I just read the new Gartner report “Mobile Collaboration Will Be Driven by Consumer Technologies and Behaviors.” Smart phones already have keyboards and fully functional HTML Web browsers. The price of cell phones is dropping dramatically, while at the same time, their capabilities are increasing. The mobile phone is becoming a fully-functional computer in your hand.
But it’s more than that, because mobile devices also have a basic knowledge of their location from the network, and GPS and other location-sensing technologies will become increasingly common during the next five years. This will allow people to get location-specific information. For example, a person standing outside a restaurant can look up reviews left by previous customers commenting on the service.
Add to that our ability later this year to let Web users log in, and tie their identity to their membership record. Imagine…
- An endowed member traveling could get on his cell phone the directions to the nearest temple, a list of the session starting times, information on whether clothing rental is available, and the times the cafeteria is open.
- A nonmember (or member traveling in an unknown city) could get on his cell phone the address of the closest meetinghouse and times of the next sacrament meeting.
- A temple engineer who is having a problem with a piece of equipment could look up the maintenance manual off the Church Intranet and if that didn’t answer his question, he could take a picture of the problem with his cell phone and transmit it to an engineer at headquarters.
- A member in Japan who commutes to work two hours each way could get a podcast and listen to this week’s gospel doctrine scripture reading assignment.
- A humanitarian missionary providing emergency relief in Indonesia could share images and information with missionaries doing the same in Sri Lanka.
Just food for thought.
Wow! What do you think that they’ll think of next?
e-sacrament Meeting!! Just kidding! Actually these services are allowing the message to be more effective, and I also think it’s allowing the church to be more efficient.
Though this doesn’t deal with mobile devices (directly), I thought the Church could put short videos introducing visitors to the church within google maps (in that little window that pops up). If the Church got really good, they could post the local ward’s schedule. This isn’t something of the future; they could do it today.
I think it is a great idea to plan ahead like this. Mobile technologies will become more pervasive in the years to come. I know there have been many times I wished I could access the online ward directories when I was out and about.
Adam: actually the church already has something like that where it would show the schedule if you knew what you were looking for — i mocked something up for what i think is a better meeting house locator in two different options (ideally a combo of the two)…you can view the quick screencast at http://www.box.net/public/uao03xgdgc
Re your send point by a stranger calling in and finding the nearest meeting house and times. I hope we can do better than with the phones. I tried 20 or so phones in Fresno (as an informed member) to try to find a meeting schedule without any luck, when we could actually solve that problem with a simple call-forwarding solution. Several non-members have reported they have attempted to call the church multiple times but could never get anyone to answer. Anyone who doesn’t understand that the Church does not have a paid mininstry have a hard time understading why there is no-one at the Church. most of our contacts come because the guy at the gas station knows who one of the Bishops are. Technology is good when we can actually make it work to accomplish our objectives.
Yes I agree, there should be some sort of solution to this, maybe some sort of recording on a machine when the bishop or clerks or some other leader who happens to be in the clerks office using MLS or holding a presidency meeting is there to answer the phone and the questions.
And this because there are still alot of people who don’t have web-capable phones, or even cellphones at all, and simply have a phone number from the phone book or something. We often forget that there is still a significan population out there that is not ‘wired’ yet, or are not due to things like disabilities, etc.
A friend of mine as good something similar to the podcast idea already up on ifyeareprepared.org