I live in a small town in southern Oregon.  On Saturday, I was at the Middle School, manning the snack booth for the regional band competition.  I did pretty well – over 50 sales!  But what fascinated me was that three people asked, somewhat plaintively, if I took debit cards… They were all young moms.  They could see that I didn’t have a card acceptance set-up, but they clearly had no other means of paying.

This, of course, is one of the mobile payment scenarios that everyone is thinking about.  Clearly, each of the women had a cell phone with her.  What will it take to get one (or more) solutions to the “consumer tipping point”, so that it becomes the obvious solution to this problem?  

At Glenbrook, we talk about “brand as verb” – what (in this future world) will I say to those moms?  “Pay me by phone”?  “Send it to me by PayPal?”  Other?