Ongoing BeBold Contest: Want to show off your BlackBerry passion on video? Email your own #BeBold commercial/video in to editorial@crackberry.com and if we like it we'll run it on the blogs and make ya famous (and give you some sweet prizes!).

There's a fine line between passion and stupidity, and over my years of CrackBerry blogg'n I've had a lot of fun walking that line and occasionally crossing it. Between BBM Stress Tests, Wearing PlayBooks on Gold Chains and Buying $500 BlackBerry Apps, it's not easy dreaming up new things to keep CrackBerry Nation entertained between the posts that keep you informed (like a first look at a BlackBerry 10 phone or interviews with RIM's CEO).

One of my aspiring LOL posts that I've been wanting to do for years now is a shirtless accessory review. Seriously. CrackBerry gets a lot of female traffic, and I think they'd love it! But in order to do a shirtless review I need to get my body ready for it. I'm still a ways out from getting there and have failed on my attempts before to make it happen, but with Mobile Nations Health & Fitness Month now underway and my newly developed I'm Sexy and I Know It workout plan and diet, I think this this time it may actually happen. I need your support CrackBerry Nation!

To keep me accountable throughout fitness month I recorded up today's Workout #1. If you need a laugh and are a #BeBold type of person, give it a view. Just be warned, once you see it, you can't undo the damage to your retinas. Gotta jet to the gym. Need the After video to redeem myself. I have a feeling this is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. :)

We were interupted yesterday from our series of reader-submitted Dream BlackBerry designs by a "Reality" BlackBerry. While the first images of the BlackBerry 10 "London" phone showed a beautiful full touchscreen design (apparently 4.2" w/ a DPI that smokes the retina display on the iPhone 4), our next two submissions are both slider concepts. 

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Inform. Englighten. Entertain. That's our goal this month on the category of Health & Fitness as it relates to mobile devices. Over the next 28 days you'll learn how to leverage your BlackBerry and other tech to build a healthier you!

Why is February fitness month at Mobile Nations? The honest answer is because when the Mobile Nations crew got together in Las Vegas in early January for CES 2012, too many of us remembered each other looking thinner at CES 2011. It turns out running the world's leading mobile-dedicated communities isn't always good for the health. Long days at the computer and late nights powered by pizza and Red Bull eventually take a toll. We made a pledge leaving Vegas to be healthier and more fit going forward. And while our goal is to be healthy and fit for LIFE, we figured there would be no better way to kick get started on that ongoing mission than by dedicating a month to exploring Health & Fitness on our sites.

If you own other devices outside of BlackBerry, our sister sites will tackling things from the perspective of their platforms, so you'll also want to be tuning into AndroidCentral, iMore, WPCentral and webOS Nation. Stay tuned for more, and in the meantime let us know in the comments if there's anything specific you want us to check out. You know we'll do it!

BOOM! Last week's leaked 2012 BlackBerry Roadmap slide deck brought with it a ton of goodies for the new year, but one thing that was missing was a fresh look at a BlackBerry 10 Smartphone Superphone. Consider it found though, with the slide above featuring an image and some details on the much-rumored about BlackBerry "London". 

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Next up in our series of DreamBerry articles, we have TEN more concept BlackBerry designs to check out, drool over, pick apart and brainstorm around. We've already seen some major creativity displayed and enthusiastic community response shown to the Anastasiadis BlackBerry and PlayBook 3.0 concepts we posted, and the ingenuity continues.

Take a gander below to discover some future Berry concepts that are both dreamy, cool and crazy. We've got spinning sliders, dual trackpad and dual display delights and more below, with the images accompanied by their creators descriptions. Gotta love CrackBerry.. talk about passionate and engaged members! Love it!!

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While Research In Motion carries out the process of recruiting a new Chief Marketing Officer to the company, I've decided to temporarily fill the position by throwing some CrackBerry Kevin BlackBerry marketing logic into the ether. You know what they say - no time like the present. And with new CEO Thorsten Heins set to present his ideas for change to RIM's board in two weeks time, the sooner we get these ideas -- both big and small -- out there, the better. Let's kick things off today with what I feel is a long overdue name change.

