My BlackBerry (BB) has not been working for the last couple of days. There has been a service failure for BBs throughout the world. I cannot read my e-mails and messages on time. I miss the red signal of the BB and its buzzing when a message comes. I am upset. I feel that something is missing. In the early 1960s, when I was a child, you could not make a long-distance phone call but had to be “connected” to the line. You first had to call the telephone exchange and ask the operator to “write down” the phone number you wanted to call. Then, the operator had to “connect” the number to your telephone line. I am telling this so that you can understand from which point I started. Back then I could not have imagined that one day I would miss the red signal of my BB.

The BB was first released in 1999. That year, there were only 25,000 BB users. It is said that the recent service failure has affected 70 million people. The BB was the king of the smartphone market at the turn of the twenty-first century. Then, the iPhone and Android phones were released. In August 2010, the share of BB in the smartphone market was around 37.6 percent. The share decreased to 19.7 percent by 2011. It appears that when the iPhone 4S is released in a few days, this global service failure will eat up our sweet Blackberry. Let’s hope for the best.

When I was a child, there were no smartphones. But Captain Kirk of Star Trek had a mobile phone he never put down. While he was discovering a new planet, he would talk to the Enterprise on this phone. The device only enabled voice communication. Today’s smartphones were unimaginable not only to me but also to today’s sector leaders. Smartphones have become pocket computers. They enable data communication alongside voice communication. I guess this is why they are called “personal digital assistants.” For the last three days, I have been like a company manager left high and dry while his personal assistant is sick. I do not know what to do.

So, let’s see: with my BB, I can take a look at the draft presentations of my colleagues at TEPAV and tell them what I think. I can take short notes to give feedback. I can send and receive e-mail, take a look at online articles and read newspapers. I can do all of these while I am travelling. I can interfere with everything at work even when I am away from the office. I can listen to music when I get bored. I can watch videos. It is a splendid invention in this era of multi-tasking. What is more, I can do all with a palm-size device. What else could a person want?

I keep saying now and then that Turkey has to improve its productivity to become the tenth biggest economy of the world. In the past, it was difficult to achieve this, but I believe that in the current era of information technologies, it is easier. I am increasingly convinced that the digital gap between developed and developing countries can be closed. The story of the fishers of Kerala, India, is for those who think that I am flying high.

Kerala is a coastal state in the southwestern India. It has a population of 32 million. On the 580 km coast of the city, about one million people earn their livings by fishing. They catch approximately 600 thousand tons of fish a year with small boats. They sell the fish they catch in the mornings in more than a hundred fish markets along the coast. The fishermen selling the catch in the usual market do not know what is going on in the next market down the coast, even if they have an excess supply of fish. They do not want to head to the next bay without knowing the situation there since this trip has a certain cost of fuel. So, what do the fishermen do? They dump the unsold fish into the sea, wasting resources. Mobile phones, however, prevent the waste. A study by Harvard University demonstrates the productivity gain the fishermen of Kerala have achieved via mobile phones.

What are we doing, meanwhile? Introducing taxes. I will write about this as soon as my BB starts working again.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 14.10.2011