Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou?

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Just popping in to say I'm still here! This may be the longest stayaway since I started blogging back in 2005, but I'll get back to posting this week. Been away on vacation, and that 100% means no blogging. More importantly, I've been busy on projects, and have just completed a pair of white papers for a vendor most of you will know that should launch any time now. I'm also in the final review phase for another white paper with a major IP comms provider that all of you know and use. Finally, I'm in writing mode now for yet another paper in the video space that will be out in early September.

Aside from that, my regular writing continues on both the Exony and ADTRAN portals, and one of those is about to ramp up later this month. I also have a number of proposals pending for new projects, so the pipeline is looking pretty good going into the Fall. Speaking of that, TMC's ITExpo is now just a few weeks away, and I'll be busy there, moderating three panels.

We may be in the home stretch of summer, but the work goes on. Last week was a good recharge, and I'll be back to blogging and tweeting soon enough.

Smart Grid Summit - Photo Highlights

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I've been on vacation the past few days and wasn't planning to post these til tomorrow. However, there's a flight delay and with free WiFi, I've got a window here to share some photos. I'll have a recap article about the summit on the portal in the next day or so, but until then, here are a few photos...





Larry Karisny leading the opening panel on cybersecurity. Larry was a huge help, not just with his industry knowledege, but also for moderating and speaking on a few sessions.


Dr. Massoud Amin from U of Minnesota. The "father of the smart grid" did not disappoint - just wish the lighting was better for a picture!


Maureen Harris and Orjiakor Isiogu on the NARUC smart grid working group update


Joy Rychlik (also from Toronto), moderating the Green IT/Data Centers panels, along with Henry Bailey (SAP), Kyle McNamara (Verizon) and Charles O'Donnell (Liebert AC Power)


Ken Rowen's keynote about what PAETEC Energy is doing in this market


Sandra Manning, City of Tallahassee - very engaging, and great to have some local presence for the Florida market


Dr. Mo Shakouri (Alvarion) on the Rural Smart Grid Opportunity panel


SAP's Henry Bailey on the Electric Vehicle session - yes, they are very busy in this space!


Olivier Pauzet (Sierra Wireless) on the Public vs. Private Networks session, along moderator Larry Karisny, Andy Balaschak (Tropos) and Jeff Dygert (AT&T)

Next Stop - Miami and the Smart Grid Summit

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For a Northerner, it's pretty hard to beat Miami in February, and that's where I'll be the rest of this week. Seems like yesterday when we had our last Smart Grid Summit in Los Angeles. This time around, it's a much shorter time between events, and we have another strong program in place.

I've done enough talking about it on the Smart Grid Portal, so that's where you need to go to get the latest on the summit, which runs this Wednesday and Thursday.

The summit will keep me pretty busy, and aside from stealing some time to walk through the ITExpo show floor, you won't likely see me around that show, or any other of the sub-events running under TMC's big tent.

For now, there's just one exception I can tell you about, and that's on Tuesday night. Interactive Intelligence is hosting a special ITExpo event on cloud communications, and I'm one of the panelists. Should be fun, and I'm looking forward to wearing my telecom hat for a topic I really enjoy following.

Smart Grid Summit - Video Clips

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Getting things done here, one at a time. Finally getting more content up online now from last week's Smart Grid Summit.

First off, I did some video interviews at TMC's booth during the summit - those are running now - with Aviat Networks, Celergy Networks and Carl Ford.

Next - in addition to my photos I've been posting, TMC's photos are now posted, and you can find are some shots there of the summit.

Finally, I've managed to get my video clips uploaded and am ready to share them here. They'll be posted to our portal shortly as well, but since you're here now, enjoy! These clips are nice and short - about 2 minutes each - just enough to give you a taste of what you missed, and hopefully get you thinking about coming to our next summit in Miami. :-)



















Smart Grid Summit - More Photos

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Pushing content out today as fast I can. Here is my second set of photos from the summit. Lots of Twitter activity today around my recap article on the portal, and the feedback both online and offline has been great so far - nice to see that! Got some nice video clips in the can, and will post those on Monday - stay tuned.

