Stardust Global Ventures

Those of us who work closely together and use Facebook have been really active with a daily industry conference call called Squawkbox hosted and moderated by my good friend Alec Saunders from iotum. It’s an awesome forum with loads of fun, but also becoming a really important daily event in the industry.

My partner Sheryl and I count Alec and Howard at iotum among our close friends. Recently we had a chance to test this new feature as they were doing some preliminary testing of the inner works. Thanks also to Julien and Noam for spending some time with us on a call the other day.

More comments below the news. Here’s the news:

FREE Conference Calls on Facebook goes global Press release

iotum is announcing global availability of its popular FREE Conference Calls application on Facebook under agreements with Internet communications partners Truphone in the U.K., Abbeynet in Italy and MOI Telecom in France.

And here’s what you’ll see:

Why us this such big news? In the past to participate in the alls you had to dial in with some kind of telephone. Any phone would do. Sheryl and I often join the calls via Skype using SkypeOut so we can participate conveniently from our PC. Now we get more options. Solutions that deliver power and options to users are powerful tools in today’s environment.

New options, Sitofono from another friend, Luca Filigheddu, at Abbeynet. This solution sets up a free incoming phone call to your phone. While it works great to a direct dial phone, it’s less optimal if you’re inside a corporate PBX with an extension or at a hotel. But there’s more.

Truphone, from another friend, James Body, at Truphone (ok, we have several friends) lets callers set up a VoIP call via Truphone from your PC. At last, a PC call from right inside the Facebook app with no need to use Skype,

This stuff works great. In fact it’s awesome! Thanks to our friends for pulling together to build a fantastic solution. And thanks to the iotum gang for letting Sheryl and I help with testing.

That’s right. now you don’t need a telephone to participate in Squawkbox or any other FREE Conference call

Technorati Tags: iotum, Sitofono, Abbeynet, Truphone, unified communications, FREE Conference Calls, Facebook

For those of you whol will be attending VON.x next month in San Jose, please come join us as we join Jeff.

You are invited to join me at VONCamp (the unconference) at Spring 2008 VON.x

I am looking forward to co-hosting with Tom Howe VONCamp, our “Unconference” taking place March 18-19 during Spring 2008 VON.x in San Jose.

The Unconference is an innovative approach to events that enables participants to identify what THEY want to talk about, and organize themselves into groups to exchange the information THEY seek. I have enjoyed taking part in unconferences at both Kinnernet and PodCamp and I am glad to see us embrace the unconference concepts at VON.

The discussions that evolve during VONCamp will address a general set of topics identified by the participants — but the actual agenda will not be set until the event begins.

This dynamic and unfiltered format will provide a great opportunity for the people attending VONCamp to take part in active and open discussions around a wide variety of topics that matter the most to the people who will be there. At VONCamp we are looking forward to leveraging the collective expertise of the people in our audience. Joining me at VONCamp will be a number of the people who are also speaking at the VON.x conference.

At the moment there are twelve topics proposed by our community. This list is available at http://www.voncamp.net.

The Unconference approach is always charged with excitment. Here are the VONCamp Unconference Rules

1. There are no rules.
2. Everyone is equal. Everyone is a rockstar.
3. Give back to the conference by participating actively. “Active participation” might mean giving a presentation, helping with a presentation, blogging or podcasting the event, or whatever other creative ways. While everyone is encouraged to lead a session, there are only twelve slots available.
4. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet – if you’re not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else. Hopefully you will walk the show floor!

I’m not sure we actually have twelve firm topics just yet, but knowing the people involved, we’ll have twenty by the time the week arrives. Here’s a list of what’s on tap right now on the wiki:

1. Recruiting the Web guys: How to create and grow your developer ecosystem – lead by Dave Nielsen (PayPal/StrikeIron etc..)
2. Facebook the perfect sandbox for applications – lead by Alec Saunders
3. Google’s Android; Where do we stand? – lead by Tom Howe
4. Business model mayhem.. Is there a VC or 2 or 3 in Silicon Valley willing to talk about this topic?- lead needed.
5. Will a US telco follow BTs lead with APIs?
6. Rethinking Broadband Internet Connectivity – lead by Brough Turner. Look at the image on Rethinking Broadband Internet Connectivity.
7. Does AWS, Google, Microsoft, or someone else provide all the application layer infrastructure that is needed?
8. Can Telephony Be Free? Lead by Gene Cohen, VoodooVox.
9. Is there any benefit on connecting Social Networks via telecom networks? If not, why? If so, how? – Arjun Roychowdhury (HSC)
10. Topic to be announced later – Ken Camp – http://stardustglobalventures.com
11. Unified Communication; do we have the technology for business? – Paul Sijben (Perzonae) – Great topic. Count me in (Ken Camp) – http://www.realtime-unifiedcommunications.com

As always, VON is going to be a fantastic venue with some real insight into what lies ahead in the industry, Beyond that, it’s always charged with excitement and activity. Sheryl and I are really looking forward to it.

