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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

Reading (and hosting) the Carnival of the Mobilists let you discover new ideas, insiders’ insights and especially new talented people in the Mobile market space. One of those talents I discovered when I hosted the Carnival of the Mobilists 33 was Stephanie. I selected her “Casual Mobile Snacks for Everyone” as my favourite post of that week!

Based in Vancouver, Canada, she creates unique and engaging content for emerging mobile technologies and devices with some other mobile passionates at Yiibu. Besides her blog Keitai where she writes on mobility, culture and user experience, she is also involved in Mobile Monday Vancouver.

I especially like the refreshing way she’s looking towards mobile, something that many people loose on the way trying to make business, but in essence, a quality we all should foster to keep innovation close to our hearts… Well, it’s not only happening in the head if you see what I mean

BACKGROUND - WORK

- Can you explain more about your work?

My background is in interactive project management, content development and specifically—educational multimedia for kids. I also spent several years working as a teaching assistant in an elementary school in Toronto as well a brief period teaching English overseas so educational products always seem to be on my mind.

My current work is varied—out of necessity really. I do a lot of research (mostly just to keep up) but also spend quite a bit of time managing content projects and taking care of QA and testing. I’ve also been blogging a lot lately which I find really useful to get my ideas out.

- Are you more social, business or technical oriented?

I would say all three at this point (which can be a problem at times—there’s too much to do and too much to learn

If I could switch to focusing on just one thing right now it would probably be the social/cultural or user experience side of mobile.

- What brought you into mobile?

I don’t think I would have started working in mobile (so soon) if it wasn’t for all the time we spent in Asia over the past few years. There were lots of little experiences—seeing a fellow traveler call his grand-mother in Norway from the top of a mountain in Borneo, renting a mobile on the street for a quick call on the Malay border, watching our roommate in Indonesia endlessly text her mother in Scotland to exchange gossip about Survivor and Big Brother, walking into MBK for the first time in Bangkok and seeing thousands of people earning a living, socializing, doing business—all based on this one type of device. And then seeing variations of all this in country after country.

And from a content point of view, there’s the immediacy of a device so small that you can hold in one hand—yet offering so many possibilities. It’s yours, it holds your stuff, it helps you in your work or study, it brings you closer to your friends and family, you take it everywhere. You can’t really say that about many other things we carry.

Besides, I’m a handset geek. ☺

DIGITAL LIFESTYLE

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

Years ago, I remember going on vacation and leaving my computer behind. Now I’m not sure I could really do that. I’d need to feel connected. Not just to the net but to people, to my data and my work. And as I have a lot of data; right now having just a mobile doesn’t cut it.

So last year I bought a tiny Sony VAIO and that is now also my mobile. I work on it, make calls on it—yet I can carry it around all day without really thinking about it. Combine that with a ‘real’ mobile, and I feel pretty connected.

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

I blog using Wordpress. I’m not currently moblogging but am hoping to start publishing/experimenting with the Widsets platform soon.

- Which applications and services do you use (daily/weekly) on your phone?

Not many I’m afraid. I’m dying to use data services for all sorts of stuff but the data plans in Canada have historically been too expensive for me to justify purchasing. I’m finally about to cave and sign up for a plan because not having one is starting to affect my work.

Would you use your device to interact with other machines?

I use Bluetooth a lot when designing and testing applications. Sometimes I transfer 20-30 files an hour as I hate testing in an emulator—you end up missing all sorts of things—including design and content related stuff like alignment issues, typos etc. For some reason these seem much easier to spot on a real handset.

By comparison, I find synching an iPod painful and un-intuitive ☺

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

This isn’t technically machine to machine but I find 2D barcode scanning (QR etc.) via mobile fascinating. Assuming the handset integration is good, it’ll solves a lot of problems related to content/information acquisition or discovery, customer conversion etc.

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

I don’t currently download music—but I do download podcasts quite regularly.

GEEK STUFF

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

My most recent phone is an E60 which I purchased specifically for the wireless LAN access. It also has a very high resolution display so the browsing experience is really quite enjoyable—especially with the new Nokia browser (although for some reason my WLAN connection times out more often with the Nokia browser than with Opera.) I’ve also recently installed WinWap’s mobile desktop browser which is super handy to browse WAP sites on your computer.

All this is of course a work-around for the fact that mobile data is too expensive here ☺

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

One lovely aspect of Web 2.0 that has not yet come to mobile but really needs to be there from a longevity point of view is an open network/platform that welcomes access and participation—at the very least in the area of content and services.

An area that scares me a bit however is the concept of user generated content on mobile. I think we can all agree that there is some great user generated content out there but there’s also lots of junk. Even with a good ‘social/recommendation network’ it takes a long time to weed through it all.

This additional ‘noise’ is disruptive enough on a big screen—never mind a small one. So I’m looking forward to seeing lots of mobile content from lots of sources but I’m not sure if we’re ever going to have time to get things done during the day if we add yet another layer of distraction to our mobiles

- Do you develop content/technology yourself?

Yes I do. My company—Yiibu creates small mobile games, content and experiences with learning and lifestyle in mind. We’re currently developing using Flash Lite as it’s so easy to prototype with and offers a good level of functionality along with good design capabilities for the final product. Player adoption is still low but finally growing at a reasonable pace.

