BROWNE INNOVATION GROUP

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

BIG’s Blog: I’m behind again?

There are those of us of a certain vintage that can remember the pre-personal computer (PC) age; the world where only large organizations could afford to access computer power. Today, as it has been related to me, my laptop has more computing power than the U.S. Air Traffic Control system circa 1968.

And now, just as I am comfortable with PCs and networks, it’s Bye-Bye, PCs and Laptops. Writing in the Op-Ed section of the Wall Street Journal, Mike Malone and Tom Hayes, a Silicon Valley journalist and tech entrepreneur respectfully, share with us the news from the annual Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show that smart phones and tablets (think iPads) will soon handle the majority of our personal computing and communications needs.

For us as consumers, this really isn’t a surprise. We all know that plain vanilla cell phones – those used to call and be called – have given way to smart phones with built-in features like being able to text and downloadable applications (apps) that are helping manage our lives and are changing our modes of communications. Can you still buy plain vanilla cell phones?

It’s when we put on our fund raiser’s hat that this news gets a bit unsettling, especially if we are still highly dependent on direct mail for a significant portion of our revenue. To reach your next generation of donors, you’ve just updated your Web site and started sending mass emails and now these donors are abandoning PCs and migrating to smart phones and iPads. What changes in how we communicate through those devises?

-Mike

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