The place to find reports on what happend is on the wiki. Also, check out the twitter stream for the #omc09 hashtag.

I was especially interested in the issue of mobile data collection. (I was so interested, I facilitated a session.) And, even more specifically, I’m interested in how to leverage CiviCRM and mobile devices for a range of interesting applications. There are a number of ways to get data from mobile phones into a CRM – and all have advantages and disadvantages, depending on a lot of things.

• Globally, what you can basically depend on is SMS. Smartphones haven’t made it into most of the developing world, nor have 3G networks. So how do you get SMS data into a database system like CiviCRM? You need an SMS gateway, and systems such as RapidSMS to gather data
• Use J2ME to write applications for mobile phones, and send the data via SMS to a central database.
• A tool such as EpiCollect, which is an Android app.
• A slimmed-down, simplified webform to be used on mobile browsers.

One thing that would facilitate this would be a more robust API system in CiviCRM – access to the data via REST or JSON, which would allow CiviCRM to talk with some of the tools out there like Mesh4X.

I learned a ton. Thanks to MobileActive.org and the Open Mobile Consortium for a fabulous event.