I must admit, there were several motivating factors that helped me make the decision to purchase an iPhone at this time — I don’t usually purchase 1.0 versions of any physical product at this price point. First, I already use Apple hardware and software to organize my life — the calendar, email, web browser, and iTunes media organizer included in MacOS X. That makes the iPhone the first device to be fully compatible with my digital world. Previous smart phones, such as the Blackberry and the Treo, require third-party software to synchronize with a Mac, and the results are somewhat mixed. Second, my partner Tracy was in need of a new cell phone, so I had the excuse of buying an iPhone and passing my old phone to her (this also helped me bypass the “early termination fee” when moving from Verizon to AT&T). Third, my iPod’s screen has been on the fritz for several months. It’s basically unreadable and I use it only as an alarm clock, since those settings were already in place before the screen went out. If these elements had not been in place, I may have chosen to wait until next January when a second iteration of iPhone hardware may be announced.

The verdict?
For me, the iPhone is working as advertised. Synchronizing with my computer is as easy as plugging it in and letting iTunes do the work. The battery lasts all day, even with significant use of all features. I can add new calendar events to the phone while out and about, check and reply to email, take notes, and check the weather. The web browsing experience is amazing for the screen size. The touch screen keyboard took about 3 days to get used to, but now I’m typing on it at about 75% of my full-keyboard typing speed. In short, this thing just works.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. Others have identified several shortcomings and the AT&T network has been oddly missing in some critical places (near the Seattle airport, for example). I’m sure that Apple and AT&T teams are watching closely the initial experiences of early adopters in order to improve that experience in the coming months.

My favorite feature of the iPhone has to do with its architecture — it works as a phone, but it thinks like a modern computer, meaning it can do multiple things at one time. While on a call, it’s easy to look up a phone number or address. If you are near a WIFI network, you can even look up information on the web to relay to the person on the other end of the phone. Yesterday afternoon I was working at a remote site when I received a call asking if I wanted to go to the movies. I switched to speaker phone, opened the web browser, and did a Google search for “Ratatouille near 98103″ – then relayed that information to my friend (the movie was ok, but not as good as I wanted it to be). This multi-tasking ability is absent in most cell phones, and it’s really the key ingredient that changes a “phone” into a “communications and entertainment” device.

Since the phone is based on Apple’s MacOS X operating system, there’s a tremendous ability to improve the user experience without changing the hardware at all. I expect this to be the first cell phone I’ve owned that will actually get better over time without a hardware upgrade.

I’ll end with a list of software-only changes that would significantly improve the iPhone experience.

Things I the iPhone Could Do with a Software Update
As a user experience designer, here are the things I hope Apple will update in the iPhone’s software over the coming months to make current generation iPhones even better:

1. Sync with my computer automatically over a wi-fi network (right now a cable is required)
2. Sync To Do Lists from Address Book
3. Copy/Paste
4. Add Flash player to Safari on the iPhone (web sites made with Flash technology don’t work today)
5. Voice commands for making calls hands-free (a feature present on most modern cell phones)
6. Vocal directions for Google Maps (avoid the danger of looking at the screen while driving)
7. Allow developers to make iPhone widgets (I’d like a flight status widget for example)
8. View Notes and Email in landscape orientation (only web browsing currently works in landscape)
9. One-touch email to “me” for Notes, Pictures, Maps
10. Send calendar invitations via email
11. Send contact info via email (find a contact, click to send that info to a 3rd party)
12. Show multiple calendars with different colors and options to display selected calendars only
13. Bluetooth tether — connect a laptop wirelessly to the phone for remote internet access
14. Create new email folders from the phone for organizing messages
15. Email rules – add ability to filter and organize email coming to the phone (see my previous post about using gMail to do this on the server before it gets to your iPhone or in-box)

The panel included Bonnie Dunbar, former astronaut and current director of Seattle’s Museum of Flight, Tod Machover, co-director of the MIT Media Lab, Rosamund Zander, psychologist and author of The Art of Possibility and Charles Johnson, an acclaimed novelist and teacher at the University of Washington. I was especially interested to hear Tod Machover and Rosamund Zander since there is so much creativity coming out of the MIT Media Lab and I resonate with and appreciate Ros Zander’s work in The Art of Possibility.

The panelists each told stories about what experiences in their lives opened their capacity for imagination. Most told fabulous stories about being supported by parents, especially mothers, to explore their passions and pursue their dreams.

Tod Machover told a story about his mother as a new piano teacher inviting her children to run through the house and bring back an object that makes an interesting sound. She would ask, “What sound does it make?”, “What’s the loudest sound it can make?”, “What’s the softest?”, “How does it make you feel?”, “What do these sounds sound like together?” Pretty soon they had accomplished a musical composition with found objects. Then she would ask them to draw a picture of what they had just done so they could play the same music again the next week. I wish my piano teacher had used this method!

Ros Zander spoke of receiving a music box from her father when she was a small child, shortly after her parents had divorced. Her mother did not think the gift was appropriate for her age and tried to convince her that she could have a stuffed bear instead. Ros realized at that moment that she could have both things… the world of possibility and abundance thinking had opened up for her.

There was a good deal of discussion about creating an environment for imagination to flourish. Most panelists agreed that as mentors, we can create that environment but it is essential that the spark or passion for learning, the curiosity about something, be present in each person. Several felt that many kids today are not in touch with their passion. Often this seems to be connected to a fear of failure. Kids develop opinions about things without ever trying them ad a single failure can be reason enough to stop trying. How do we learn to have productive failures, to treat failure as a learning experience?

I believe that in order to be alive, each human being must have a creative, curious spark inside them. It may be only a smoldering ember, but it is an internal, generative energy for what they love and care about. If we as leaders and mentors can locate that spark and find a way to blow on it, we can help ignite the passion in our children, our co-workers, our employees, and ourselves. Once that spark is present, the conversation changes. Clarity of purpose is easier to access. At that point we can explore the best ways to engage that person’s passion, to open the space for their passion to expand and be directed in productive ways.

Another interesting piece that arose in the conversation was a tension between the need to “learn the past” to understand what has and has not been done so far, and the perspective that if we jump with both feet into a project that we care about, that is achievable and also a stretch, we will learn whatever we need to learn to make it happen. I’m a fan of jumping in with both feet, as long as the circumstances do not put lives in jeapordy. Anything that acts as a doorway to passion is a good place to start. There may be history, skills, and practice to do in order to fully achieve one’s vision. It is much easier to do that work when it is in service to something we care about.

The entire conversation reminded me that there is a strong connection between change methodologies, creativity, imagination, possibility, passion, purpose and practice (wow, that’s a lot of P’s!). When we engage ourselves creatively, we shift our world view, we shake up our established thought patterns. This act sparks the imagination and opens up new possibilities. New possibilities are a pathway for passion and purpose to find form through our practice in the world. Change methodologies seek to engage these elements on a collective level to help shift our ability to be creative, think systemically, and establish new patterns of practice that allow for a more dynamic environment. When we align our practices in service to our individual and collective passions, we create powerful life-affirming organizations that are adaptive to and even excited by change.

Tags: changehandbook, nexusforchange, adaptiveorganizations, creativity,