New Studios for the Houston Business Show

Regular readers of this blog have seen my remarks regarding our world famous studios (they were actually the old news "closet" in the old KIKK days). Well, I am proud to announce that we have gotten brand new facilities that put us well into the 21st century. We now have top of the line facilities with four microphones and a large studio table. In the photo you will find Houston Business Show Advisor in the information technology area, Richard Sonnier between breaks. Richard is President of Nimble Services and has been an with the program for over four years. I have had some people comment on the old studio and was encouraged to share our good news. That is the exact purpose of this post. I now feel like I'm a part of the media elite.

On this week's show I visited with Bruce Kaufmann of Kaufmann Capital Advisors and Business Show Advisor on Corporate Finance and Jim Stein of the Bank of Houston. You can learn more about these guests and listen to the show 24/7 by visiting the Houston Business Show website.

Are Vanity Numbers in Trouble?

Back in the good old days people typically only had to remember 7 numbers in order to complete a call. Those numbers began with a word emphasizing the first two letters found correlated to numbers on the keypad (mine began as "LIncoln", which was "54"). With the rapid growth in the population and the changes in telecommunications, virtually every city now has to use ten digits. Still, the smart business could make it easy for potential customers to find them through the popular vanity numbers.

An apartment complex might have a number like (333) 444-RENT, with that word at the end making it easier to remember. Recently I was driving along in my car and I heard an ad for an upcoming concert in town and I wanted more information. I pulled out my phone and began to dial away and the last five digits was a name. Unfortunately for me, and those who use Blackberrys and other more modern phones (I use the T-Mobile Dash), I couldn't find the numbers (since the keypad conforms to a keyboard, I would have to "guess", which wasn't worth the effort in my opinion). In a recent interview with Richard Sonnier, our Houston Business Show expert in IT, it was pointed out that roughly 10 percent of all phones fall into this category. This means about 10 percent of cell phone users will not be able to easily navigate using vanity numbers. This number will only grow.

So what will replace vanity numbers? Well, these new phones virtually always have web access, so the web sites will continue to grow in importance and prominence. For those interested in calls, there will be a move towards finding numbers that are easy to remember (e.g., no more than 2 or 3 unique numbers per phone number).

Being able to change and flexibility is important in our world of business, as we see vanity numbers are finding themselves, like so many other things in our world today, a victim of the Internet.

Richard Sonnier Predicts Demise of Text Messaging

On today's Houston Business Show (Monday at 1 PM on CNN 650 or 24/7, archived at HoustonBusinessReview.com) I interviewed Business Show Advisor Richard Sonnier of Nimble Services, who did an update on some of the latest changes in technology. I love this kind of programming because it helps me understand what are real changes and not mere fads, what I need to implement immediately or can wait until later, and what are the best approaches to incorporating technological changes.

On this week's show he discussed the new Apple IPhone which is expected to change the way individuals communicate with others and the way phones such as this is profoundly impacting text messaging (SMS). Text messaging was a hot form of communication just a couple of years ago and now, according to Sonnier, it is facing serious decline. Why? Because as people move to pda equipment they will increasingly use email, which doesn't cost anything extra since they likely already will have the web on their devices. Furthermore they can check out that information on their computers as well as their phones. When you can have major forms of communication be dismissed in months, the world of business is a really scary place. Companies must be holding on for dear life as they try to keep up the demands of an ever changing population.

Richard Sonnier has been an Advisor to the Houston Business Show for three years and his information has made a difference in the way many in our audience and I conduct business.