Who is Richard Smith?

Good morning. I suggested that the bloggers on mobilemuse.ca introduce themselves, so I had better get started and do my own introduction.

My name is Richard Smith. I am a professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, and I work from the downtown campus. I have been interested in 'technology and society' issues for a long time - at least 15 years or so. For the last decade I have been working on internet issues and for the last five years or so on mobile technology and society.

I have a particular interest in how mobile technology affects social inclusion - helping (or hindering) people's ability to feel a part of the social world around them. I am interested in the role of mobiles as surveillance devices, and I am keen to discover new ways of understanding "user experience" of new technology.

Toward that end - understanding user experience in news ways - I have been working with philosophers and other communication scholars to develop a phenomenology of so-called "companion technologies." Companion technologies (CTs) are what the mobile might become - a communication device from person to person but also a rich media access device for exploring and contributing to the social production of knowledge in our world.

In these pages I shall be exploring what it means to humans to have advanced, rich media, mobile devices that are begining to undertand the context they are in (restaurant, tender moment, emergency) and behave appropriately. I look forward to sharing these thoughts with you and engaging in dialog about them.