Convergence

When I was attending business school early in the last decade, all the talk in the technology sector was about convergence. Cameras were just starting to find their way into phones, and the guys from Blackberry, who made email-only devices at the time, wowed everybody at a tech symposium when they placed and received phone calls on their prototype devices. Convergence was such a big deal that when I interviewed with Microsoft, they wanted to know what I thought the three big trends were in the tech sector, not including convergence.

Fast forward to today. I was running a few minutes late for work, so I dialed in to the conference line for the day's first meeting. My iPhone paused the podcast I was listening to automatically when I placed the call. I was on the phone for a few minutes before arriving at the office and walking into the conference room.

I ended the phone call when I got in the room. And my podcast resumed playing. On the external speakers that were loud enough for everyone to hear. And because I work for a security company, I have to type in a five digit code to get back to a screen where I can actually control the iPod, which takes some time. The podcast I happened to be listening to was Mormon Stories, and it happened to resume playing an interview with a sex therapist talking about some of the "issues" she has treated.

If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have to worry about broadcasting the words "his desire not being too dominant..." as you walk into a conference room. I'm not sure that's such a bad thing.