Sven Thesen, Better Place


Christoph Inauen, NSN


Lee Krevat, San Diego Gas & Electric


Steve Oldham, USTelecom


Dr. Mo Shakouri, Alvarion


Wireless broadband in the home panel - Jim Hunter - 4Home, Lew Brown - Z-Wave, Gabe Nave - SprintNextel


VC/startup panel - Chris King - eMeter, Gene Wang - People Power, Dylan Steeg - Intel Capital, Curtis Mo - DLA Piper, Dr. Pedram Mokrian - Mayfield Fund, Sam Smith - EV World (speaking about a hydro kinetic power startup)


Jerry Melcher, EnerNex and Tim Boucher, Southern California Edison


Dr. Emir Macari, Cal State University


Jason Rodriguez, Zpryme research - presenting with me on our renewable energy market study findings


Prof. Raj Gadh, UCLA WINMEC


Crystal Ball session - Jay Cappy - Verizon Business, Jamie Clark - OASIS, Raj Gadh - UCLA WINMEC, Eric Murray - Tantalus, Katherine Hamilton - GridWise Alliance


And now...for something completely different.

Why on earth is there a photo of a Philly cream cheese container here?

Well, look closely - on the left - the green leaf - it says "made with Renewable Energy". Really! I sure did a double take when I was prepping my bagel just before we started Day 3. I thought that would be a perfect prop to kick off our Crystal Ball panel. When you start seeing messaging like this on mainstream products, you KNOW there's perceived value to this concept. I think I'm going to call Kraft and see if they'd like to sponsor our next summit! :-)

Next Stop - LA - Smart Grid Time

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Well, the Smart Grid Summit is finally here. It's been a long time since the last one, which means we've had a lot of time to get this one ready. It's ready now, and I'm flying to LA on Sunday.

If you follow my blog or my tweets, you'll know what's happening around this, and if not, it's not too late to get up to speed. Anyhow, if smart grid is on your radar, you won't be disappointed if you can join us next week at the summit. All the details are on the website, and if you can't make it, follow the tweets and check in with us on the Smart Grid portal.

Just to be sure, I'll reiterate that our summit is co-located with TMC's flagship event, the IT Expo. Now in its 11th year, I don't think you'll find a bigger or better conference anywhere in the communications space. Smart grid is very much about communications, and that's why we're there. Hope you'll be there too!

Is Skype for Business Enterprise-Ready?

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Now, there's an intriguing question for Skype followers. I'm one of them, and have been following them closely since the beginning. The most recent iteration of Skype for Business is targeting the enterprise market, and I think there's a good story here.

That's the focus of my latest Service Provider Views column on TMCnet, and it's running now. You can read it here, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Launch News Item #1 - Smart Grid Summit

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Things are moving quickly today, so this post will be short. This afternoon, the program and first round of confirmed speakers was announced for the Smart Grid Summit. Not many speaking spots left already, and I know we're going to have a first-rate program. You can read more about it here, along with a full outline of the agenda on our website. Gotta go...

Shaw Communications - Getting Convergence Right

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Earlier this week, I was on BNN TV talking about Shaw Communications and their pending acquisition of CanWest. Add to this their planned entry in to the mobile market, and Shaw is anything but a regional cable operator.

The more I thought about this, the more threads I saw related to the broader service provider landscape. Convergence has had more misses than hits, but with Shaw, I think the stars are lining up in their favor. I've explored these themes a bit further in my current Service Provider Views column on TMCnet. There's certainly a lot more to talk about, and I just might do that in future columns. For now, though, I'll leave you with this column, which is running now on their website. I'm all ears for some dialog around this, so please chime in if you like.

Chasing the Clouds, Part 2

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Last week I wrote about some trends I'm seeing in cloud communications for my Service Provider Views column on TMCnet. There's a lot to consider here, and I've just written Part 2.

Basically, as voice shifts to both the Web and the desktop, phone systems become less relevant, and the possibilities for voice to be totally cloud-based become more interesting. "Chasing the Clouds, Part 2" is running now, and you can read it here.