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Listen above or Download: MP3 | AAC

Winding down what was an absolutely an insanely busy week (seriously, I bet I gave almost as many interviews last week as RIM's new CEO did), I jumped on the Engadget Mobile Podcast with Myriam, Brad and Sean to talk BlackBerry. The Engadget Mobile crew was upfront about their disagreement and disappointment with most of the actions RIM has been taking as of late, so I knew what I was walking into. Heck, lots of CrackBerry readers warned me in advance to get ready for an ambush. Lol.

What followed was a GREAT discussion on BlackBerry. We covered a LOT of material on this show. Mistakes made, current challenges, strengths and opportunities ahead. It was good times and by the time the show wound down I think we even made a BlackBerry champion out of Sean (yay!).

Working on getting this blog post prepped for CrackBerry, I noticed some reader comments on Engadget's post that looked like the podcast went over pretty well, including "This is probably the most thought-provoking podcast I've ever listened to" and "Kevin was insightful and well spoken. RIM really should hire him." So if you haven't listened yet, do yourself a favor and give it a listen. I think this is one you'll want to hear. And be sure to sound off in the comments with your feedback.  Enjoy the show!!

With all the excitement this past week with Research In Motion getting a new CEO, I almost forgot about our DreamBerry movement we have going on. Following up John Anastasiadis' sexy wrap-around BlackBerry concept phone, we have another cool looking mockup to drool over, this one for a tablet. This one was submitted by member ummie4... we'll let him tell you all about it:

Crackberry user ummie4 here. I wanted to show you my design for a DreamBerry! This is my idea for a next generation PlayBook 3.0. To take full advantage of the multitasking of the PlayBook, I wanted my PlayBook to have dual screens, so you can video chat on one screen while you view a Powerpoint presentation on the other. I love the Bold 9900's keyboard so I took the same style keys, made them larger and split them in half. I think a table device with a keyboard layout like this would be really sweet. You can hold the tablet with both hands and thumb type with ease without stretching too far. Above the keyboard are dual trackpads. I still think the trackpad is useful even on a touchscreen device. I think having two trackpads might make gaming controls more interesting than what other tablets have to offer these days. My PlayBook has a flashy brushed stainless steel bezel (like the 9900). It folds closed so you don't need a bulky case or screen protector, it protects itself.

Pretty creative thinking in this one and the logic behind it makes a lot of sense. Dual displays for TRUE multitasking would play to the strengths of BlackBerry 10 and be unique. I guess it's not technically a tablet - but it definitely plays to the book within the PlayBook name. Call it what you want though, I'm loving the out there thinking on this one. And hopefully Skype sees this post and gets their butts in gear to get Skype onto the PlayBook/BB10 (they'll want do it before February 1st or else the CEO is going to be getting a LOT of emails from CrackBerry's Skype petition/email campaign). Be sure to check out a couple more pictures of the PlayBook 3.0 concept after the break!

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Part V and Conclusion of CrackBerry's Interview with RIM's New CEO

As we concluded our first Q&A with RIM's new CEO, I quit with the questions and opened things up for Thorsten Heins to address CrackBerry Nation directly. For all our longtime members, readers and BlackBerry fans around the world, this is for you... an address to CrackBerry Nation, from the CEO of Research In Motion himself:

First, I want you to be our #1 Fan Club, that's for sure. Second, give us feedback. I want you to be with us, I want you to help us to always get better, and give us credit for what our people are doing. Understand how much and how hard the people here are working and I think you're doing a good job of this. I'm ready to stay in touch with you Kevin and your base. We will make this a journey together, and it's going to be fun. 

Honestly, it's hard for me not to get emotional reading those words. When CrackBerry.com went live in February 2007, I really didn't know what the future would hold for us. All I knew was that I was hopeful and excited for the future of BlackBerry and CrackBerry. As Resesarch In Motion enters a new era, I'm having the same feelings again as I did five years ago. Hopeful and excited. Let's Rock & Roll This CrackBerry Nation!!

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Part IV of CrackBerry's Interview with RIM's New CEO

Let's face it. Delivering products to market on time has never been one of Research In Motion's strong points. When we asked CrackBerry readers for questions to ask RIM's Nnw CEO, an overwhelming number of you wanted to know exactly how will RIM change their ways to become a company that can deliver products to the market on time.

RIM's Thorsten Heins acknowledged that the company was not disciplined enough in the past, spending too much time tweaking products already set for production. Heins put the blame solely on the management structure and was clear "that has nothing to do with our people, they have worked day and night and are totally enthusiastic." Heins intends to keep the start-up mentality and innovation coming, but in a more scalable way, "by putting small teams together, assigning them dedicated tasks, making them accountable, and giving them funds to fulfill their tasks rather than being distributed over 3-4 programs. That happened in the past, and that led to programs getting omitted frankly."

