Communication Day Dreams

The world of telecom, and the communications industry in general, has grown a lot through the years. I got my first cell phone in middle school, using it mostly to play snake. I remember asking my parents the following questions when I was in high school. “So how did your friends and you meet up when you were my age if you didn’t have cell phones? What if you decided to go to another friend’s house, or a restaurant, or a park? How would people meeting up with you ever find you? Were you just stuck with the same people the whole night?” I was pretty baffled by the thought of not being in constant communication with people. Let’s just say, we’ve gotten pretty spoiled.

But with all this technology we have today, do you ever have moments where you think, “man life would be so much easier if someone created this app” or, “I wish this communication tool existed.” I have these moments often, and I think a lot of that comes from being a part of the startup community. Working with developers so closely day in and day out opens your eyes to all the possibilities in technology. People are continually coming up with revolutionary ideas. But we still want more.

I live in Atlanta, and the SnowJam/Snowpocalypse that took place a couple weeks back had me thinking about communication a lot. It took me two hours to drive the three miles to my apartment. That was nothing. My dad, whose normal commute is around 30 minutes, was not so lucky. He spent 22 hours trying to get home. Sitting on my bed flipping between local news channels, and studying google maps, I was frantically trying to figure out a way to help him.

SnowedOutAtlanta came to the rescue and made me so proud to be an Atlantan I could barely stand it. The Facebook group was created to provide information and resources to those who needed help. It was a pretty amazing thing to witness. A map was created so that people could add their homes and show where stranded folks could find shelter and supplies. It was social media at its finest. Atlanta was a mess those couple days, but I have a feeling there are some innovators out there who are already brainstorming apps to help in future emergencies.

There are so many other communications tools that I personally would love to see come to life. If you’ve ever been to a music festival you know that the only way to meet friends once inside the event is serendipitously. Good luck getting any calls out, if you’re lucky you might be able to get a text message through, with a 30 minute delay minimum. What’s a solution for that?

Imagine you’re at a sports event or concert and there’s a long line for one of the bathrooms. (If you’re a female, this is not a hard thing to imagine). What if you could just check an application to find the nearest bathroom with the least wait? One that others might not easily be able to find. What if you could use voice command on your work phone or landline at home?

I could go on and on, and I’m sure you could too. What kind of communications apps would you like to see developed? Let us know in the comments!

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