Technorati Tags: Jeff Pulver, VonX, VONCamp

We both use Gtalk a lot in our daily lives. Today we’ve added a new feature here on the sidebar of our blog that let’s people chat with us live via Gtalk if we’re online and available. We’re often online, but not always available or free to chat, but we thought this was a neat tool to try out for a while and let people get in touch or interact with us in yet another way.

Here’s what you’ll see.

Thanks to our good friend Michael Johnson for mentioning this chatback badge. That’s how we found it.

Technorati Tags: GoogleTalk, Gtalk

Last Friday we put GeekSpeakTV with Sheryl & Ken – Episode 1 online here. As we work toward a schedule of live streaming Internet TV with this show, we plan on taking you all along each step of the way. We’re mapping out future episodes, special guests, and even remote shows as we travel here and there. We’ve just been talking about how we can do a GeekSpeakTV from VON.x in a few weeks. That conference is going to bring a number of news stories, special guests and a surprise or two along the way from the First Couple of Voice.

We’ve been working toward our live Internet TV show, GeekSpeakTV, for a while now. In the long run, we’re aiming for a weekly technology and human interaction show that we plan on broadcasting on BlogTV and PulverTV. We weren’t quite ready for live broadcasting, but wanted to get our first episode done. We’ve posted it on Seesmic, Blip.TV, Google Videos and YouTube. We’ll post and publish however we can until we’re all equipped and ready for live broadcast.

Download Now

I’m going to cross-post this on the Realtime Unified Communications Community, Stardust Global Ventures and my Digital Common Sense blog because it’s relevant to each.

Among the conferences my partner and I had high on our list to attend, VON.x in San Jose was one of the most important. Due to scheduling, spring break, and cost, we sadly came to the conclusion we just couldn’t attend. When your work is focused on a particular area and you have to miss a key event, it’s a deflating feeling.

Yesterday, in a message exchange with our friend and colleague Jeff Pulver sent us some real encouragement about GeekSpeakTV. That’s a new weekly Internet video program that we’re getting ready to unveil. In the course of conversation, Jeff prodded us in just the right way that we decided to rearrange things so we can get to Von.x.

Here’s some event info for any of you who don’t really understand what VON is all about.

VON.x has set its sights on the continuing evolution of Internet Communications. It’s no longer just voice or video, it’s everything over the Internet, commonly referred to as XoIP.

Covering Internet voice applications, wireless trends and technologies, presence, video and Internet TV, instant messaging, social media and more, VON.x is about predicting, disrupting, educating and gathering together the people who shape this ever-changing landscape, along with those who have a vested interest in partnering to help re-shape the future of Internet Communications.

With a targeted conference program for vertical industry segments and business communities along with an integrated exposition for those seeking to create powerful business relationships, VON.x is the ultimate gathering place to gain knowledge and realize profits from the Internet Communications Continuum™. It’s the ONLY event of its kind dedicated to all that encompasses Internet Communications.

So in the past day, we’ve been shuffling schedule and putting things in place to be at VON.x in San Jose. We’ll be arriving on the 16th and leaving the 19th. We will have to miss the last day.

Because we fill so many roles – writer, speaker, blogger, podcaster, videocaster, analyst, industry watcher, “first couple of voice“), Sheryl and I will be doing briefings, podcasts, video, taking pictures, and making the most of our time among industry leaders, colleagues and friends. We’re tickled to finally get to attend one of the Breakfast with Jeff events with Jeff. We’ve been prodding him behind the scenes to come hold a breakfast in Seattle so we could attend. Now we get to attend at VON.x, but we still want Jeff to come to Seattle.

We’ll be at the Unconference too.

What is Unconference (code named VONCamp) all about?

For years Jeff Pulver has been running executive summits and other get togethers with the idea of having a free exchange of ideas. This dialogue has been at the heart of VON. These two tracks are intended to pump up the volume of the dialogue.

