Jason Dunn
09-22-2006, 02:45 AM
I'm often asked what Microsoft's Mobius event entails - what do attendees actually <i>do</i> at the event? Since the Mobius Thailand event is starting in a little under an hour (by the way, <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/thailand-jasondunn.jpg">it's beautiful here</a>), I thought I'd do a quick post that gives you an example of something we did at Mobius 2005 last December in Seattle. One of the reasons why the name Mobius was chosen is that the conference is all about the "never-ending discussion". Much of what we do at Mobius is talk, listen, and talk some more. We brainstorm, we think, we conjure up ideas and concepts about mobility - in a way, it's a think-tank about Mobility. There's also plenty of opportunity to give Microsoft feedback about their products, and we often hear from other OEMs, carriers, and hardware/software developers. During one of the sessions at the 2005 Mobius event, we broke off into small groups to discuss certain key aspects of mobility: the group I was in was tasked with the ever-present issue of "killer apps". What made applications really useful, viral, popular? I thought it might be useful for readers of this site to see a concrete example of what our group came up with.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/mobius-2005-screenshot.png" /><br /><br />Above is a screen shot from our PowerPoint slide deck, and you can <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/mobius-2005.pdf">download the PDF</a> to check out the whole thing. Readers here may find my vision of the "uber shopping app" of particular interest - I have yet to see anything that delivers even a small portion of what I want that application/service to accomplish, though that doesn't surprise me considering the significant undertaking it would entail in order to truly deliver all I'd want from it.<br /><br />I'm off to grab some breakfast before Mobius starts, and hope to be posting updates about Mobius as the conference goes along. I hope this post illuminates what Mobius is all about, if only a little bit.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE:</b> MyPDACafe has <a href="http://www.mypdacafe.com/articles.php?id=248">posted a a short update</a> with some photos about Mobius so far (last night was the meet and greet, today is when Mobius officially begins).