As I sat pondering the consumer electronics device most influential to me, personally and professionally, in 2009, I am torn. I am never a foot away from my Palm Pre, a device I adore and use constantly. I am far more passionate about my two year old Nikon SLR, an old D40, which I drag everywhere and use both for work and fun, but I am not devastated when I leave home without it.

I love my MacBook Pro, especially the ability to type 90 words per minute on the great keyboard, and see graphics well on the large screen, but my mobile phone gives me constant access to many of the things I need when not in the office. From a software and services perspective, I’ve learned to love Skype, I like the randomness of connection on Twitter, and the deep relationship building I have on Facebook and LinkedIn.

I live in the echo chamber of Silicon Valley, and often loose perspective on technology, so I decided to randomly poll my social networks, entirely unscientifically, about what technologies mattered to others in 2009. My networks have the benefit of worldwide geographic reach and connection to people from all walks of life, from technology to dog club buddies to friends in medical, retail and other non-tech carriers.

What did I discover?

2009 was the year of mobile.

All my respondents referred to a mobile device, 90% referring to a smart phone, 10% to small form factor computers (dare I say netbook?), one person to an iPod, and one person to mobile video capture devices. One brave soul pointed to Ubuntu (his non-device choice), and nobody mentioned regular PCs, cameras, GPS, IPTV, home video servers, home networking, social networking services, or anything related to online video, TV, the Internet, ebooks, or anything else that gets the press salivating.

Of the mobile fans, the vast majority are iPhone fan folks, although quite a few Palm Pre, two Blackberries and one Android phone were mentioned.

So what does this mean? To me, it points to a social movement embracing the desirability of always on, always connected, and most critically, always informed. It’s possible that in 50 years people will laugh at us for this obsession, but it’s a driving force in technology today. While many of the “hot” technologies are about doing something somewhat different than we did a couple years ago, such as watch the same TV show on the same TV, just sent to it from a different device, mobile technology has much broader impacts: making us connect more deeply with people, and keeping us informed, often of very useful information, like weather and directions.

At the end of the day, we are social beings, and practical to boot, something often forgotten in CE today.