The Innovators Forum is a series of sessions that show case companies in our more traditional format. However dialogue in these sessions is encouraged. The VONCamp Unconference is harder to describe, because it gives people a chance to self identify as a speaker. At the present time there are 12 speaking slots. If you’ve got something you want to discuss that’s outside the formal program, VONCamp Unconference is the place to do it. We also have a SpeedDating session.

If you’re going to be at VON, drop us a line or look for us there. We’d love to meet as many new people as possible. We’ll be playing many roles at the conference, but it’s certain that we’ll be easy to find. We hope to see you there.

Technorati Tags: VON, Von.x, Jeff Pulver, Conferences, VoIP, Video, unified communications, Ken Camp, Sheryl Breuker, Stardust Global Ventures

A funny thing happened on the way to the….Oh wait. I was home.

This morning Ken and I were in our office, our normal routine. We’ve been ramping up and attempting to gain some exposure/attention with regard to our work at Stardust, when we got an email that reminded us how important we both feel it is that we attend Spring VON. VON is an acronym for Voice on the Net.

Why VON? Many reasons, but some of the best reasons have to do with who will be there. The tech visionaries of our time. Jeff Pulver is one of course, but many others as well. Some we already count as friends. What a great opportunity to meet up with friends we haven’t seen since last September at ITExpo in Los Angeles.

Now to the real point of this post. Are all hotels connected with the conference scene charging exorbitant prices for their rooms? The starving techie would be hard pressed to find a room, based on my experience, unless sponsored by a company etc. Not only are the prices terrible, the rooms are not a good value other than with proximity. Keep in mind this is truly only my experience. I was a little surprised to see the starting price of $269 per night.

Update: Somehow we got the wrong information and hotel costs will not be that high. Apparently it was just a fluke. (or they heard we were coming and tried to discourage us)

I hope to meet up with some online friends, real life friends and also MAKE some new friends. Will you be there? Drop me a line and come connect with us. Ken and I will be there from the 16th through the 19th. Not quite the full conference but only one day shy. Unfortunately we do have other life commitments as well.

Technorati Tags: VON, San Jose, Jeff Pulver, Sheryl Breuker

Anyone who’s dabbled in the universe of social networking has a pretty good sense of who Chris Brogan is. Chris is one of the more notably visible folks in our world. In addition to his prolific blogging on the subject, he’s a genuinely neat guy with lots of interesting things to say. He’s been writing a series he calls The Social Media 100. It’s a project dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media. In this series, Chris has made some incredible contributions to the body of knowledge around social media. This post is my reaction to one of Chris’ posts and a hat tip to say thanks for all your contributions to the space so many of us call home.

Chris recently wrote a post entitled Social Networks are Your Local Pub. Here’s an excerpt I want to comment on:

If Social Networks are Pubs
First, be ready to buy someone else a drink. Take that as a metaphor for sharing overall. If you’re a marketer, share something of value to me. If you’re an aspiring blogger, ask to hear my story first. If you’re a salesman, do something for me before launching into what’s in it for you.

Second, mind the place. Pubs everywhere aren’t run by the barkeep. They’re run by the people who come there often enough to keep the place set straight, who know when a stranger might need welcoming, and who will keep an eye out for the place while you’re taking care of something in the back. This means a two-way relationship with the barkeep/management and the regulars. How you manage that makes all the difference in the world.

Lastly, if you look through that lens and consider these networks pubs, and consider the other people here are pubgoers, one thing comes right to mind: it’s not what you do inside the pub that makes you or changes you or gives you something to call your own. It’s what you do outside the pub that counts in the long run.

I think the pub analogy is a great one, and it’s one I’ve used many times over the past several years. In today’s world, we spend much of our time online. The neighborhood pub of the past (Cheers, where everybody knows your name), has become virtualized space online. For us, Twitter, Jaiku and Facebook have replaced the neighborhood pub. They’re the places we make friends (both close and casual), overhear interesting conversations (sometimes to join and sometimes not), coordinate other meetings, and generally pass convivial time with folks who fit into our community of interest.

Chris’s points are ones to be taken seriously, and not simply glossed over. I want to touch on them again from my own viewpoint.

Be Ready to Buy Someone Else a Drink
It’s important that those of us actively involved in social networking openly realize what a small percentage of the general world population we represent. Facebook loves to tout numbers of users, but the truth is, we don’t even make up a drop in the bucket of the world population. We aren’t even statistically important. We could easily be written of as an anomaly of humanity.

