eComm 2009 - Direct Updates from Lee Dryburgh

Am doing a fair bit of boosterism lately for conferences I'm spending time at - well, times are tough, and viral marketing is easy and cheap to do.

On Monday, Lee Dryburgh did his Squawk Box segment with Alec Saunders, so it's a good chance to hear first hand from "LeeComm" how things are coming along and what you can expect to see at eComm 2009.

The podcast was just posted late last night, but it's as timely now as it was Monday morning! It's a long listen - almost an hour - but there's lots to talk about. The eComm roster is strong, and the content will be first rate, so if disruption and innovation is your thing, this should be on your March calendar.

Lee continues to tirelessly transcribe interviews he's done with some of the presenters, and you can read these on the eComm blog. The most recent entries are interviews with Jan Linden of Global IP Solutions and Andreas Constantinou of Vision Mobile.

eComm 2009 - Early Bird Discount Ends Today!

Last week I posted a few updates about eComm 2009, and can only assume you've bought your ticket and booked your travel by now. Right?

If not...the Early Bird discount ends today, so if you put it off til later, the prices goes up $300 starting tomorrow. Once you've got your credit card ready, here's the registration page!

And if that's not enough incentive, you can get an additional 20% savings by using my promotional discount code. I posted about this a few weeks back, and this extra discount is in effect up til February 17. So, you can apply it today and get a double discount, or just use it on its own for the remaining time after today. Let me know if you're interested.

For those of you still not sure why you need to be there, Lee has been posting some very thought provoking content on the eComm blog the past few days about the future of telecom, and it's a pretty good indicator of the kinds of people who will be speaking at the conference. He's been putting up transcripts of interviews, and while they make for VERY long posts, it's a nice option for those who can't spare 45 minutes or so to listen through the podcasts of each one.

And don't forget, you can catch Lee live tomorrow at 11am EST on Alec Saunder's Squawk Box podcast.

eComm Updates

Yesterday, the IT Expo; today, eComm.

These two events have been keeping me busy lately, and I've got two items to share about eComm 2009. As I've been posting recently, the program is coming together nicely and the sponsor support has been healthy. That's great news considering how difficult the economy is. The next step is getting the word out and ultimately getting attendees to register so we know who's coming!

Before getting to the eComm news, I wanted to share a great post from Andy Abramson, who's just back from MacWorld and CES last week. He goes to way more events than me, and his post is a great read for anyone worried about the health of the conference space. Of course they're all hurting financially and are scaling back accordingly. However, as Andy can attest first-hand, there is still tremendous value in attending.

Even if the shows are smaller, the key players are usually there, and there's no better opportunity to learn from and network among your peers over a few days. How's that for a nice segue into eComm? And of course, it applies equally well to the IT Expo, and any other show you have some history with. We all have to be more selective these days, but events like these matter, and are still the best way to stay involved.

On that note, the press release for eComm 2009 went out this morning, and you should give it a read for the latest list of topics and sponsors. Not to mention the early bird discount! I posted about getting this discount last month, and if you didn't take advantage of that, here's your second chance!

There's also a more interactive news item to pass along. Alec Saunders is going to resume his widely-followed Squawk Box interviews, and next Tuesday - January 20 - he'll be interviewing eComm founder Lee Dryburgh. It will be a great opportunity to hear from Lee directly about what eComm 2009 is focusing on, and of course to join the conversation yourself. The interview will be hosted on Alec's Calliflower platform, and you can read the details on his post.

eComm 2009 Updates

Lee Dryburgh has been busy over the holidays, and I wanted to update you on two items in particular, both of which are posted on the eComm blog.

First is the charity appeal he's just launched for the Shelter Network. In its purest form, this is a noble effort to raise money for homeless people in the San Francisco area. That's the simple part. Lee is an engineer, and nothing is simple for him, so there's more to the story. This initiative is tied into two other concepts - raising awareness/selling tickets to eComm 2009, and testing the effectiveness of social media to support causes like this.

There's a lot to consider here, and that explains why Lee's blog post about this is so long. I'm doing my part by blogging about it now, and hopefully a few of you will keep the thread going, especially if you regularly use social media tools. I do not, so this is as far as it goes for me. Anyhow, it certainly is a worthy cause, and if you want to support our eComm community, this is a very nice way to go.

