I was recently at a conference known as Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  I would say that this has become the defacto standard for the show to see if you work in the telecom industry.

While it has evolved to become more than just a conference for mobile technologies, mobile phones and networks are the roots from which this show started. As I looked rode the shuttle to the conference one morning, I looked at all the attendees and I was amazed by the immensity of the mobile industry and the careers, products and services that exist that evolved out of nowhere in the last 25 years; from a Motorola “bag-phone” to thousands of smart-phone models and 100s of thousands applications and companion products.

What has occurred is that the innovation of the mobile phone has changed our communication and information access practices to the point where we NEED a mobile phone. Okay, we don’t really need one but we do have a very strong preference for one; and since they provide real security and communication benefits, tying us virtually to friends we’re not really with, the “want” is truly transforming to a “need” for many of us. The latest statistic is that there are 6.8 billion cell phones in a world where there are 7 billion people (please note that some people can have multiple phones and some mobile phones are actually built into tablets, cars and other equipment so the penetration is overstated on a human level). My intention with this posting is not really to comment on the value of cell phones, even though that’s where my bread is buttered these days; my intention is to talk about how innovation and perceived or evolving needs drive entire industries.

What do we “need” these days? We could say that we need only safety, shelter, food, companionship and something productive to do with our time. While that may sum up Maslow’s view of the world, for most of us, our practical needs have evolved to include a TV, broadband Internet, a car, a smart-phone and likely an iPod. I agree that these aren’t real needs but if a majority of people have these things, they can be considered need-like meaning that most people will purchase them. When you’ve driven a new product or service, like hi-speed Internet, to that kind of level, you’ve basically created an entire industry which will provide and service these new needs for all of us.

I believe that another need and industry will be surfacing soon based on technology becoming available. But before that, I want to talk about the early days of video recording in our family. A long time ago, my brother Al had the foresight to use video to capture our family moments for “posterity” as our Dad used to say. He purchased one of the first portable VHS camcorders and was able to capture many family moments including this great moment as he and our Dad made a pot of tea while out in the Northern Ontario “bush” scouting some new moose territory.

I also went out and bought a video camera (or 3) and of course took a lot of home movies with them. However, what I wanted to do with the camera was also to set it up in my office from time-to-time to document the way I felt about life and life events I was going through. For example, go home after the birth of our first (or 2^nd or 3^rd) child and chronicle the way I felt so that they could see this at some point in their lives, when they cared to, even if that might not be until when they had their first child. Well, mostly because video is such a personal thing and because semi-scripted, or even off-the-cuff, personal video still requires editing to some allowable level of “perfection”, I never did do even one of these sessions.  I have since, captured some video of my work and vacation travels though and uploaded them to Kamazooie for posterity.

So now it has come full circle for me, but about 30 years later, and through a totally different medium. I find that blogging and the photo and video storage of Kamazooie and other sites like Facebook and YouTube are allowing me to do what I wanted to do when I bought my first (huge) video camera in 1985. Does anyone care to read my blogs and watch my videos, maybe, maybe not; but I care to document them and I appreciate that the folks at Kamazooie are allowing me do that. There are some things that still could make it easier for me to document my life for posterity but they will evolve into Kamazooie and Facebook and other sites I’m sure.

The point for me is that tools, like smartphones and the Internet which just turned 25 years old this week, have evolved for me (and for all of us) into enablers that provide lasting and meaningful benefit as a means of sharing life experiences and documenting who I really am, for the benefit of who knows who, but at the very least, for my benefit and for the benefit of my family long into the future. Case in point, these tools have allowed me to post Al’s video of our Dad and our dog as he made tea in the bush 30 years ago and allow his grandchildren, who never got to meet him, to catch at least a small glimpse of what it was like to be with him for a “spot of tea” as he says in the video.

So thank you to cell phones and the Internet for allowing me to capture some of my greatest life moments for the sake of posterity.

P.S. Hello out there great-great-grandchildren!