In the late 80’s, PacTel Cellular boasted seamless connection from San Francisco to San Diego. That is, if you had a battery pack to power the wireless devices (MicroTac? Motorola).
Remember this was pre-Twitter days.
Now it’s 12/12/12 and the Mayan’s calendar is soon running out.
Back when Marconi was experimenting with sending signals across the Atlantic, skeptics had a field day (light and signals traverse in a straight line, and thanks to Columbus, we know the Earth is round. Good luck Marconi!).
Those guys obviously did not play pool (angling and bouncing).
Putting all these elements together. We got Marcom.
The art of positioning your company, your brand and image for the longer term.
Many-step flow. Diffusion of innovation. Crowd-source and users’ Likes.
It takes time for people to adopt. When MCI tried to attach a piece of equipment to the ATT network, it got stalled and deterred. Jack Goeken did not give up.
He was trying to help truck-to-truck short-way communicate from St Louis to Chicago. And in Marconi’s case, ships-to-shores communication. Both faced hard resistance (today’s equivalence of “Who killed the EV?”).
That was before peering, inter-operability and other engineering agreements.
Currently, we still have to “unlock” an I-phone. People were put in “voicemail jail” etc… Technology and man’s freedom.
IP issues and the trajectory of human achievement and advancement.
Think back to the age of gramaphones. And fast forward to the i-pod Shuffle.
Then you can see the full sweep of tech (just in sound recording and reproduction).
Marconi sent signals across the pond. Bell asked “Mr Watson, come here“.
Now we got Youtube and “Concert for Sandy Relief“.
Put together a Marcom plan for yourself, your family and your company.
It’s our modern-day equivalend of yesterday’s black/white photo albums. Our heritage in the making.
Enjoy your Christmas wireless experience. Don’t forget those trailblazers. It’s heart-throbbing to finance those expeditions, today’s equivalence of Tesla and Virgin’s space tourism.
But then, without the likes, we would still be listening to each other from those gramaphones.
Thang Nguyen 555 