I am slightly loathe to add to the volumes that have been written on the iPhone but I was reflecting today on why I like the beast so much, and that has a lot to do wiht how I use it.

I txt every day; use the internet a lot (83 mgbt download in the last month) and have Google Maps save my life on numerous occasions.  I use Google search on the run a lot, to find stuff, plus the phone is my calendar and my address book.  I check names and addresses as well as names and numbers.  Plus a bit of podcasting, a bit of calculating, coverting currencies, temperatures weights and more plus the time zones so i always know what time it is in San Francisco.  And then I use the 'Pocket Watch' function to have a big clock on my desk when I am working at home, and iSolitaire occasionally keeps me occupied on a train, tram or bus.  Did I mention that I use it as a phone as well.

So what makes it different?  For me, it is the fact that it is delivery agnostic.  The web works as well as the phone.  Using numbers to dial or click on a contact is as easy as making a favourite list or checking voicemail.  Therefore it works like i do.  It is not a phone that struggles with the internet or a computer that can make calls at a push.  And everything is one click off the home screen, using my clumsy, podgy fingers. A delight that has genuinely made my life easier and I have no intention of moving back to Blackberry or Nokia or even Palm.

McKinsey's Newletter!  I have hundreds of them.  Yet as soon as the delete button hovers over the list, I sopt something that could  be interesting so I keep them all!  And not just McKinsey's, there are countless other newsletters and articles that have a great column or make a good point or introduce a new piece of software or contain a fact I should retain... and so it goes on.  I can shift them into folders but it still causes harddisk bloat.  So what do I do?  I have no idea,  and the problem gets worse every week.  And if I explode and delete a thousand of them, I know the next week I will be trying to find an elusive article or quote that was there...

I was at the KM Australia conference last week and one side-show was a list of 'trust behaviours' which delegates were asked to rank.  This all resulted in a blog posting by Shawn Callahan which you can read here.

Shawn came up with eight trust making behaviours and they were ranked in the order included here.  Two further ones were added by the delegates (including me!) These are the final two in the list

• Being open and honest about your intentions
• Looking after your colleagues when times are tough
• Consistently delivering good work
• Team members are involved in decision-making

  

• Being able to speak your mind in meetings
• Being generous with what you know
• Giving credit where credit is due
• Making promises and keeping them
• Being prepared to allow the group to come up with "your idea" rather than tell them how you believe it must be
• Creating an environment where positive feedback always comes first and participation is encouraged

This sent me scuttling back to Stephen MR Covey's excellent book, the Speed of Trust where he lists his thirteen behaviours for relationship trust:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectations
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust

And then set up your Action Plan to see it all through. Covey's fit neatly into Shawn Callaghan's list. And both choose straight talking as the highest priority.  I can instantly think of examples from my own career where each and everyone was broken as standard corporate behaviour. I remember talking about 'trust' in the BBC (the first value -by the way-) and being told by someone: 'you must be out of your mind'.

There are interviews with Stephen here. Worth listening to one or two and you can take a personal trust test.

Another week goes by with out a post.  I feel very guilty but have the excuse of flu, and a trip to Bendigo on Monday and Tuesday.  The main reason for going was to visit the Archibald prize exhibition which has moved, for one year only, outside Melbourne to a country town gallery and the one chosen was Bendigo. It is a celebrated annual prize for the best Australian portrait painting.

Great goldrush town with lots of Victorian splendour left and a beautiful art gallery as well.  The judges winner was the one painting I did not like at all. Del Kathryn Barton self portrait with her two children.  The popular winner in Sydney (last location) was a moody, evocation of Heath Ledger by Vincent Fantauzzo. No surprise that it got picked both for subject and execution.  I voted for my choice, and any one of four or five could have made it. But I went for a stunning portrait of John Farriss (in a Kylie t-shirt) by Anthony Bennett .  The exhibition finishes on Sunday and moves back to NSW.  Such a great little show in a great little location. You can see all the finalist paintings here.

Nortel has published an excellent research White Paper called Hyperconnectivity, that it commissioned from IDC.  2,400 people were interviewed from 17 countries and they discovered that about 16% of respondents are hyperconnected.  That means being  'awlays on' and using a multiplicity of devices to connect to the internet (I have 6 or 7 currently).  And close on the heels of that 16% of power users (the report calls then the pioneers in a new 'Culture of Connectivity' ) are another 36% of the 'Increasingly Connected'. At that point, the nature of work will profoundly change and the paper begins to explore this.  It is only 16 pages and a free download and well worth a read.  Incidently behind the 'Increasingly Connected' are the 'Passive Online' (20%),who are beginning to ge beyond email but are not ready for social networking tools yet and finally the 'Barebones Users' (28%) who stick to email and the internet from a desktop computer, and only use their mobile as a phone for voice calls.

The Hyperconnected come from any country and any age group but the majority are under 35.  They take their laptops away with them, even if only leaving the house for 24 hours; they check email constantly and hate being disconnected. They do not seen themselves as early adopters but 'normal' as they layer, Kindle, upon iPhone or Blackberry, upon iPod, 3G modem and digital camera. A sure give away is that any bag they carry is full of wires! Finally the line between business or work and leisure or personal time is compeltely blurred.  They can be connecting with non-work people in work time and work people in their personal time. They IM or text work and non-work people almost simulteneously. 

Thanks Stephen Downes for drawing my attention to this  via OL Daily.

Do you recongise yourself in this description?

The point the report makes is that companies will have to play in this game if they are to recruit and retain staff as, increasingly, access to these technologies are a pre-requisite of potential employees signing up.  So one good reason to move forward is related to attracting staff rather than transforming the business.  But of course, if you build and deploy  the technologies, lots of other things have to change too!  A challenging future for those big companies, still debating whether email is a good thing!  And restrict internet access to the Company Corporate site and a couple of others.  Barebones User Companies have a limited shelf life too!

Thanks to Stephen Downes for drawing my attention to this in OL Daily