Phone stacking

While Ben organises a phone-free Sunday, phone stacking grows more popular in bars and restaurants, and charities reward people for not using their phones, Mobile World Congress has begun in Barcelona. This week, everything revolves around mobile technology. Progress is there too. Several clients, including Mobiquity, Polycom and Nokia, are exhibiting and inviting the Benelux press to visit. We enjoy organising their demonstrations, interviews and evening networking events. It is also a useful opportunity to explore developments in telecoms. Many clients work with big data and bring-your-own-device policies, while wearables and machine-to-machine communication are on everyone’s lips.

Information overload and phone stacking

Smartphones play an increasingly important role in our lives and keep us available to friends and family around the clock. Sometimes it becomes too much. Yet the real mobile revolution has barely started: wearables and devices that communicate with us are just emerging. Alongside social messages, we may soon receive a reminder from Fitbit that we have not walked enough, a warning from a wine bottle that it should be consumed soon, or a message from the fridge that we have run out of eggs. No wonder people increasingly feel overloaded and look for ways to manage it. We start choosing which channels to use — tweet volumes are already declining — and when to use them, as the phone-free Sunday illustrates.

We will take a good look around MWC, but I am already prepared to make a prediction: phone stacking will be the word of 2014.

Stella