Presented by Karen McGrane.

  • VAX-11: the first mini-computer with a 32-bit architecture manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation.
  • Ken Olsen, DEC CEO: “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.”
  • Clayton Christensen and Disruptive Innovation
  • Transistor radios weren’t better than furniture radios, but they put the power of music into the hands of a large and growing population of teenagers in the '50s and '60s. They were willing to sacrifice sound quality for convenience.

The Digital Divide

  • 20% of Americans have no Internet access at all. 35% have no access at home.
  • 29% of Black Americans have no Internet access. 32% of Hispanic Americans have no Internet access.
  • 38% of low-income Americans have no Internet access. 59% have no broadband access at home.
  • 46% of Americans with a disability have no Internet access. 59% have no broadband at home.
  • 57% of Americans without a high school diploma have no Internet access. 88% have no broadband access at home.
  • 88% of Americans own a mobile phone. 55% say they use the Internet on their mobile device (2012), up from 31% in 2009.

The Mobile-Only User

  • Of the 55% who say they’ve used the Internet on their mobile device, 31% only or mostly use the Internet on mobile. This is tens of millions of people.
  • 44% of the Fortune 100 don’t have a mobile website.
  • 84% of consumer brands don’t have a mobile strategy. 80% of B2B brands don’t have a mobile strategy.

Know Your Workflow

  • How are people creating content? Where are they coming from? What decisions do these people make?
  • The smartest organizations are using mobile to understand their workflow better.

It’s not a strategy if you can’t maintain it.

Write Better

There’s no such thing as “How to write for mobile.” There’s just good writing.

  • It’s a “life-saving imperative” to have all of the American Cancer Society’s content avialable on mobile.
  • Good content transcends platform: well-organized, well-written content works regardless of platform.

Chunk Your Blobs

  • Long Amazon desktop product pages are broken up into smaller pages for mobile product pages.

Responsive Design won’t fix your content problem.

  • Guardian Truncation Team
  • Netflix writes several versions of their movie summaries targeted for specific devices/experiences. Designers then work their designs around those content lengths.

Disruptive technologies eventually get good or they redefine what “good” means.