Mobile spotting

I’m off today to talk to some teenagers who are working on the NFTE Business Plan Competition. It’s a national thing — students across the UK set up their own businesses, often with a 50-200 loan from NFTE or their school. They are encouraged to make money and explore their entrepreneurial instincts. I thoroughly enjoy participating.

Today there’s a workshop in preparation for the competition happening next week: they’ll all be presenting their businesses to a tough panel of seasoned, cynical entrepreneurs. Heh.

Apart from the great delight I get from talking and encouraging the ideas of others’, I particularly like to see how the youth of today (yes, I definitely do feel old now) use their mobiles.

The last time I was at a NFTE event, two girls were using one of their Three phones as a stereo. She’d downloaded a load of songs on to the handset — it was one of the big Three Motorolas — and she’d set up a play list. She then put the speaker on. It couldn’t cope that well with the hip hop music she’d selected — I’m pretty sure the loudspeaker wasn’t designed to act as a hi-fi music player. The speaker was cutting out at the high ranges and the quality was a bit dire. However it totally served its purpose as the two of them sat there working away at their desk during the workshop.

I’d never seen this use of the handset before. In fact I don’t think I’d have thought about it. Once or twice I’ve shown someone the music features of the Sony Ericsson W550i but only for 5 seconds, then switched it off.

I’m looking forward to seeing what handsets are in use, together with the popular brands and networks.