How to Use the Mobile Revolution to Bolster Your Career
From the outside, revolutions in technology can be fascinating to watch. Going from PCs to smartphones and now the Internet of Things, witnessing new pieces of hardware change the way we communicate, artistically express ourselves, and interact with the world ranges from novel to inspiring.
However, if you’re a professional within the industry and fail to take advantage of a sea change like mobile, you’re wasting a valuable opportunity. It sometimes feels like decades ago when smartphones came into our lives and turned the world of software on its head, but its growth curve continues to spike, and there are still countless ways you can leverage mobile to inspire fresh career opportunities.
As an employee in the software sphere, ignoring mobile isn’t an option. According to Jason Arbon, the CEO of AppDiff.com, having a broad understanding of mobile’s many uses isn’t a bonus to your employer—it’s a requirement for the job.
“First thing to do is think about just mobile as table stakes for your career, right? Think about it, next year, could you imagine a test manager or a release manager, something like that at a company that has a mobile app, not be familiar with mobile?” Arbon explains in an interview with StickyMinds. “That starts to sound a little ridiculous. Really, mobile and being deep in mobile is just table stakes for career advancement in general in companies.”
Especially as a tester, you can’t be stuck in the past and not understand how to properly work with mobile apps or how websites display on a smaller screen. If you’re a writer working in online media, you need to grasp how SEO works, just like you need to have a strong handle on mobile if you’re working for someone as a developer or tester.
As an independent person, taking risks and trying something new in the mobile space can lead to even bigger and better things. As Arbon points out, revolutions like this often spark innovation.
“I think the thing that's exciting to me personally is that there's this mobile transition that has created a lot of opportunity for innovation,” he explained. “With every new platform transition, there's a lot of opportunity just even in the business side of things to change the game and to make money, frankly.”
Is every new business venture going to be a hit? Absolutely not. But by studying the ins and out of mobile development and testing, as well as understanding the culture surrounding it, you can position yourself to create something new that people never even knew they wanted.
It wasn’t that long ago when we couldn’t imagine carrying a computer in our pockets. Today, smartphones demand more time than we care to admit. People live on their phones, so why not find a way to innovate within that space and create fresh career opportunities before someone else beats you to the punch?