On the people front of the transition from BlackBerry OS to QNX, Heins says RIM "figured out pretty fast that those [QNX] resources are not sufficient enough", so the company has been working to realign their Waterloo-based BlackBerry OS coders over to the new platform. It's definitely a challenge for those programmers who have worked on one platform to learn something new and Heins noted that he is really happy to see people taking it on. "We have now rearranged all the resources properly, all the leadership is clear, all the team's tasks are clear, and people work together, so we have achieved a different level of efficiency now in that part of the platform development."

I'm hoping this new structure works for RIM. I'm jonesing for a BlackBerry 10 phone! You can listen to the audio above and read the full Q&A below for more details. 

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Part III of CrackBerry's Interview with RIM's New CEO

Continuing along in our interview series with RIM's new CEO Thorsten Heins, we asked the question that so many smartphone users have been asking for a long time now. Will we ever see BlackBerry Messenger on other Platforms? The BlackBerry Chief said "you should never rule this out" adding "there is a time where this might make sense".

The topic of cross-platform BBM has been debated often on CrackBerry. Our last poll on the subject put the community at 71% in favor of RIM putting BlackBerry Messenger onto other mobile operating systems, but with BBM being such a strong hook keeping users tied to BlackBerry it's definitely not a clear cut business case. At least we now know this is something RIM is definitely looking into.

On the hot topic of licensing out the BlackBerry OS, Heins says people should not put this into a black or white category. Heins is "open for licensing if it makes sense". Heins made it clear that he "was not hired to build a licensing company" but rather was "hired to take BlackBerry to new heights" and plans to do just that with his team.

Listen to the audio above, read the Q&A below and let us know in the comments where you weigh in on this one!

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Part II of CrackBerry's Interview with RIM's New CEO

After breaking the ice and throwing a couple of straight forward questions at RIM's new CEO in our Part I Interview,  we tackle some of the hot topics surrounding Research In Motion and their current BlackBerry strategy. 

You'll want to listen to the interview above and/or read the Q&A below as we get passionate straight talk from Thorsten Heins. Seriously, if you haven't been won over by the new BlackBerry Chief yet, this may be the interview that does it.

We really are entering into a new era for Research In Motion here. This is a CEO who admits RIM has missed on commitments in the past, admits RIM is choosing the harder way (as compared to building upon Android), but 100% believes in the strength of the company and the current strategy they have chosen to execute on. 

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Part I of CrackBerry's Interview with RIM's new CEO

Just as the news became public Sunday night that Thorsten Heins was named the new CEO of Research In Motion, I received a phone call from him letting me know personally that he won the leadership race and it wouldn't be CrackBerry Kevin and a Ham Sandwich at the reigns of RIM in 2012. It was a classy gesture and a clear signal that RIM moving forward will be more engaged with its user community. On that call Thorstein promised he'd give us a few more minutes of his time this week so we could actually throw a few questions his way (as you can imagine, I was completely unprepared for the first call!). RIM's new CEO delivered on his first promise to CrackBerry Nation and on Wednesday I was able to connect with Thorsten again.

Between Monday's RIM conference call, the official BlackBerry youtube videos, and the various television interviews Thorsten has given this week to other media outlets, we've already seen and heard a lot from the new BlackBerry Chief. A lot of the things said have given us plenty of reason to get excited for this new era of BlackBerry, while some of the messages making their way out into the media seem to already be shooting the new leadership direction down before it has even had a hint of a chance to execute. So I took this opportunity to get clarification on some of the mixed messages that have been making their way out there and dig deeper into other topics that have been covered this week. We cover a lot of things and found Thorsten to be great to talk to -- personable and a straight shooter with a sense of humor. In true CrackBerry fashion we will be be bringing the goods to the blogs here in a series of posts, so you'll want to keep it locked to CrackBerry. 

But before we get to the heavier hitting questions we start with a couple of easy ones... listen above or keep reading as we break the ice and get the ball rolling on CrackBerry's first interview with the CEO of Research In Motion. I've been waiting five years to do one of these, so yeah... we're going to rock and roll this!!

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Live: 8:00am EST / 9:00am PST Monday, January 23rd, 2012