The first production Model T auto in 1908 ushered in a new era of transportation by shrinking dramatically the time it took for people to move from place to place. Like the Model T, communication technologies such as email, mobile phones, and the Internet are dramatically shrinking the time for information to move across the globe. Witness the phenomenon of tools like YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn, which are allowing consumers to provide instantaneous feedback on their product experience to companies.

This effect can now be seen in the electronics design and manufacturing world as well, where those same social marketing tools can be used by customers to propose new features, provide feedback on current performance, and generally pressure their vendors to deliver product quicker to the specifications they want. This article explores how the two-way radio division at Motorola Solutions is tackling some of these pressures about time to market by increasing employee productivity and making better use of business data.

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