At the turn of a decade I believe it’s always worthwhile looking back what one has made out of the dreams he had at the beginning of the decade. In my case it was all about being at the forefront of innovation in the mobile space.
From viewing my first mobile video in Helsinki to the first mobile augmented reality demo in Amsterdam, I had the chance to participate to and witness many interesting projects in mobile from the 1st row: as an entrepreneur, a strategic advisor, a blogger, a speaker and a networker with a mission to inspire others to help them in the process of building new great things.
Here below a brief overview of some of the most exciting projects I worked on between 2000-2010:
SMS/MMS TV-chat [2001-02] A kind of ‘Twitter on TV’ precursor with a business model 
La Palabra Preferida for La Vanguardia newspaper [2002-04] Mobile storytelling 1.0 using SMS for users to send their favourite word daily in Catalan and Spanish. The best got documented in the newspaper edition including a popular ranking and an interview with the one who send the most original word. Other similar campaigns included “De Ulises a Matrix”, “Descubrir Dalí” and “Forum de Culturas 2004”. See also coverage by Monique Van Dusseldorp and Emily Turrettini.
MuLiMob [2004-05] EU financed multi-partner research project aimed at using Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity as hallmark to bolster the mobile market.
Quit Smoking with SMS – El Placer de Dejar de Fumar [2005] Straightforward quit smoking project through SMS. I was the 1st alpha tester and quit smoking after 27 years of heavy smoking. The user could decide his date to quit, we tracked his habit the week before he decided to stop and we sent haiku-type of sms back to the user in order to help him quit. See also coverage on we-make-money-not-art.com and Smart Mobs.
gotomobile.com [2005-06] Launching a blog focused on defining the mobile user experience in a search for a more usable mobile web, together with Kelly Goto. Check my about context and the mobile web and see how the mobile web was really in its infancy those days. Pioneering writing in this area, for sure.
Carnival of the Mobilists [2005-...] A weekly collection of the best writing on mobile and wireless.
Connecting cultures through music for Vodafone Receiver [2006] An outlook of things to come in mobile, PDF download here.
Understanding Mobile 2.0 [2006] One of the first overview articles on the Mobile 2.0 wave to come I wrote for ReadWriteWeb.
MobileMonday Barcelona [2006] Founding of the local MobileMonday chapter in Barcelona, a community of mobile professionals to promote the mobile industry and foster cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.
AdMob [2006] Initial market research for the mobile advertising startup in Spain and Europe.
Strands [2006-08] Strands develops recommendation and personalization technologies to help people discover new things. I worked especially on the development of the music recommendation & mobile strategic communications.
Mobile 2.0 Silicon Valley (San Francisco & Mountain View) [2006-...] Part of the Organizing Committee together with Daniel Appelquist, Gregory Gorman, Mike Rowehl and Peter Vesterbacka. The conference brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists.
Mobile Jam Session [2007] Launching a series of events for developers in mobile, in collaboration with Caroline Lewko.
Mobile Peer Awards [2007-...] The Mobile Monday Peer Awards are recognised by the industry as one of THE interesting events in the mobile industry during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The event has now evolved into the Mobile Premier Awards.
MobileMonday Madrid [2007] Founding of the local MobileMonday chapter in Madrid.
Louis Vuitton Soundwalk [2008] A unique location-based urban soundtrack, produced in collaboration with Soundwalk is a cutting-edge audio guide, available in six languages, offerring a vibrant portrayal of three Chinese cities – Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai – following the footsteps of the three greatest icons of Chinese Cinema: Gong Li for Beijing, Shu Qi for Hong Kong and Joan Chen for Shanghai.
Mobile 2.0 Europe [2008-...] Organizer of this two-day event exploring the emerging Mobile Ecosystem and Disruptive Mobile Innovation
Soundwalk [2009] Launch of the Soundwalk Mobile collection of cutting-edge audio tours in collaboration with Clicmobile, including “24 Hours: The Starck Mix” application in collaboration with designer Philippe Starck
.
Mobile Design Session [2009] A new series of events in collaboration with the Barcelona Design Center focusing on understanding the correlation between design and mobile and between innovation and technology.
During the last years, I had the pleasure to work with many great companies and innovative startups in mobile.
I have presented at various Mobile & Technology conferences including Plugg, next, Digital Leaders Forum, PICNIC, Future of Mobile, Club de Creativos, … You can view my last presentations here.
I have also been a jury member in various competitions on mobile applications and services, such as the MEX: The Mobile User Experience Conference & Awards, Under The Radar – Mobility, the Vodafone Mobile Clicks Awards and the TechCrunch Europas Awards.
It is in the same spirit that I want to move on into the next decade. Convinced that more openness, knowledge sharing and collaboration is key to facing our global challenges, this year, I co-founded dotopen.com. A space at the fuzzy edges of innovation, dotopen.com will hopefully help many entrepreneurs and organizations across industries to open up, exchange, collaborate, create and inspire.
I hope to meet you all there!
I’d like to salute all my friends and the great people I have worked with, my blog readers and twitter followers, it has been a great ride and a real pleasure and honor to do the work I love so much and share most of it with you. I’d like to thank all for your reading, following and spending time and precious moments with me.
Next week I’m publishing here my predictions in mobile for the next decade project.
I wish you all a very happy New Year! Looking forward to catch up with you all again in 2010!
Rudy, thanks for all the contributions, leadership and vision that you provided throughout the 1st decade of 2000. Definitely pioneering stuff! It is has been my pleasure and honor to have had met you and worked with you during this time. Keep up the good work and initiatives and I wish you an awesome 2010 and beyond!!!
ceo