If you haven't been to my TMCnet column page lately, I should mention that they've now added icons to subscribe to these feeds either by email or RSS. There's also a comment box at the end of the article, and I'd love to hear your thoughts there.

Chasing the Clouds - More Things to Consider

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It's been a very cloud-centric week for me and blogging has taken a back seat. On that note, please pardon the mess here - the re-do of my blog is a work in progress, but things are in the works - won't be long for the changes to take shape.

My latest TMCnet Service Provider Views column is about what I'm seeing in the overall cloud communications milieu. There are more questions than answers, and this is Part 1 of what some of that looks like to me.

Atomico Venture Fund - Implications for Carriers

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Last week, Atomico's latest venture fund was launched. If you don't know them, this isn't just any venture fund - it's where Skype's founders are putting their money - along with others - into funding promising European startups.

While many of these startups are focused outside of telecom, they are all Web-based, and in time, I'm sure quite a few will find their way into the ecosystem of service providers. My thinking is that Atomico is the kind of fund that will help re-define the service provider landscape as well as the business operators are actually in.

This is the focus of my latest Service Provider Views column on TMCnet, and I hope you stop by and read the rest of the story.

Cisco Has a Message for Carriers - the Future is Video, not Telephony

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Cisco made a lot of noise this week announcing the CRS-3 router, and I took part in the webinar briefing. I'm not an expert on routers, but I got some pretty strong takeaways about the bigger picture implications for carriers. In short, their future is about video and the Internet, not telephony. It sounds like strong medicine, and what you'd expect to hear from Cisco, but I happen to agree.

I've put my thoughts together on this for my latest Service Provider Views column, which runs on TMCnet. It's running now, and you can read it here.

You don't have to look far for coverage of Cisco's announcement in the press and blogs, and I'll just steer you to one from here in Canada - ITBusiness.ca - where I contributed some commentary. Just as the carriers face a lot of risk adapting to new technologies and changing customer preferences, Cisco has its own set of challenges, some self-created, and others stemming from general market conditions.

Nobody has a free ride here, so it's an interesting story that goes way beyond the current state of router technology. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this theme soon, but would love to hear your thoughts any time.

Skype/Verizon News - My Take

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Tuesday's news about Skype and Verizon Wireless was a pretty big deal. I wasn't at MWC to see the press conference, and other things kept me from blogging about it until now, but I wanted to share my thoughts in some form. The uber bloggers have covered all the news angles by now, so let's not go there.

The next best thing is to write about the bigger picture, and I've done that in my latest Service Provider Views column, which is running now on TMCnet. So, if this story is still of interest to you - and it should be - you can read my take here, and by all means, you're welcome to keep the conversation going.

Service Provider Views - Why Life is getting harder, not easier

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My latest Service Provider Views column is running now on TMCnet. Having just come back from the ITExpo, a few things struck me there that would work well for my next article. This would have been enough material, but on top of that, the last week or so has been full of news that pose new challenges and raise new questions for service providers. Not the least of which is the iPad launch, Jajah's acquisition by Telefonica, and the latest earnings news from AT&T and Verizon.

I could probably squeeze a few more columns out of this morass - and I just might do that - but for now, I've managed to hit the high points in today's column, and you can read that here.

Any way you look at it, January has had more than its share of news that impacts service providers, and could be an ominous way to kick start the new decade. I can't wait to see what February holds in store.

ITExpo Photo Highlights

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Never a dull moment at the ITExpo last week, and as per my earlier post today, here are some highlights of goings-on I caught outside the Smart Grid Summit. I'll preface this by tipping my hat to Rich Tehrani and his 24-7 team for putting on another successful ITExpo. More importantly - and as noted more extensively in a previous post - TMC continues to be open to new ideas for making the Expo a richer experience as well as reaching new audiences.

