Back in the late 1990′s, the internet was starting to blow up into something big. Tiny companies with no revenue – but outsized ambition and fanciful business plans – started going public with astonishing valuations. More established businesses, looking on with envy, made getting on the web in some form a strategic mandate.
In those heady days, any company that wanted to be perceived as ‘hip’ started forming a digital division to manage their web presence, and advertising agencies rushed to form web consultancies to help them. Billions of dollars were spent setting up new ‘online’ divisions. It didn’t matter if what they did on the web really served a business goal – or even if had anything to do with the business they were in. It was more about flash than substance, and being digital was a virtue in and of itself. Everyone involved had a real sense of the major shift that was taking place, and no one wanted to miss out or be left behind. Even though so much of what was being done then was just bad business, it didn’t seem to matter.
At least until the crash of 2000 gave everyone a new perspective on things.
After that wake up call, businesses started reevaluating their approach to the web. It stopped being the ‘new thing’ and started becoming another tool – albeit an important one – in the suite of tools they used to service customers. Being digital shifted away from building a walled off silo of technical coolness, over to providing the technical foundation needed to support an organization’s overall business strategy. It was a tough way to learn the lesson, but the tech bubble collapse was – in retrospect – a positive turning point in the development and maturity of the commercial internet.
Unfortunately, history seems to be repeating itself in the mobile space.
Mobile is the new pillar of technical coolness. Companies are rushing to get their iPhone apps developed and approved. They are touting their ‘mobile strategies’ and setting up mobile groups to let them take advantage of this new channel. The sense of needing to be on a handset is everywhere. So many of the mobile apps being developed by businesses are poorly designed and executed, lacking the substance needed to make them valuable. But that doesn’t seem to matter because businesses are once again afraid of being left behind in the rush. Being mobile is good – no matter how it gets done.
Like the internet, mobile can be an incredibly important business asset – but only if its adopted in a rational way. Businesses need to think clearly about how and where their services can benefit from a mobile connection with their clients. They won’t win by simply showing up for the party – they need to bring something to it with real value. Mobile, like the internet, needs to become a foundational component of a fully considered business strategy – not just an expensive checkbox on a list of cool features and capabilities to deploy.
Lets hope we don’t need the ‘mobile bubble’ to burst before businesses start to see the connection.