When considering that more than half of Americans are now carrying a computer in his/her pocket, many technologists and marketers have blindly rushed to address mobility as it leads us to who-knows-where. So much of desktop behavior such as email and the web have followed us here, while incumbent text messaging and a newfound lust for apps is chewing away at the time spent on the device. Through all of this prescriptive technology, it is critical to respect and understand that liberation from the desktop carries with it disruptions from the offline world and traditional media. These observances and some telling data are included in this first edition of the Edelman Mobility Quarterly.

In this inaugural POV, I have focused on adoption rates and behavior almost wholly unique to the United States, including social-mobile and general user behavior, supported by statistics from Google/Ipsos, Arbitron/Edison Research and Nielsen. You will also find six “Mobility Tips for the End of 2012” that should serve as provocative thought starters for your own mobile strategic and planning conversations.

As we venture into the closing months of this year, none of us can deny that mobility and the widening use of mobile devices brings evolutionary change to communications and humanity itself. Everything in marketing, public relations and operations will be reshaped by new patterns in social behavior and media consumption that are enabled by our “wireless” lives and our newfound access to information almost everywhere we go. As this document states in a voice of urgency, now is the time to address the opportunities and threats that mobility brings to communications and commerce.