Mobile devices and cloud technology are so pervasive in our society, we’ve become complacent about the computing complexity that powers our connected lives.

We have become so accustomed to using a mobile phone, it’s easy to think of it as just another ‘dumb’ machine. But mobile devices and cloud technology offer enormous scope to expand our business output, boost our creativity and protect our wellbeing. Sarah Vaughan is the Director, Developer Experience & Evangelism at Microsoft Australia, and a passionate technology enthusiast. Sarah shared with us how ongoing developments in mobile technology can improve our lives. 

Mobility is more than tech
Mobility is less about the technology and more about who we are and how we operate. As women in business, or people in business in general, we are always on the go. You might be driving, you might be going to a meeting, you might be working from home. So how does technology serve a professional in that context so that it doesn’t matter so much where they are, it’s more about what they can do regardless of those environments. More and more, technology is breaking those barriers. We don’t have to go to a place to do a certain type of work, we can do our best work regardless of where we are.

You can connect with people irrespective of whether you are face to face or are thousands of kilometres apart, speak a different language, have hearing or speech impairments; you name it, there is technology that can overcome the communication barriers that have limited us in the past.

Removing barriers

Over the last three to five years a lot of tech researched and developed by companies like Microsoft, AWS and Google has moved out of the research labs and has been released as products to the market. This means that someone with a great idea isn’t stalled by worrying about how they can deliver it to customers, because all that work has already been done. They just have to work out how to apply it to their business context: the platform they need already exists and is accessible.

This tech used to be high end, it needed a big warehouse, huge computers, you can imagine how hard it was to access that. It still exists like that, but in those instances we are running it on behalf of other people; the actual capability has been commoditised.

Making a difference with devices

Mobile devices are a massive enabler. The power of the phone in your pocket is incredible compared to ten years ago. It’s more than just the difference in portability though, it’s the range of sensors and small devices that can be embedded into what we would consider is otherwise a pretty ‘dumb’ machine. Whether it’s a fridge or a phone or a petrol bowser, there’s a whole lot of computing power that’s been built into machines that we thought were silent but now can give us information that can be rapidly shared in its context with another machine. You aggregate all these and you can start to do some interesting things.

Really powerful computing that’s now available in a microchip, in a mobile device, is definitely enabling more innovation. In a way the smart phone is just a start. The biggest challenge we have is the awareness of the capability that’s available via a device that accesses the space of cloud computing. Cloud computing is the thing that’s the key transformation, and then connectivity.

For instance, we work with a company that built a consumer device to monitor breath for cases of asthma or pneumonia. Originally they were using processing power and an algorithm that relied on access to a smart phone and the cloud. Because pneumonia is so often a problem in developing countries where people don’t have smart phones or access to the web, they were given the challenge to develop an algorithm that would work on a dumb device with no internet access, just an ordinary phone. Having affordable access to massive computing power is what enabled them to develop that solution. Yes, it’s about connectivity, it’s the computing power of the devices that we all carry, but it’s the access to significant computer power, machine learning and big data that is driving the digital transformation.

Having the confidence that the tech is out there allows people to think about how to solve a problem in a different away, and to really use their imagination. You don’t have to invent the technology first. We just have to know that it’s there and how to get it and who can help us get it. Once you have the idea and a good understanding of the context of the problem it’s just a case of finding the right people to help you.

The most important connections are human

An important message for all of us in business is that the personal network you have is key. If you invest in your network of people, this is how you find the people to help you. Go to events in your area, find out where people are hanging out in local bars and cafes and having those conversations about machine learning and big data. You need to develop a diverse network. People you trust, who can recommend you to other people you can trust. Realise you have to have diversity in your network to reach out to the people you need. People are essential for collaboration and feedback and expanding your ideas.

Intelligent cloud is a massive priority for us, we are very much about bringing it all together in a way that people can do meaningful, important and smart things with this technology. We also want to make computing more personal, and businesses and people more productive. But our overall intention is allowing businesses and people to prosper and have the best lives they can, so the question we always start with is how we can use technology to do that.