I do not find it very useful to extrapolate trends into the new year and making more or less safe bets about what will happen. I am not saying they are bad. A few good ones are found at Mobhappy and MEF.

For my own businesses though I find it much more useful to run a few off the charts what-if scenarios. Then you are ready when something whacky happens. So these days I think in terms of “so what if so and so happened out of the blue, what would we do? What would Superman do?”.

Here are my  five scenarios  to be prepared for in 2009. If you know what you would do if any of these things happened you are little better prepared than the rest of the pack.

1. Nokia looses the top positions in handsets to Android and open source OS based phones (and yes the iPhone as well of course).

Well, I consider Palm and maybe even Motorola already dead. Call me a cynic if you like. Even by picking Nokia this one is almost qualifying as an extrapolation of current events and maybe the least bold scenario. The real effect here would be increased competition in the mobile entertainment space. The reason being that it speeds up the convergence between “the two Internets” – the mobile and PC experienced internet. Since competitive advantage in our industry is based on skills in how to overcome the fragmentation in technologies and non-compatibilities. I.e. we have learnt how to tweak and short cut in an ecosystem that is very rudimentary no to say flawed. As the ecosystem improves and turns into a normal operating space as the Internet for PCs is already alot of our special mobile skills are worth nothing. Zero. Zilch. So make sure you can offer experiences that stand out when the user experience shoots up. Get the customer base to grow fast so you have a tribe of loyal followers.

2. Major mobile network operator goes bust.

Why not? There are some serious refinancing of debt needed this year among many MNO’s in Europe and North America. Will they manage to get through the year? We have heard abot cost cutting and staff reductions for the last three months now and I take it that we will hear more. When it comes to government bailouts, I truly hope there will be none if a telco knocked on the government’s door. There is a difference from saving a vital function in society (moving money around) from saving a company that makes less than it can produce the service for. Especially when there are eager competitors in every market that could provide the service without interruption (almost), should a player go bust. Implications? You might loose that lucrative MNO contract when your customer goes bust, and they might drag you down as well if they have large unpaid bills they owe you. This is more or less practice by the large operators to first of all have 90 days payment terms and then pay late on top of that. If you are in a growth situation with a MNO and your service/game sells really well and expands, the light in the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming train. That revenue you booked might not materialise. Action: Clear up your accounts receiveable and get paid or pull the service. At least play hardball to let your customer understand that they must have mistaken you for a bank.

3. Research reports really prove that mobile phone radiation is a real health hazard.

No we are getting into the real earthquake-like scenarios. Say that the NIH or some other serious institution can prove that a) the radiation from phones and base stations are seriously altering human tissue and b) old research has been tampered with driven by commercial interests and some of the manufacturers’ CEOs will stand trial for this deception. Implication: Severe drop in mobile phone use. Fixed broadband explodes.

Fixed telephony revival. We start to plan our day again instead of “I’ll text you when I’m there” lifestyle we live today. Mobile phones with an airplane mode are still used for off-line things like playing games once downloaded or transferred from PC to phone. Action: Start a recycling business for mobile phones.

4. All mobile content becomes free before the advertisers are ready to pay for the advertising needed to fund the industry.

Back to a safer prediction maybe. We have seen alot of free ad-funded models for mobile in the last 6 months. In my business I have tested a few myself. It is defenitely a model that makes sense and will prevail. The problem is that we have been double-whacked here. The big advertisers were not convinced at the time when the financial crisis reached its climax in the autumn of 2008. So now there are sites, services and ad agencies chasing very few ad dollars for their things. Some had already made a 100% commitment to the consumers for a free service. Implication: In 2009 you can probably not run a profitable business on a free ad-funded model. Action: If you have the financial strength, optimise the business and hold on to the cash as much as you can. Evangelise the advertising world. Join up with ad-agencies and ad networks to to this. If you need to make a profit sooner rather than later to survive, add premium features, find banner swaps for no-cash customer acquisitions, Evangelise as mentioned above. Or, call it quits and start from scratch with the money you have left. Maybe a credit collection firm?

5. A major government is overthrown  by a grassroots movement using the mobile phone as primary tool.

If Obama could win an election with digital media as a large piece in the puzzle, why not do the opposite. Here I think of much of the developing world where we easily find a few governments that should go if the countries in question are to thrive. Common to these countries is that the penetration of mobile phones are far higher than PC internet access penetration. Implication: Revival of democracy and citizen engagement and empowerment to organise, debate and finally make their will heard. Action: Pick a country, go there and start building the service and team. Might not pay your mortgage today, but if you can live off your savings for a while you are in for something to talk to your grandchildren about. It is all about leaving the world a tiny bit better than you found it.

2009 is already a week old, are you prepared?!

Let me know what you think. But make those contingency plans first. Make up your own what-ifs and make sure you know how to act if they become reality.

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