The bumbling, babbling, but oddly endearing Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, introduced the world to his iconic wireless shoe phone in the very first episode of Get Smart on September 18, 1965.
Years later, when I watched reruns of Get Smart as a child, I arrived in my naive stupor at the perfectly logical conclusion: this must be what the future of wireless phones looks like. Shoes.
In my defense, the real thing wasn't exactly around to prove me wrong.
The first commercially available handheld cell phone, the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, didn't go on sale until 1983. It was enormous, expensive, and epic. But it was neither a shoe phone nor named after Maxwell. I was disappointed.
Still, Get Smart stuck with me.
Many years later, when I needed a name for this site, GetSmart.com would have been the obvious homage. Just one small problem, though. It wasn't available. "Missed it by that much." So I settled for the next best thing: Getabu.
The name is my humble homage to Agent 86 and Get Smart. And as long as our ears remain attached to our skulls, I suspect the shoe phone's prospects will remain grim.
So I won't be selling shoes or phones anytime soon. But at Getabu, you can follow along as I explore the latest in wireless technology, project management, leadership, and whatever else I find worth thinking and writing about.
No shoe phone required.
Additional credits
- Module images: Created with GPT Image
- Text editing: Grammarly and Claude