Fuelled by strong market forces as well as by increasingly ubiquitous and pervasive mobile mass-technologies, the end of the previous and the beginning of this century has seen shifts in working practices and the application of mobile technologies. One such change concerns the work of professionals. This paper aims to discuss the emergence of the mobile professional, through a study of more than sixty professionals from Tokyo during 2002, and through a theoretical analysis of the changes to their work practices and technology use. The paper concludes that we must broaden our conception of mobility and conceptualise mobile professional work in terms of locational, operational, and interactional mobility. We, furthermore, characterise several pertinent aspects of mobile professional work such as: ICT as mobility-booster; maintaining multiple on-going interactions; the importance of personal networks; and places as material foundations for interaction.

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