This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

When I think of the word “blackberry,” two things spring to mind:

• The blackberries on bushes near where I live that are almost ripe and that means I get to go out and pick some.  And, guess what – they are free!

• Blackberries also were some of the early hand-held phones and, given the character of that early development, the rest of this blog will be about Blackberry technology.

Here’s what my friend Mr. Google says about the device:

“BlackBerry Limited, known as Research In Motion (RIM) until January 2013, had a long history of extreme success and failure.  It’s credited by many as creating the first smartphone.

“And at its peak in September 2011, there were 85 million BlackBerry subscribers worldwide.  But the rise of Google’s Android platform and Apple’s iOS caused it to decline in popularity by nearly three-quarters.

“BlackBerry’s stock price effectively tanked from highs of $147 to around $3.69 as of March 2023.

“How did a high-flying revolutionary tech company get eclipsed so badly? A new movie, set to release in Canada in May, is set to tell the tale.”

The pioneer in bringing e-mail services to handheld mobiles, with its trademark QWERTY keyboard, BlackBerry became an instant darling of world leaders, corporate honchos, and the rich and famous alike.  

Indeed, owning a BlackBerry device was once a status symbol, and BlackBerry addiction was a prevalent condition.

The always-on, always-connected wireless world that allowed secure and reliable access to e-mails turned out to be very useful for businesses, including mine.

The first prominent release from BlackBerry, the Inter@ctive Pager 950, was in 1998.  It had a small-sized screen, keyboard buttons, and the iconic trackball that allowed seamless syncing and continuous access to corporate emails. It became an instant hit, and then there was no looking back.

Count me among the early users.  Actually, count my firm, then called CFM Strategic Communications, in the early-user category.

We were the first lobby group at the State Capitol in Salem, Oregon to use BlackBerries and, for us, it was a revolutionary development.

No matter where we were, we could, not just get phone calls, but also check e-mails.

The devices meant we were able to communicate more nimbly with our clients, a critical factor for anyone in the lobbying business.

Sitting around our conference room in our Portland headquarters office, I still remember the day we got the new BlackBerries.

I was transfixed and, I say that as not the most tech-savvy partner in our firm.

I say that, perhaps because I now knew I could be on the golf course without “leaving” my clients.  Not just the golf course, but everywhere.

All of this seems pretty routine now, with IPhones everywhere.  But, back in the day, BlackBerries led us to this current space where everyone is always connected.

Consider me and my firm to be visionaries!

Footnote:  Speaking of “firsts,” when I was in Washington, D.C. working in the office of Oregon Congressman Les AuCoin, our first on the Hill to get a Wang word-processing system.  Imagine that.  We could now write letters without carbons or white typo-fixing solutions.  Just consider me a pioneer!