s, teachers, business professionals (the list goes on) have setbacks and difficult times in their journey to success.  None have an easy ride and a straight road to success. What made them the best and what defined their character is how they responded to adversity and how they stood back up on their feet, dusted themselves off and kept competing.  A champion is made in the difficult times and recognized as such later.  A champion prepares tirelessly without the camera watching and executes with unwavering focus when the camera’s are rolling!

Though everyone wants to be a champion; few are preparing themselves to overcome their own or their company’s own challenges/setbacks to become a champion!

Now that the bright lights of the camera’s are gone and the limo’s aren’t here, it is our time to prepare/execute for the year and come back to CES in 2009 and beat our past performances!  Yes, as it turns out, we are our own competition and if we worry about ourselves and stay focused to our game plan, we can surpass our CES success of 2008.

Today’s reality was challenging; I will make tomorrow’s reality better!

Matt

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College students and young business professionals around the world…get ready to spend even MORE time Not doing your work.  That’s right, one of the world’s most up-and-coming companies is now coming to another platform that will make it even More up-and-coming, and have even More people spending even More time on it.  Facebook, my friends, is coming to BlackBerry.

You hear right, the ever-so-helpful and time consuming social networking site is now going to be accessible on your very own BlackBerry.  According to new reports,

“BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has launched Facebook software designed especially for its smartphones to make it easier for users to browse the popular social networking Web site. T-Mobile has been chosen as the first carrier to provide the new software to its customers. The application leverages the push-based BlackBerry system architecture and Facebook Platform to create a unique mobile experience for Facebook users.” 

Hold onto your hats mobile warriors because your social networking life just got a whole lot more mobile.  All you BlackBerry users are going to be reaping the benefits of Facebook, everywhere you roam.  Enjoy…now try to get something done.

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With more and more of us going online from a SmartPhone or a PDA, there’s a need to simplify the experience. There’s nothing that can plug up your productivity than finding that you spend more time organizing and navigating than actually working and learning.

And the truth is, doing some general housekeeping a couple of times a year is a necessary part of maintaining our online lives.

Here’s 4 things I recently did as a Spring (in the midst of summer) Cleaning exersize:

1) Started using the Subject Line of my emails more efficiently. Instead of replying to someone who wants my phone number with the number in the text of the email - I put it in the Subject Line. I got the idea from Jeff and Calvin over at Tech Republic and I can tell you - people getting their emails off a Treo or Blackberry really appreciate when you can put as much beef in the subject line as possible, and often respond in the same manner - my email ‘conversations’ have become much more clear and simple.  (Read their article for some more great email tips.)

2) Created a useful homepage. It was recently pointed out to me that I was spending too much time going to each site and blog that I regularly read for information. So I sat back and looked at my start page (I default to Yahoo, don’t shoot!) and decided to do it smarter. Using the MyYahoo feature, I was able to build a homepage that includes the RSS feeds of the last 3 posts from the 6 blogs I MUST read daily, plus ticklers for news topics I regularly track (’Bluetooth’, ‘IT Security’, etc.). I was able to keep the things I already liked - like top news from BBC and Reuters and stock quotes.

3) Cleaned out my ‘links’ folder. I did it by hand, but there was an easier way: With the help of software like AM Deadlink (get it here free), you can comb out the old links in your ‘favorites’ folder and keep just the ones that matter. I gave myself bonus points for organizing everything into a few reasonable subfolders.

4) Dumped the Instant Message clients I wasn’t using. While it is well and good to be available to your assoicates, clients, and management - these chat clients suck bandwidth and can even create security holes. It was time to weigh the reality of what I used and didn’t. An interoffice client like Sametime or Reuters plus one more should be enough. If it isn’t, look into combining on a platform like Trillian.

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For Blackberry users, the world is about to get a lot simpler.

Research In Motion (RIM) rolled out the “BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (BlackBerry MVS)” this week.

It is an integrated enterprise solution tthat allows corporations to covert their BlackBerry smartphone users to securely authenticated members of the the company’s PBX telephone system.

The new BlackBerry Mobile Voice System comes in 3 components:

• BlackBerry MVS Client (a component of BlackBerry Device Software)
• BlackBerry MVS Connectors (a component of BlackBerry Enterprise Server)
• Ascendent Voice Mobility Suite (a software suite that interfaces with heterogeneous PBXs)

Once all three are installed, BlackBerry smartphones will become, essentially, recognized extensions. They will be able to send, receive and manage enterprise calls from their handset. Users will have a single “Reach Me Anywhere” phone number that simultaneously rings their desk phone and BlackBerry smartphone.

For those mobile warriors who live on the road or in their home office, the application of this new suite has some nice benefits. A Blackberry synched to the company’s PBX will allow them to access desk phone functions such as transfer, park, and extension dialing on the BlackBerry. Plus, outgoing calls will displayed with the corporate identity on Caller ID.

The system comes completes with the sndard security features, IT policies and system management functionality provided within the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution, including the ability to automatically authenticate mobile users to the PBX to help ensure that only authorized users and devices are accessing the corporate telephony system.

“RIM’s ability to deliver a robust, feature-rich platform that securely integrates with enterprise data systems has always been a major contributing factor to the success of the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The ability to now deliver the same value proposition for both voice and data systems provides another unique dimension to the BlackBerry platform and presents another major opportunity for customers to maximize their return on wireless investments.”

BlackBerry MVS will be previewed at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2007 in Orlando, Florida and is expected to be available from RIM and Ascendent Systems later this month.

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