It’s vital that we talk about our experiences, share them with others, but perhaps the most important thing we can do is make people feel welcome and wanted when they join us. We need to remember every day to live in a way that includes everyone who passes through our circles. It’s easy to overlook and exclude others. Recently at church we heard about the importance of inclusion and overlooking the differences in others. The same holds true in our life online.

Mind the Place
There’s a lot of hype around living “green” in today’s society. We are the stewards of the planet with an obligation to protect it. Beyond simple ecological “greenness,” there’s an aspect of social responsibility that too easily eludes us when we’re caught up in our daily routines. I think of it as social responsibility. It’s something I’ve taken too lightly much of my life. Many of us have.

Just as we have an obligation to the planet as stewards, we have an obligation to mankind in general. We have to be socially responsible citizens of the world in every way. While the Internet and our social networks may seem a virtual world, they’re still in our world. The world we’re responsible for protecting and nurturing is both real and virtual. We need to be vigilant and not shirk our responsibility.

It’s Not What You Do Inside
This is perhpas the biggest lesson. What we do on Facebook, or Twitter, or Jaiku – anyone online really – matters to a small set of people. Those in our circle, those who read what we say, those we write about. But the Internet raises some interesting ripples. What we say and do online ripples in to our real world. The real and virtual world aren’t distinct and separate. Not any more. They are one and the same. They are where we live our lives, and we’re responsible for protecting our world.

For some of us, that might mean simply not peeing in our own bed. For others of us, it means proactively engaging in making the world, the net, the web, our neighborhoods a better place.

Thanks Chris, for making me think about some lessons I’ve been learning in a new way. And thanks for all the value you add as a citizen of the net. You make it the kind of place I like to be.

What an interesting concept. Should we be surprised that AT&T would match Verizon and their latest $99 a month ‘unlimited’ wireless access offering? And what does it really mean?

I find this fascinating as a follow up to my last post.

Read on:

February 19th, 2008

AT&T matches Verizon: Welcome to the wireless price wars

Technorati Tags: AT&T, Verizon, Sheryl Breuker

Last week Sheryl and I had the opportunity to see a demo of something new. Many of our friends and colleagues use an array of what we affectionately refer to as social networking tools. Facebook, Jaiku, Twitter, Hictu, and Seesmic are great examples of social networking tools that are used primarily for social interactions. With a bit of focus, they can be used as business tools as well. On the other hand, LinkedIn is almost exclusively a business tool, but has very limited social networking capability. Each have their focus, and each present some features that can be very useful depending on the user’s individual needs.

As social media expands and grows, we might think about how collaboration fits into the sphere of social media. Participating on Alec Saunder Squawkbox call this morning brought that point to light as we all collaborated on the phone, but talked about various news on the web.

Social media as we’ve thought about it up to this point is a broad and general genre of application and network service. From a tactical perspective, in the day-to-day operation of many specialities, there’s a collaborative aspect to our work that requires integration of social media tools to effectively use technology.

We had the pleasure of exploring an example of that in a solution that was quite impressive (thanks JP). It’s called GeoConference. from TGIS Technologies . TGIS Technologies Inc. is a 100% Canadian-owned company. It was founded in 1990 under the name Consultants TGIS Inc. and is legally incorporated under Canadian law. Its headquarters is
located in Chelsea (Québec). We had the chance to chat with Yves Carbonneau, President of TGIS.

Here’s some of the basic background we learned:

Overview
The GeoConference is a multi-tiered client/server application. It was created in C# and C++ and
functions in the .Net Framework 1.1+ environment. The Server can easily support several
hundereds of users simultaneously in different sessions.

The GeoConference system is constituted of the following modules:

• GeoConference Server
• GeoConference Client Application
• IIS Plug-in
• DataProvider
• BasicVector, GeoTiff, RasterImage, Photo and WMS Connectors
• GeoConference Remote Admistrator Tool.

Technological Innovation
The GeoConference system is innovative. No other equivalent commercial civil product exists at
the present time. It is the only product on the market that allows users to hold a “live
conference” in real-time using geospatial data. The unique technology that we have
developed lets us protect the geospatial data, pass through firewalls and install the client
application without IT assistance. Thanks to our technology, it is as easy to participate in a
GeoConference session as it is to make a phone call.

In business terms, the solution offers:

• Improved crisis response time(s)
• Better access (to information) and team co-ordination
• Availability of a shareable, real time COP (Common Operational Plan)
• Better preparedness for future situation management
• Improved cost control.