Second is yet another go-round of the VoIP-dead-or-alive debate that started with my TMC article last Monday. This conversation has taken a life of its own the past few days, and even Jeff Pulver has waded in a couple of times. Well, one of these posts caught Lee's eye and yesterday he countered with a post of his own, essentially inviting Jeff to support and even speak at eComm.

Interesting, huh? Why Lee would use a public forum to do this, and why he - or anyone for that matter - would post about a conference on a Sunday - at the end of the XMas break to boot - is totally beyond me, but it did not go unnoticed.

There has been some dialog around this, and it will be interesting to see if Jeff puts any effort behind Lee's request. As a member of the eComm Advisory Board, I'd love to see Jeff help bring more community around eComm, but we all know it's not so simple. Just like seeing Carl moderate at the ITExpo, this type of outreach really gets your attention, and if you could put a host of issues aside, there could be a lot of upside for everyone. That's a pretty big "if", but hey, it's Day 1 of 2009 in the working world, and hopefully we've all made resolutions to make the world a better place.

2008 Year in Photos - Part 1

One way I like to recap the year is a photo review of the events and cool places I got to see in 2008. I'm no globetrotter, but I do my best to participate in a wide variety of industry events. This goes a long way to keep me current and connected to a whole lot of interesting companies that are leading the way in IP communications. I also love photography, and try to live in the moment with whatever camera I've got.

This summarizes my travels in the first half of the year, and tomorrow I'll do the second half.

CBC's Test the Nation, Toronto, January

What a fun way to start the year. Test the Nation is a national quiz show on CBC TV, and is based on teams from various walks of life. I was invited to be on the Blogger team, and we were up against ths likes of Chefs, Pilots, Taxi drivers, and... Celebrity Look Alikes! Definitely the best perk I've had as a blogger.



The celeb look-alikes were better looking than the bloggers, but were the top team in the end. Got more pix like this in my original post.




Not only did we win as a team, but fellow blogger Rick Spence came away with the top personal score among all the contestants. Whoo hoo.




TMC's IT Expo, Miami Beach, January

Can't think of a better place to be in the dead of winter. The big giveaway prize was this red Mustang, and it sure helped bring traffic on to the show floor.




Jeff Pulver's Social Media Breakfast, Toronto, March

Jeff's never-ending world tour of social media breakfasts made a well-received visit to my town at our local deli. Definitely the shortest commute I've had outside of my home office.




eComm 2008, San Jose, March

Probably the most important event I attended all year, and it should be even better in 2009.





Above: Lee Dryburgh, me - moderating the wireless panel, Truphone's James Body helping my son Max unlock his iPhone, just bought that morning from the local Apple store

Dimension Data Analyst Day, Boston, April




Dialogic Analyst Day, New York

Really enjoyed this event, but the camera in my Nokia phone had a major meltdown, and I have no photos from the sessions. The personal highlight for me, though, was the Yankee Stadium tour they gave us. What a fantastic experience, especially for Red Sox fan like me. I was able to salvage a few shots from the tour, and here's one. You can view a bunch more on my original post.



IT360 Conference, Toronto, April

Canadian telecom conferences are few and far between, and generally smaller than U.S. events. This was one of the bigger ones, and I had my hands full chairing the tracks on Unified Communications.



MetaSwitch Forum, New Orleans, April

April was my busiest month in 2008, and the MetaSwitch Forum was the most fun. They always put on a great event, and the setting made it so enjoyable. Got plenty more photos of N'awlins if you're into virtual tourism on my original posts - view them here and here.





Above: Andy Randall, the amazing Mardi Gras World, a taste of the French Quarter


Nortel Analyst Day, Ottawa, May

I was one of only 3 analysts/media attending this event, and we got a very sneak preview at some things that Nortel had not previously shared with the public. It was quite the day, and you can read/see more about it on my original post. Things haven't gone too well for Nortel since, but they do have some cool technology that is going to find its way to your desktop sooner or later.





Above: Project Chainsaw demo, Telepresence demo


Cisco Channel Showcase, Toronto, May