Jinfo: Is your information upwardly mobile?

Is your information upwardly mobile?
Jinfo Blog

11th October 2010

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Is your information upwardly mobile? If you attended the packed FT breakfast meeting on 'Using Mobile Content within the Enterprise' you would have been able to take some time to ponder this, along with a host of other interesting issues that came to light through FreePintâs recent research project involving interviews with information managers about their organisations' interest in mobile content.

Here's a brief history of killer applications: First there was the phone, then came email, and now we have a whole bunch of apps to fit each individualâs requirements. These days, we were told, 'it gets personal very fast'. The consumer wants control, or should that be 'prosumer'? Mobile content usage so easily crosses the boundaries between our professional and personal lives that the term 'prosumer' -- for 'professional consumer' â is part of the vocabulary.

In order to capture these personal (as well as the enterprise-focused) views, FreePint's research approach was based on interviews. This was a clever decision as it meant that the questions didn't all have to be pre-defined and enabled many of the less obvious issues to come to light during the interview process.

Of course, security is a key issue. However, it's not just a question of remembering more passwords, due to lack of an IP address to link to, but also the security implications of where the data itself lives. Is it locally hosted or held by a third party?

Within the healthcare sector, where FreePint found a lot of innovation in mobile usage, data security is a critical issue, which will become even more critical as mobile devices are increasingly used as diagnostic tools. A mobile phone-cum-stethoscope or glucose monitor can connect an individual with underlying health information but will require different levels of security: one level for patient (consumer) access and another for the medical professionals.

Interestingly, the ability to access internal as well as external content is becoming important, but the priority list for content types varies from sector to sector. For example, the legal profession is using mobile content, but still requires its print-based sources and libraries. In other sectors, such as high-tech consultancy, the corporate library has all but disappeared.

There are also two types of mobile worker - those who are themselves on the move and need reliable access whatever the network, and the mobile worker who is building-based but moves from room to room (as in a hospital setting).

Mobile content is developing, but access is often restricted to one platform. Developers require a return on investment before much platform expansion can take place. This was also well-illustrated in the article from Research Information's June/July issue: Research in an "app".

Of course the meeting covered numerous aspects - too many to mention here - you'll just have to read the report (request a free copy from the FT; VIP subscribers will also have a full copy added to their accounts by the end of October). But I'll end with a note on the devices themselves, something that is simply in the nature of being a small device.

It was clear to all that the difficulties of the phone's small screen are not going to go away (âIt's going to get worse!' was one despairing cry), but at least this does ensure a place for the tablets which are, perhaps, this year's Big Thing. Otherwise, as one of my techie friends commented recently, if we're not careful we'll all have 'iStrain'.

Sarah Hinton is a business information researcher at Manage5Nines at blogs at The Disruptive Searcher.

Participate in Phase 2 of the FreePint Research on the Enterprise Market for Mobile Content by completing a very brief online survey about your habits with mobile devices and content. Participants will receive a copy of the full report upon publication.

The following FUMSI articles may be of interest:

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