Mobile Commerce, Breakfast Meetings and CFOs

This week went by so fast, it's almost a blur!
I had an early start to the week - a breakfast meeting with Keith Mitchell, CFO of Mobilians Inc.
It was interesting to hear Keith, who is a Tippie alumnus, talk about the trials and joys of managing a start-up venture. Mobilians will soon be introducing mobile commerce in the US and it will be exciting to see how this will affect online transactions.
The current focus of Mobilians is to grab a pie of small value transactions [<15$]. When a user makes an online purchase, along with the current payment options, 'MobiCash' will be available as a payment option. An authentication code will be sent to the user's mobile phone, which is then used to complete the transaction.

Since we are on the topics of CFO's... a few weeks back we had a chat with Larry Zimmerman, the CFO of Xerox. Larry is one of the key people involved in the turnaround at Xerox and it was captivating to hear the "inside" version of the story.
Keith and Larry are CFOs at opposite ends of the spectrum, yet a common theme in their talks was the importance of soft skills. "Technical skills are a given. They get you in the game; soft skills get you ahead."

Talking about mobile commerce, I wonder how things will change once the Google phone is out. And I'm waiting to see what Android will do to change our world! Click here to see more on Android.