That’s what we learned. What we experienced was far more compelling. Anyone who’s ever worked with geospatial data knows that the tools are cumbersome, and provide only rudimentary useful information unless they’re in the hands of a power users. GIS data holds a wealth of information, but the tools fo extraction and analysis of that data just are not user friendly.

We joined a GeoConference and looked at a real-world example of how GeoConference might be used. Here’s a picture of what we saw.

What was most notable was the ease with which conference particpants can chat and ask questions, pass control back and forth, paint boxes and annotate areas on the screen and collaborate in a very comfortable social media-like setting.In short, Sheryl and I were in the drivers seat in a collaboration session that let us explore how physical disaster response teams might quickly and easily collaborate with extremely friendly tools to work the logistics of a disaster response.

I’ve done some work with GIS solutions and geospatial data in the past. I’m a novice at best, but I was positively wowed by this solution. It delivers the power to actually use GIS data in a practical way into the hands of incident managers and responders with a very minimal learning curve. No training. No huge downloads. No pain.

What struck me quickly is the wide number of uses this solution can have across a number of business sectors:

• Disaster response – Fire, flood, earthquake. Whatever the physical incident might be, coordinating logistics quickly and effectively is a challenge. Recall the deploreable response from FEMA during the Katrina disaster, and you have a sterling example of why tools are needed.
• Incident response – Think about fires and th elike in crowded cities. GIS data contains far more information that shown in the one screenshot I’ve invluded. High rise building sprinklers, electrical systems, plumbing and the like are all built in layers with the geospatial data schema. Imagine a fire truck en route to a scene with full GIS data about all the floors of the building, where the hot spots are, where the people are likely too be, Coordinating on the run via wireless broadband with an incident commander who’s remotely looking at the big picture.
• Transportation – Whether it’s mapping truck routes or railways, or planning a new highway, geospatial data plays a vital role. Here’s a solution that lets designers work with field engineers to collaborate effectively.
• Telecommunications – Think about the challenge of mapping antenna footprint coverage with geopspatial data. This tool could provide huge felxibility in antenna positioning for a wireless carrier simply exploring the “what if” questions of what it might take to deliver service in a new market.

The opportunities here are positively mind-boggling to me. It’s made me step back and think more about how social media can move into a tactical role, providing tools that we use in our everday lives in a number of different way. I think what we’re seeing in social media today is barely scratching the surface of where solutions like GeoConference are going to take us.

Technorati Tags: GeoConference, TGIS Technologies, GIS, geospatial data, incident response, collaboration, social media

This morning I sat in on another Squawk Box with Alec Saunders and a few others.

One of the discussion topics dealt with how the mobile communication companies will tout an unlimited plan, and consumers frequently feel ripped off for not having been made aware of the fine print. My question is this. At what point will we stop being consumers who play dumb when convenient, and become ‘pro’ sumers, taking the initiative and researching what we actually get when purchasing one of these so called unlimited plans?

I remember when unlimited calling started, (back in the olden days) with traditional phone service. We got things like, “unlimited between the hours of 6 pm and 8 am”. If you wanted to call outside that time frame you paid through the nose. Why did we expect it to be different all these years later when we are talking about cellular service or mobile data plans? It doesn’t make sense to me.

I have friends who are still stunned the first time they sign up for a new plan, thinking it will truly be unlimited, only to find they were charged for data exceeding the 1 gig they thought was unlimited, or were billed for texting to foreign countries. Why? Because they didn’t read the fine print.

One of the attendees in this free conference call asked the question, “Should we have to work so hard to know what they are really selling us?” The answer to that is obvious. No, we shouldn’t have to. The facts point us to the reality, though. That reality being that we clearly have to become prosumers, at least until we as a society require something that is not required at this point. Accountability and integrity from our providers.

My message is clear. Caveat Emptor. As it was in years past, so it will remain. Until then, read the fine print.
If you get screwed, I don’t want to hear about it. In fact, I think I’ll stay out of it altogether. ;o)

Technorati Tags: Squawk Box, Squawkbox, Alec Saunders, Sheryl Breuker

On a conference call, Squawk Box, using Alec Saunders Free Conference Call, special guest Lee Dryburgh, explained his vision for eComm, Emerging Communications Conference. Dan York did a fantastic job of leading the potentially raucous group.

My question is this. At what point will telecom stop being something that can really reach new heights? Seriously, we all use voice in a variety of ways. Is there some new technology that will blow our current telecom industry out of the water with some innovative new something?

