Up to now I’ve kept my postings on Professionally Speaking walled-off from my day job as a speech writer and member of the Corporate Communications team at Hewlett-Packard. But, since this this blog is now listed on HP’s website, and there’s a ton of cool stuff happening in the communications area at Hewlett-Packard, I figure I can tear down the wall from time to time and share some HP material.

One aspect of my job involves presenting the HP Today Corporate Overview at the Executive Briefing Center in Cupertino. Visitors to the center are often there for a full day of briefings on specific HP products and solutions. My job is to give them a preliminary 45-minute overview of the company. Given that HP is now the largest computer company on the planet with 156,000 employees and $100B in revenue, this is no small challenge.

I like to break away from the PowerPoint slides and show videos which illustrate some of HP’s major growth trends. One trend which HP sees of increasing importance is for the static, isolated use of technology to be replaced by Always Connected, Mobile Experiences (perhaps paralleling the move away from onanism to relational enjoyment most of us experience as we mature sexually?)

The computer market is evolving toward what CTO Phil McKinney calls ‘liquid’ media - where content moves from the desktop to the laptop to the hand-held device. This frees people from having to be in a certain place at a certain time to enjoy things (and we all remember what a bummer that was when we lived at home with our parents.)

Take computer gaming.

The stereotype computer gamer is a pudgy teenager sitting on a couch playing videogames with the only exercise they get being stronger thumbs. Soon to be history, if HP’s vision of mobility shakes out.

The R&D being done at HP Labs has resulted in radical innovations which allow creative, immersive experiences to take place in city streets, galleries, museums and public spaces. These ‘Mediascapes’ allow teenagers the freedom to escape from the confines of the couch when they play video games and exercise their whole bodies, not just their thumbs. A Mediascape blends digital images, video, audio and interactions with the physical landscape.Take a look at the 90-second video Roku’s Reward to see one implementation:

This is not yet a product from HP. But if you want to experiment with the technology and build your own Mediascape, go to www.mscapers.com to download the free software and have at it!