It’s amazing how fast things change in our industry. For the last three years we’ve been popping the pills and gearing up for the types of projects we anticipated our clients would both ask for and need. What types of projects you ask? Everything and anything tablet, mobile and application based.

We’ve always been geeks, but when you see every Tom, Dick and Harriet with an iPad on their lap you know that tablets and smartphones have truly arrived. Lets face it who wants to be tied down these days. We’re all on the move, working and playing from anywhere. Yes some of us at I-SITE – no names mentioned – still lug around the heavy metal but increasingly employees and Joe Public are promoting, publicizing, playing and presenting through mobile devices.

We consciously decided that our first app was going to be cause based. Yes it’s not all about driving profits although we’re happy to discuss that with you as well. iGorilla was born out of a passion to help the mountain gorilla and a visionary team on the ground in Congo that recognized what the smartphone could do for outreach and fundraising. We learned a little from that project. The app is feeding live updates from rangers to gorilla lovers around the globe as we speak – but in hindsight we may have done things a little differently. iGorilla is an iPhone app so what about Android you say? Good question. This is one of the challenges we face especially with public facing apps.

So after a slow start in 2009 we have recently seen a huge surge of requests from our clients to create unique, custom, flexible and fun applications that can be used anywhere at any time. You probably have a bunch of ideas in your head right! Business needs change quickly and we love anticipating this. Within that last six months we have created a network sales training game, a tourism application for Lower Manhattan, a bird education app for the iPhone and Android platforms and an iPad sales aid used by a sales team to educate medical professionals. All of these are custom and unique to our clients and each have their own challenges. Web tools are now in the palm of your hand with tablet and phone apps and we don’t see an end in sight.

So here are some things to think about.

• Is your app for internal company use or will it be public? Apple now offers an iOS Enterprise solution.
• How can I create both an iOS [Apple] and Android [Google app] without breaking the bank. Or do I have to break it?
• I have some great data that I’m publishing to my website. How can I take it mobile?
• I can just outsource my mobile development to Asia or South America right?

Some of these questions may have a familiar ring to them. Probably because we were answering similar questions back in 1996 when people started talking home pages. Same principals apply in 2011 – plan well, partner with talent, test and optimize and have faith.

Here at I-SITE we’re getting our kicks out of helping our clients get the most out of smartphones and tablets. And of course now we’re thinking about what they’ll need and ask for in three years. Of course that’s a whole other discussion for another day unless you want to come over right now, have a beer and play some I-SITE United foosball!