Thursday, November 06, 2008

The calm after the storm

Whew, what a week. Monday I had a lengthy planning and preparation session with the team (of which I am one, but curiously absent from the site) from Telco 2.0 ahead of the event on Tuesday, followed by a very interesting dinner with, among others, Martin, ChrisLee Dryburgh, J.P. Rangaswami, Doc Searls, and Trudy Norris-Grey from BT. Tuesday and Wednesday was the full-throttle event, and today was a small "meet the analyst" session in the morning, followed by a group debrief and roadmap session. All very interesting, but entirely unbloggable - all will be revealed in due course. 

I thought the event itself was great, and I enjoyed being there, meeting people, and doing a couple of presentations (one on a data use case, and one on preparing for life after the credit implosion). Thanks to those who came forward to offer ideas and support. My perspective in the team is somewhat unique - I helped them plan the original event two years ago, and did the opening presentation (the now infamous 10 Things, to which I will refrain from linking yet again), and I have attended some of two subsequent events, but have been mostly out of the loop until now. 

Coming back to the fold for event number five, I am impressed with the extent to which the guys have been able to get buy-in and support from the industry around the two-sided business model concept. Following the meeting this morning with a handful of vendors, systems people, and carriers, there is no doubt in my mind that at the senior strategy level, the ideas are really gaining traction, and that the industry feels passionately that it has to address the longer term issues facing it, which will not recede, despite the sector's current popularity with investors. So congratulations guys!

As a result of being so focused on the event and the lessons from it, I have pretty much ignored email and the market. However, October's hedge fund performance data is out, and it's not pretty - if you don't want to know the score, look away now.

The other bit of information to come my way is that friend Keith McMahon has a talented doppelganger in Sweden. 

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