FUTURE OF MOBILE

- How do you see the future of mobile?

We will (hopefully) see more diversity in content and applications. More local content, more personal content, more mobile use in education, more opportunities for small companies and individual content creators. And fewer walled gardens.

- Hybrid phones?

I suppose I have one already with the E60. Setting up WLAN access points is still a bit tricky and my connection seems to drop quite a bit but I’m sure all that stuff will work itself out in future iterations of the device. The biggest barrier I still see to adoption is still the operators. In markets where you can simply walk into a store and buy a handset, I’m assuming these will be very popular as long as they work well and are reasonably priced. But in markets like Canada where the majority of the population purchases a device direct from the operator, I think we won’t see these phones on the shelves for quite some time. (Hopefully someone will prove me wrong though

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

The differences are huge. It’s quite fascinating actually, because even within regions the uses change when you cross from one country to another. One thing I feel reasonably comfortable generalizing about is the perception of technology in Asia (or at least—my perception of the perception of technology in Asia

Every country I’ve been to has large, thriving technology marketplaces. Their presence—in my opinion—results in a general lack of apprehension regarding new technologies. When purchasing spare parts, mobile pre-pay access or other technology services you’re just as likely to be served by a man or woman, young or old. Sure there’s geeks and early adopters but—perhaps because some of these technologies came about much quicker (i.e. spotty fixed-line access leading to quick and widespread mobile adoption)—there doesn’t seem to be this “should we?..or..shouldn’t we?” I hear so often in North America. If you don’t know how to do something, you’re bound to know someone who does. If it works, you use it. If it doesn’t, you don’t. And (assuming your network/operator/budget allows it)—you experiment with stuff.

Then because the device is so personal and social, there are all sorts of uses that are specific to culture. And thanks to these, we see innovations in business models and trends that maybe won’t work elsewhere but can still provide inspiration for things that will.

This is not meant to suggest that the only innovation in mobile is (or will be) coming from certain parts of the world. I simply think that—especially in the case of mobile, it’s very dangerous to base all your assumptions on what’s going on in your back-yard. You’ll miss out on a lot.

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

High handset adoption (i.e. network connectivity) in emerging markets.

It’s going to have all sorts of effects….

• Way more people connected. How will operators and their services adapt? How will the OEMs?
• Way more people connected. How will economies adapt? Will some jump ahead due in part to their increased ability to connect locally, regionally etc. Will others fall behind because of their lack of connectivity or the lack of openness in their networks? (I would say some already have.)
• Way more people (eventually) connected to the Internet (in some way.) Will mo-blogging create even more opportunities for social and political discussion around the world? Will walled gardens interfere? Will we all have access to the same mobile web?
• More people who will own a (very?) basic multimedia device. How will this affect content creation and distribution? Will we see more local, niche (long-tail) content? (Will big media and operators allow it?) Will off-deck grow faster in certain areas due to sheer mass of participation?
• More opportunities. Will we finally start to see widespread use of devices for learning? Not just traditional ‘elearning’ on mobile but locally sponsored and relevant learning related to areas of literacy, health, social and financial independence and quality of life.
• Waste. What will we do with several million devices being discarded every few years?
• Experimentation and innovation. Someone will do something totally unexpected that will shift mobility as we know it. What will it be? Different behaviours? New business models? Products?

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

I’m hoping this will finally be the year we start to seriously discuss what business models will work off-deck and how to make them happen without alienating the operators.

PERSONAL FAVORITES

- Who inspires you professionally?

Way too many people to mention. I’d miss someone and feel terrible about it

And I don’t know what I’d do without blogs to learn all this stuff and keep track of all these conversations.

- Your favorite mobile technology blog?

Hmm…hard to pick. My favourites tend to be folks at Nokia (not sure why but that’s just how it’s worked out so far.) Jan Chipchase, Cognections and the Series 60 User Experience blogs. Also Experentia —not necessarily a mobile blog but provides a wealth of links about design, user experience, ethnography—mostly related to technology.

Oh..and Carnival of the Mobilists of course.

- Your favorite mobile device?

I love the display on the E60, the form factor on the 6600 and 6630, the colour and style of the L’Amour collection by Nokia and the feel of the Motorola Pebl (the UI on the Pebl is terrible though.) I’d also still love a Nokia 770 but it’s not yet available in Canada.

- Your ultimate dream scenario including mobile?

Reasonably priced unlimited data plans worldwide, and an open, well-supported and consistent development/publishing platform. ☺ LOL

- The ultimate tech device not invented yet?

A good, easy to use/carry/easy on the eyes, open format e-book reader. Something that will allow the e-book ecosystem to grow.

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

We’ve never been very good at keeping technology simple and promoting balance in how we use it (ex. three car garages, Hummers, video-game addicted adolescents, ‘Crackberry’ addicted professionals, PC and mobile carpal-tunnel syndrome etc.) Now OEMs and operators are racing to connect the next billion subscribers. Before we turn every handset into an ‘always on,’ ever social convergent ‘multimedia computer,’ let’s make sure that we all really need one and that it maybe comes with software and applications that promote balance and allow/(compel?) us to switch off with as much ease as we ‘switch on.‘ ☺

keital, stephanie rieger, Women in Mobile, womeninmobile, yiibu