Around the world, across cultures, we are quickly discovering that, at least when it comes to mobile, we are more alike than we are different

A few weeks ago, I spoke with Mr. Myung-Gu Kim from SKTelecom’s Moving Life Companion team. One of the project he’s most excited about is the SkyBuddy platform, which unites Japanese and Korean mobile phone users on a common social media platform — and auto-magically translates everything on the fly.

I asked Mr. Kim about the differences between the way different cultures use mobile social tools. He told me that what had surprised his team the most was how few differences there were. He said that, for the most part, people use social media and mobiles in very much the same way, regardless of your cultural heritage.

The mobile culture unites us all.

Then today, I came across a recent report by the brilliant author and speaker Alan Moore (SMLXL From Interruption to Engagement):

When it comes to mobile telecommunications, it is often said that what works in one country,
does not work in another. I wholeheartedly refute that argument. Human beings are more
alike than we care to admit.

We are programmed to be a “we species”—a social networking species with an innate need to connect and communicate. I often muse on the reason why SMS is ubiquitous as a communication mechanism. It is because we as a species do, in fact, constantly communicate via short messages, a behaviour that we learnt millennia ago.

That is why we are inevitably moving towards the Mobile Society, where our mobile devices become the remote control for our daily lives. Because any technology that allows us to better connect, communicate, share knowledge and information, and get stuff done will be widely adopted.

He’s spot on. His report is overflowing with great insight (which is all the more surprising when you find out it was sponsored by Microsoft). Moore takes us on a journey through the history of mass media from print to recordings, cinema to radio, television to the web – and finally, the mobile.

In the paper he also looks at the unique benefits of mobile:

• Personal – my media
• Always carried – the city in my pocket
• Always on
• Built-in payment
• Point of creative impulse
• Recounting the audience – the holy grail of advertising

But it’s the spirit of the mobile society that offers such hope and promise — especially in a time when we are bombarded by so much doom and gloom.

That which divides us is tiny compared to that which could unite us. Perhaps all we have ever really lacked are the right tools. Perhaps those are finally at hand.

As I’m starting my holidays today, I’d like to wish all of you, dear readers, peace, love and understanding during this Christmas season. I look forward to seeing you all in a very switched-on & on-the-move 2009.