Hi, welcome to Small Business Trends radio. I'm Anita Campbell, your host for the show today. I am so glad you could join us today. This radio program is a companion to the Small Business Trends website where we explore the trends that drive small business. You can find us on the web at www.smallbiztrends.com. I'd also like to thank our sponsor, Six Disciplines, who's made this show possible. You can find Six Disciplines on the web at www.sixdisciplines/va.

All right. We have a great guest today. Our guest is Maryann Hudson, she is the director of entrepreneurship at the Ewing-Marion Hoffman Foundation, and we'll be talking with Maryann in just a few minutes. But first I'd like to do the Today's Trend segment.

Today's Trend is the trend of "colliding digital devices." In 2006 we're going to see advancement towards a true personal computer. That is, a device that we carry on our persons. Now this is not going to happen overnight. We're going to see advancement toward it in 2006, although we're not going to actually see these new kinds of devices really out in the market in a big way. But this is something that's been going on for a while, and we're going to continue to see it, and I think we'll see the pace pick up. Now what is this going to look like, this new device? Well, in the future it's going to be a kind of morphing together of personal computer, cell phone or mobile phone as it's called outside the United States, and increasingly it's going to add in what we today consider entertainment, that is the ability to download and consume audio and video, and even to record audio and video.

Now, let's consider mobile phones for a minute. In some parts of the world mobile phones have leap-frogged over landline phones. They're much more entrenched and widely available. At the same time, mobile phones are becoming more widespread, they have developed more features. Phones now let you take photographs, access the Internet, make and play sound recordings and videos. In some parts of the world you can even use the phone to pay for purchases. Now let's look at what's happening with PCs, or computers. Laptops and mobile computers are getting smaller and come equipped hooked up to wireless networks, making access to the Internet...
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