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The Women in Mobile interview series seem to be really popular among m-trends.org readers so I thought it might be good to bundle some of the latest interviews not published yet for your summer reading.

What I like about the series, apart from getting to know all these wonderfull women of course is the diversity of characters interviewed but especially how passionate they all are about the potential of Mobile. Whether they work as software engineer, as executive or entrepreneur, as artist or designer or as activist, they are all very open-minded and forward-thinking, how diverse their job functions may be.

This post to bundle the following 4 Women in Mobile interviews:

- Sarah Blow, behind the London Girl Geek Dinners

- Julia Dimambro, CEO of Cherrysauce, a mobile adult entertainment company

- Stephanie Rieger, inventing and designing mobile lifestyle at Yiibu.com

- Katrin Verclas, Executive Director at N-TEN (The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network)

If you are a woman working in Mobile or if you know a woman that you think should be part of this interview series, please drop me a note (email at the right in sidebar). Enjoy the reading!

Image © phonemag.com

cherrysauce, girl geek dinner, julia dimambro, katrin verclas, keitai, londongirlgeekdinners, m trends.org, mobileactive, mtrends, nten, sarah blow, stephanie rieger, Women in Mobile, womeninmobile, yiibu

I came to Sarah’s blog somewhere last year during my web 2.0 related research for MuLiMob. It was a discovery for me since Sarah writes from her own experiences with a very down-to-earth approach. I found her input very relevant against the so much hyped-up space of the mobile market, we’re used to.
You can download a 3gp video of her web 2.0 in the mobile space presentation at the Mobile Monday London in June. She’s also organising the London Girl Geek Dinners, if I were female (and geek) I definately would not want to miss one. But enough from me now, let’s hear it from Sarah!

BACKGROUND - WORK

- Can you explain more about your work?

I am a software engineer working for a Medical Device manufacturer. My role is to design, develop and maintain Microsoft C# applications for the Windows CE platform. I don’t work on mobile phones but the devices do have a wireless capability and use the same underlying platform as windows mobile.

Prior to this I was at university in Manchester UK, and wrote software for PPC phone edition and Windows Smartphone utilizing the camera and GPRS to send images and data to remote servers.

- Are you more social, business or technical oriented?

I am more technically orientated than anything else. I run London Girl Geek Dinners but that is not my day job. Technology and technical depth are what I am focused on at the moment. I am constantly learning and I enjoy the technical challenges, which is what keeps me in the industry.

- What brought you into mobile?

I ended up in mobility totally by accident. I did my undergraduate in Computation at UMIST in Manchester and entered an ideas competition whilst I was there to extend my final project to include a mobile front end for data capture. I won the scholarship to do the masters and that is where mobility came into my life.

I went to my first World 3GSM conference whilst at university and from then on I have been pretty much hooked on the stuff. It’s something about the small screens, the limitations and need to problem solve that draws me to the market. I love a challenge!

DIGITAL LIFESTYLE

- How does mobile technological progress influences your daily routine in your work?

At work mobile technology progress influences me little in my day to day workings as we tend to ensure that our hardware has a longer lifespan than most mobile devices. We look more to military and car manufacturing components for hardware. In terms of software we are pretty much open to ideas.

As a blogger mobile technology progress has had a reasonable impact as outside of work I do blog and write about mobile technologies, the issues that I see with them and some of the ways of overcoming those challenges. I have spoken at Mobile Monday here in London about Mobi-Web 2.0 and by the looks of things everyone has a different opinion on what they see this as.

Mobility has caused a lot of changes to occur in peoples every day lives, some of it for the better and some for the worse. What I see needing to happen in order for mobile to take off is for close coupling between developers, phone manufacturers and network providers (be that the likes of Vodafone or even Wifi or WiMax owners).

- Which tools you use to publish, blog or moblog your work?

My blog is hosted by Geekswithblogs. I can publish from my mobile, or direct on the site or via an e-mail. It’s fairly flexible and it does the job for me. I don’t blog about my work as I am under NDA on the work that I do as I work in a research and development department.

- Which applications and services do you use regulary on your phone?

I only tend to use my day to day mobile for answering calls, and sending text messages. It’s (was) a Symbian OS Samsung phone. It has a camera but I rarely bother to use it. It can access the internet but I find it easier and quicker to do that when I am at home. The size of the screen makes me question the usability as does the input method. (I managed to drop it in water a week ago! Now it’s dead and I need to get a replacement!)

If I need a phone that can browse the net and stuff then I usually swap sim cards over to my old XDAII as that has a bigger screen and better input facilities. I also sync my e-mails to this phone as well, however it’s too bulky to carry around all the time… (maybe it’s time for a Smartphone… but I hate the UI on them!)

- Would you use your device to interact with other machines?

If I used the camera on my Samsung then I would send the photo’s to my laptop via Bluetooth. Other than that I don’t tend to use it for device to machine interaction.

- Which machine-to-machine can you think of would be handy to interact with?

Any to any would be nice… use phone to pay for can of coke… rather than carrying money… um… interactive maps for when you get lost… inter-car communications.

- Would you download mp3 tunes on your phone? Share them with friends? Mobsharing? Any thoughts on DRM?

I don’t download music to my mobile phone. I tend to have that on my matchbox MP3 player.

