The scenario is familiar in many households today. Dinner is ready and the kids need to come to the table. It used to be that a good yell upstairs would have the kids running to the meal. Nowadays to communicate even within the house requires an SMS update – honestly, how many of you with kids have watched with amazement as they text each other from across the room?!  

And to put some numbers against this, a 2008 study commissioned by AT&T found 73% of parents reported texting was the most effective means of communication with their children. And no wonder, as a June 2009 Neilsen Company report found the average US teen sent  nearly 3,000 text messages a month in Q1 2009, a rise from less than 500 per month in Q1 2007.

So clearly younger folks increasingly prefer text – it forms an integral part of their lives. And while the number of people over the age of 40 are texting more regularly, a vast majority of the adult mobile user population just don’t text to the same extent.  Studies show that the majority of those adults that do text primarily text with their kids – albeit many parents report it would be much faster to just have a phone conversation because the time it takes to text turns a 2-minute conversation to 20 minutes of back-and-forth typing of 160 character messages.

Communications preferences aside, today we have to also take into consideration the long-term effects of texting. HealthDay News recently reported on findings that texting can lead to painful repetitive stress injuries, ‘cell phone elbow’ also known as cubital tunnel syndrome, tendinitis of the wrist and arthritis in the thumb joint, to name a few.  Now texting goes from cumbersome to potentially a health claims issue…where’s the fun in that?!

So all things considered – how to bridge the generation gap with kids that only want to communicate via text? And how can we (and our kids) start veering off the path of thumb texting to avoid or minimize longer term effects of repetitive hand movement? 

Fortunately we are at the right time and right place for an option – speak-a-text. One click of a button and a text can be spoken to any mobile phone user with SMS anywhere in the world. And really isn’t it easier to just say what you mean than have to type it out letter by letter on a tiny mobile phone keypad? Definitely!

Anyone interested in giving speak-a-text a try can call  (980) 939-8785 in the U.S. to speak-a-text to the mobile phone user of your choice.   If you are in the UK you can do the same on 0161 369 5672.   Your thumbs will thank you later – and your kids might finally think you’re cool…!

Have Your Voice Heard by G20 Leaders

This week sees leaders from all over the world convene in London for this year’s G20 Summit.
The G20, for those of you that don’t know, is laid out as an informal forum that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability.

By contributing to the strengthening of the international financial architecture and providing opportunities for dialogue on national policies, international co-operation, and international financial institutions, the G20 aims to help support growth and development across the globe.

Topics high on the agenda for this year’s summt are tackling the worldwide recession that is affecting us all and of course, the more long term problem of climate change.

It goes without that these leaders will be locked away in their own meeting room, away from the public eye and behind a veritable fortress of security; so making sure your voice is heard will prove no easy task.

Fortunately…

SpinVox has teamed up with our friends at Moblog to help support the G20Voice project.
Fr this next part, I think I’ll hand over to Alfie Dennen, co-founder of Moblog and G20Voice supporter:

“The G20Voice project represents an amazing opportunity to give people around the world a voice that can be heard at the G20 Summit, and that’s where Moblog and our voice partner SpinVox come in.

Through the Spinvox voice to text service and Moblog’s mobile blogging platform, we are able to provide a service enabling people all over the world to simply call a local number to ask a world leader attending the summit a question. The technology converts the speech to text, and posts it along with the audio to the G20Voice moblog. All of the questions asked will be collated and the best of them will be asked directly of the world leaders to whom they are posed….”

There are 50 bloggers that have been chosen to attend the summit and they will be your voice. To ask the question that matters most to you, simply call the relevant number below and speak to the G20Voice directly:

• Canada:+15199629984
• France:+33177682327
• Germany: +49211237020865
• Italy:+390662207397
• Spain:+34951247227
• UK:+441613696823
• USA:+18314989119

Your message will be converted to text and, along with the audio, posted directly to the web for everyone to hear at the G20Voice website If you are accessing the site on a mobile device simply visit
http://m.moblog.net/voice

If you are in the following Latin American countries, your posts will be made to our Latin American partner site Bligoo, call the relevant number below to ask your question:

• Mexico:+525585256238
• ARGENTINA:+541150773167
• Brazil:+552140639557
• CHILE:+5626563916

The G20Voice project has already achieved so much; being able to bring 50 bloggers from around the world to the summit with press accreditation is a landmark event. People who would otherwise never be heard at the G20 Summit now have a voice, and for that SpinVox and Moblog are honoured to be a part of the G20Voice project…

So of late I’ve been thinking about putting some posts together about how our users are taking SpinVox and applying it their lives.

Social/Behavioural change is one of my favourite subjects so when our service has is at the the heart of this change, well – how can I NOT blog about it?!

So – first up:

We have the Rev John Kronenberg, vicar of Hinchley Wood –>

Reverend John has just started using SpinVox to broadcast/email his sermons to the inboxes of the church members who are unable to make it along each Sunday.

Brilliant.

Admittedly – this isn’t brand new information – our PR team did a fantastic job last week and this ‘electronic sermon’ was heavily reported in the press with both the BBC and The Independent (as well as whole host of other news sites) picking up the story and running with it…

That’s all well and good – but they were just previews… the *actual* event itself happened this past Sunday and we sent a squad of SpinVoxers down to cover it – here’s what they came back with…

Check it:

Fantastic stuff…

I’ve got a few more posts lined up along the lines of this kind of thing – but if you have anything you want us to cover – drop me a note james dot whatley at spinvox dot com and I’ll happily report on it!

Wooo!