When is a phone not a phone?

I remember it like it was yesterday. My three year old son sitting on my wife's lap in the doctor's exam room. The doctor explaining that now that my son was old enough to communicate we could finally end a three year mystery that had started at birth.

Today we'd find out if he could see in his right eye.

First they tested his good eye. He was moving right along the chart and then it happened.

The image to the left appeared. All of a sudden, he stopped. Said nothing. Just sat there. The doctor asked again, "What do you see?" Yet my son said nothing.

And then it dawned on me. "Son, do you see anything on the screen?" I asked.

"Yes" he replied.

"Well what is it?" I asked.

"I don't know." was the answer.

You see, my son had never seen such a device. The image above is of a rotary, desktop or tabletop phone. My three year old son had never seen such a device. He has only known a world in which phones were sleek, mobile or wireless.

As technology changes, so do people. We develop new new norms. We allow technology to change how we see and interact with our world. And that change, is important for we marketers to understand.

If you're in the Dallas area tonight, I'll be discussing that change at tonight's meeting of the Dallas Social Media Club.

Specifically, we'll be exploring how Mobile is changing our customer's lives. We'll talk about:

• How mobile is becoming the HUD (Heads Up Display) for life
• How mobile puts Hollywood in your back pocket
• The Encyclopedia Phontanica

If you're in Dallas, I'd love to see you. If not, I'll be sure to post up the preso some time next week for those of you that can't make it.

In the meantime, ask yourself if you honestly feel like you understand how tomorrow's customer views their mobile phone? Do they even think of it as a phone? Or like my son, have they changed their point of reference to an entirely new image?

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