DRM…. File encryption… need I say more…. Limiting, slow and needs to become a lot smarter before people will accept it and be happy with it. It’s easy to get around at the moment and most people try to avoid it. It’s a bit of an annoyance but it’s nothing that can’t be worked around one way or another.

- What about Mobile TV?

Nice idea but why would you sit and watch TV on a small screen? Great for advertisers but not really all that practical for the average user, overly expensive and will cause chaos with drivers…

GEEK STUFF

- How do you experience the Mobile Internet? Which mobile browsers do you use?

Mobile internet… I use it on my PPC but I avoid it at all costs with my Symbian phone. I use the IE browser on PPC as it is there and just works. It is fine for doing mobile browsing. I’ve never had an issue with it. Symbian on the other hand…. :S I say nothing. (silence speaks louder than words!)

- Web 2.0? Do you use it? What does it mean to you? Does/will these evolutions influence mobile technology? How?

Web 2.0: RSS, Blogs, Wiki’s, Tags, Open API’s…
Yes I have an RSS reader, and also an RSS publisher. I use Wiki’s for organizing and planning the London Girl Geek Dinners. I have 2 blogs. One that everyone knows about and the other is a private one with non mobile and relatively non-tech stuff on it… I tag things when I feel like it and I will use Open API’s as and when I need them.

Web 2.0 is just evolution with a fancy name. It really isn’t all that definable because the boundaries of what it is will always change. I try to avoid fitting things into boxes of web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc… it doesn’t make logical sense to do that!

The past always influences the future as the past is the building blocks of the future. So yes Web 2.0 will influence mobile technology, however mobility has different issues when looking at the evolution of the internet as it has different constraints to the standard pc, with issues of small screens and sometimes connected devices.

- What are your favourite mobile user-generated content projects?

My favourite user-generated content projects… I would have to say miki… the mobile wiki site… It just makes sense to me… a quick way of collaborating and sharing info online… ☺

- MoSoSo + wi-fi + urban networks = ?

A whole load of new and innovative products… ☺ I can’t wait!

- Do you develop content/technology yourself?

I develop content through wiki sites, my blog, my website and the London Girl Geek Dinners website. I develop software as well… I guess it depends on what you mean by develop technology… maybe…

FUTURE OF MOBILE

- How do you see the future of mobile?

Ubiquitous… pervasive… intuitive… intelligent… context, content, location and socially aware. Many applications, many implementations, not hardware constrained, personal… expressive and interactive.

- What do you think about the Fixed-Mobile-Internet convergence?

I think it will bring on some interesting new companies and business ideas. I look forward to seeing what comes out as a result of it.

- 3G vs. Wi-Fi?

3G & Wifi… both have their own uses and have their own very different usage scenarios. Both bring with them different benefits. I still await the day when I have Wifi, GPS and 3G on a single mobile device with the camera and the MS Mobile OS… that would be a very useful business device. ☺

- Hybrid phones?

Hybrid phones… hmmm… will become the norm, as will VoIP. I welcome the day when calls and communications become cheaper.

- What differences do you see of mobile use in USA – Europe - Asia?

Having not been to Asia I can’t comment on that and the last time I was in the US was a very long time ago… as such I can not comment on the differences between the markets. (that I will leave to the market experts)

- What is gonna be the next *big thing* in mobile?

Who knows…. If only I had a crystal ball… If I knew that I would be a multi millionaire… there are loads of great apps out there but I haven’t seen the “killer app” yet!

- The mobile trend(s) for this and next year?

Usable interactive systems with ubiquitous communications channels. Attention marketing, smart information location services pushed to mobile. MoVideo uploads, live podcasts, RSS to mobile.

PERSONAL FAVORITES

- Who inspires you professionally?

On a professional level I am inspired by Richard Branson for his innovation and enthusiasm to put his everything into making things happen. I am also inspired by the likes of Celia Francis (Wee World) who has an amazing way of multi tasking and has the drive and determination to get to where she wants.

- Your favorite mobile technology blog?

My favorite mobile blog… hmmm… I don’t have a favorite… I have my most used mobile blogs but I don’t have a favorite mobile blog… my favorite blog is gapingvoid. I just love the drawings ☺ (keep up the good work Hugh!)

- Your favorite mobile device?

I change my mind daily… usually it is small, light, fast, with the most features to it relating to communications and data transfer. ☺

- Favorite mobile application/service?

I found my favorite mobile application just before the London to Brighton thanks to Paul at Modaco. It is the frwd performance monitoring system. It has a mobile UI to the GPS device over Bluetooth and gives heart rate, altitude, speed, and location details direct to mobile. (but only for the Symbian OS… but I don’t mind that!) The software is truly awesome. (I love sports so it’s great to be able to analyze performance and data both whilst doing sport and also after races!)

- Your ultimate dream scenario including mobile?

Hmmm… I think that would be owning my own company and writing mobile applications and having unlimited device access from the phone manufacturers.

- The ultimate tech device not invented yet?

Voice reactive device that is wearable, portable with discrete screen. (Such as in glasses screen)

- Which links would you like to be included?

www.londongirlgeekdinners.co.uk
www.sarahblow.com
www.gapingvoid.com

- Who else could you recommend to be interviewed next?

Nicole Mathison at HP

- Anything else you would like to add? Something the big players are missing?

Oh they miss so much… too much for me to put here!

Thanks!

girl geek dinner, london, mobilemonday, sarah blow, Women in Mobile, womeninmobile