By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

Here's an interesting exercise I tried last week: go back two years in your day planner. What were you doing? How did you do it? Pull up last Tuesday and ask the same questions. Remarkable, huh? I spent more time on the road, interacted with fewer people, knew less about their lives, and had a ton more paper in mine. Case in point: wheels up two years ago meant forced down time. Not so today. With in-air WiFi and faster, more capable devices, 5B is just an office with a view (and a fat dude snoring but that for another post).

Work and life are digital. But more important, they move faster. They're more agile, more complete - all in a way that makes them richer and more fulfilling. Extend these trends out two years and factor in the Droid generation - adolescents raised today with the expectation that anything is a click away - and it's tough to imagine what we'll be doing and how we'll do it. One thing is clear: life won't happen in front of a PC and service delays and information gaps won't be tolerated.

Inspired by that world, we recently launched our most exciting product ever. It extends the value we've always provided IT to the rest of the business. It's not a product launch as much as a reminder that technology is catching up with life as quick as life is catching up with technology. The product is called Mobile BMC Self Service and it devolves control over how and where we work to where it should have always been: the hands of end-users.

Mobile BMC Self Service gives you and me, mortals with phones, the power we've always needed. We can now submit and manage service requests, browse the catalog, and know in real-time wherever we are when our issues are being worked, by whom, and when they'll be resolved. The way to build more dynamic businesses isn't to add features or work longer hours. It's by spending more time collaborating and less time waiting. It's by making fewer calls to the service desk and more calls to action that drive innovation and create business value.

What we announced is bigger than a new product, bigger than anything we could do alone. It's the next step in the evolution of enterprise self-service. It's the culmination of years of hard work and industry leadership from BMC, Aeroprise, and RIM. You'll be hearing more about it in the months ahead but consider this your invitation to join a dialog that's just getting started and will influence how we all work and live for years to come.

Want to learn more? Check out this video of Mobile BMC Self Service in action.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

Join leaders from Dell, Cisco, and NetApp alongside BMC CEO Bob Beauchamp and our team of mobile ITSM experts for a full day of interactive demos, talks, and training. Hear from customers who are extending BSM to BlackBerrys, iPhones, bar code scanners, and cell phones. Learn why companies like Lennox International (NYSE: LII) and government agencies like the National Institutes of Health report 30-50% productivity gains and tighter alignment with business goals when executives, managers, and technicians proactively manage IT in real-time from anywhere.

We're excited to participate in this BMC-first, innovative, online-only event format and think you'll see why on October 29. Register here then ask for me at the booth and we'll send you an Aeroprise gift.

See you next week!

By Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise. Follow Dan on Twitter.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

Stick 5,000 BlackBerry enthusiasts of all colors, races, shapes, and sizes under one roof for four sleep-deprived days and magic happens. Two lasting impressions from WES 2009:

1) The surreal scene at the will.i.am concert when he asked the booze-soaked crowd (tragically, most didn’t know who he was) to wave their BlackBerrys in the air like lighters. The place lit up like a Christmas tree.

2) I saw a great demo yesterday of a BlackBerry that is also a projector. Not an input to one but an actual functioning LCD projector fitted with a surprisingly sharp, bright laser that projects whatever is being presented on the device onto a 17” window on the wall.

When we first attended WES in 2003, it was in a basement in Chicago. Us and a few other ISVs traded war stories and wondered aloud if we had bet on the right pony. But mostly we crouched in lotus positions near windows or outside in the pouring rain trying to get a Mobitex or DataTAC wireless signal (yeah, well, it wasn’t funny then). Today, there are hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of customers, and hordes of media-types all clamoring for a peek at the next big thing – and, in so doing, creating it.

It’s not just a great time to be part of the BlackBerry community. It’s a way to watch a cultural phenomenon evolve from the inside. We exhibited with BMC and were amazed by how many conversations started with “Finally! My manager’s instructions were to find a way to use Remedy on BlackBerry and here you are.” Great energy but that wasn’t the most notable part of the show.

It was the reminder that even though there is only one RIM and many ISVs that develop BlackBerry applications (well north of 500 at last count), it remains the case that BlackBerry (the device, company, and pop icon) is every bit as dependent on its partners as we are on RIM. No mobile OS has an enterprise ecosystem even 1% as evolved as BlackBerry and what was clear this week is the gap is only getting wider. Call us the clownfish to RIM’s anemone. It would all seem hero-worshipy if it weren’t genuinely symbiotic.

RIM’s success is the result of years of paying close attention to unmet customer needs, not competing with its partners, and aggressively expanding its platform by focusing on the things we value – a stable device that is second-to-none with the best security model, battery life, a crack team of experts at our beck and call, and solid developer tools.

The iPhone, you say? A phenomenal device and a ground-breaking app distribution model – but a black hole for enterprise ISVs. RIM is light years ahead when it comes to go-to-market strategies, carrier sell-through, partner sales support and, most importantly, experience supporting large enterprise customers. But what was most motivational about WES is that despite years of torrid growth, five minutes in the exhibit hall confirmed we’ve only seen the opening act of a show none of us can afford to miss. Bring your BlackBerry.

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.

-by Dan Turchin, chief executive officer and co-founder of Aeroprise

Ever look around when phones need to be powered down before takeoff? I call it the Airplane Test. Great way to take the pulse of the handset market. Of course, fliers aren't representative of the overall phone-using population when it comes to mobile habits but they're not a bad cross-section of business users.

On today's flight from Houston, for the first time feature phones failed the test. Incredibly, of the ten devices in my field of view every single one had a keyboard and not one was made by the top three global handset manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, Samsung). A few years ago, smartphones failed the test (in fact, a few years ago the lady next to me failed it - "What is that?" "Uh, a BlackBerry, ma'am." "How does the person on the other end know what you're typing?" [Awkward pause.]).

These days, the friendly skies look more like the neighborhood Fry's. Between Kindles, smartphones, and iPods, the plane has become a thumb gym full of treadmills for digits. The only thing notably absent are laptops. And when they're out it's to watch DVDs or use PowerPoint. Wireless data is evolving: first, it infiltrated schoolyards. Now airplanes. Next cube-ville. Mark my words.

Take the Airplane Test and let me know what you find. Next up: I've hatched a plan to convince the FAA there's no scientific basis for the 10,000-foot ban on electronics. When was the last time an itty-bitty book light took down a 747?