I have a concern. I find it really difficult to imagine anything we haven’t already seen. In truth, telecommunications has really been a stagnant technology in my mind. How much can we really change the technology that has been with us so long? Maybe it’s just my lack of knowledge but I just don’t get how it’s possible to achieve something that will shake it all up.

Thomas McCarthy-Howe spoke about innovative voice technolgies. He says the solutions to create new technologies has become flat. I agree with that. He is passionate about voice mashups and using the technologies differently. Think about spices, eh Thomas? So, maybe that’s the real potential for telecom growth. Maybe the real growth simply happens with a change up of how we use what already exists, not creating something new.

In any case, Ken and I are no longer able to attend this conference as speakers or attendees. Our schedules just won’t allow it. It’s one conference I for one am going to be very disappointed to miss. It would have been the second opportunity for me to experience what the industry takes for granted. As is often heard, there’s always another one.

I’d love to hear from you about your perspectives on the telecom industry and what you think about innovative technologies. Send email or post here. I look forward to new ideas.

Technorati Tags: Alec Sauders, Dan York, Lee Dryburgh, Thomas McCarth-Howe, Sheryl Breuker, Ken Camp, eComm

Jeff Pulver recently wrote a note calling for speakers about video on the net. As a newcomer to video on the net, I happen to think Jeff Pulver is right on the money. Video is going to be BIG. I think it’s intimidating and a little daunting to many, but the reality of video is that it makes it completely possible for people to work effectively, taking telecommuting to a whole new level.

From a personal perspective I can say that video is not really any different than using any other media tool. As long as your blog supports embed technologies or some other way to display video, it should work fairly seemlessly. An example of video embedding follows.

Ken and I have many plans for the future, some including video. We have been working toward our own internet tv show, Sheryl and Ken’s Geek Speak, and plan to launch it, both on blogtv as well as Pulver.tv. We’re really excited about the prospect of interaction, and look forward to longevity in the video market.

Here is what Jeff Pulver has to say. Jeff is an incredibly smart, forward thinking individual. I hope to meet him one day in the not too distant future.

Call for Speakers: Video on the Net: NYC – May, 2008

Technorati Tags: Jeff Pulver, Sheryl Breuker, Video, Blogtv, Pulver.tv

Sheryl and I really planned to be part of eComm this March. We were planning on attending and slated to speak. Unfortunately some scheduling logistics prevent us from being there. But we’re still tied to the event and invested in its success. This morning we sat in on the daily Squawkbox Call started by Alex Saunders at iotum. Squawkbox uses iotum’ FREE Conference Call app on Facebook.

There’s a pretty regular cast of attendees, and the calls are always interesting. This morning we got to chat with Lee Dryburgh who’s jumped into the void and taken on coordination of eComm. There’s a huge wave of change underway ni communications. Lee calls it the “trillion dollar industry rethink.’

For people who are really watching the trends in communications technologies innovation, eComm looks to be the rising wave of focus on just that. One area Lee’s really promoting the idea of socially opportunistic devices. These devices work to help us. Imagine attending a conference and having your cell phone probe your social media networks to alert you that three people seated around you were also at the last four conferences you attended. Devices that share not just presence and availability, but proximity and social history open doors to new potential we’ve only begun to explore.

Lee and I briefly chatted about the complex issue of data portability and how it plays in this revolution on the call, but this is a huge problem that we’re really only beginning to understand. The telecom industry doesn’t understand it all, but the innovators are really beginning to grasp it’s full import. Data, our personal data, is a resource. In the world of social media, it may be our most important personal resource. As we learn how to share it effectively with our devices, and with our family, friends and colleagues, the ability to store all this information under our own control somewhere in the “cloud” so it can be accessed any time, anywhere from any device.

Just yesterday I swapped notes with Lee sharing my disappointment at not being able to attend. Today’s call was like rubbing salt in my own wound because every time we talk about this conference I hear more reasons to attend and be there. I’m already planning ahead to make sure that Sheryl and I are involved in a big way next year.

And thanks to our good friend Dan York for filling in and hosting today’s call while Alec is traveling back from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Technorati Tags: eComm, Lee Dryburgh, communications, social media

We were both really looking forward to spending some time with friends and colleagues at the upcoming eComm conference in March. As life would have it, our schedule just won’t permit us to attend. Unfortunately, the best laid plans sometimes don’t work out.

Even though we can’t be there, we’ll be following the events closely and posting the highlights as we can.

Technorati Tags: eComm