I'm very appreciative of the support they've shown for our Smart Grid Summit, and no doubt my cohorts feel the same for the other co-located events run under their tent, namely 4GWE, M2M, the Cloud Summit and Startup Camp. From what I can tell, all were successful, and I'm sure all of these will be back bigger and better this October for the LA ITExpo. With that said, here are a few photos to give you a flavor for what I mean.


Rich Tehrani kicking off the ITExpo keynotes


Rich hosting the lunch time panel exploring the implications of the Avaya/Nortel deal


Perhaps the sleeper event of the week - Larry Lisser's Telecom Startup Bootcamp. A bit like American Idol - here are the judges who gave their feedback after each startup pitch. The room was packed, which says a lot considering the event took place Thursday night after a full day of ITExpo activity.


Shai Berger of Fonolo during his pitch. I had mixed feelings about the pitches I saw, but they all had interesting ideas for sure. Shai shares his thoughts on his blog, which in turn takes you to Andy Abramson's blog, both of which are good reads. Like Andy, I have a vested interest in Fonolo, so I'll leave it at that for now.


Next stop - the show floor. Not as big as in the past, but healthy traffic. I didn't get to spend enough time with exhibitors to gauge the quality of attendees, but the energy level was high every time I got out to the floor. First, a couple of shots from the Smart Grid Pavilion - small today, but should be much bigger for the next summit. Below is the Redline booth and then Livecage, who did a series of video segments for us.




Here's the Ontario/Canada pavilion - busy as always


Keeping on the Canadian theme, here's the reception they hosted Wednesday night. An open bar and a motorcycle giveaway will always draw a crowd, but I'd like to think people were at least a little bit interested in what our companies are doing up here...


In what's becoming a tradition, no Expo is complete without an invite to Andy Abramson's wine dinner - good to the last drop. Big thanks to Andy for sharing his wine with us as well as Andrew Hanson and Freetalk for sponsoring. If you haven't seen how Skype is approaching the small business market with a Jazinga-based IP PBX system, then you need to do some homework. Or just call me.


Smart Grid Summit - photo highlights

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After the Summit finished up on Friday, I had an extended family visit for a few days, and am just back to everyday stuff now. Had some technical difficulties with my new PC, and wasn't able to post my photos from from the show, so I've got those coming here in two posts. First, this post about the Smart Grid Summit, followed by some photos from the rest of the ITExpo.

Too much time has passed for a thoughtful review of the summit, but we did have a fair bit of media attention, and I'll be posting a roundup article citing all of this for our Smart Grid portal later today. If that doesn't do the job, then drop me a line and I'll be happy to tell you more.




We had four keynotes during the Summit. First up, Dr. Ron Sega, Colorado State University



Kevin Suitor, Redline Communications


John Bryan, Secure Smart Grid Association


Ryusuke Masuoka, Fujitsu Labs of America


Here are a few shots from the panels. Fist, Christine Hertzog moderating the Game Changing Apps session.


Shidan Gouran and the Standards/Interoperability panel


One of my sessions - What Utilities can learn from Telcos


Rose Gabriele moderating the Modern Network Solutions session

smart grid summit - day 1

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Way, way too busy to give you a recap from our first day, but I can say it went really well. Our room was over-full from the beginning, and stayed that way all day. I'll get a recap article out to our portal ASAP, and have some photos to post here. For now, I'll steer you to the ITExpo Show Daily, which covers all aspects of what's going on here.

Will have more to report tomorrow - so please bear with me and keep visiting the Expo website.

Smart Grid Summit - Lots of Reasons to Come

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Tying up loose ends today, and flying to Miami tomorrow for the Smart Grid Summit and ITExpo. I've been posting off and on about this for the past few days, and wanted to do one more post summarizing the highlights of what you can expect to see at our event, running this Wednesday - Friday.

Today, I posted Part 3 of my Smart Grid Summit preview series articles. You can read it here, and to get the full story, you can read Part 2 here, and Part 1 here.

That pretty much tells the story, and I hope to see you in Miami. If not, please check in regularly to the portal, where I'll be posting daily recaps. Also, one of our media partners - Livecage - will be doing live video streaming, and once it's running, I'll let you know where/how to find it. In fact, if you go to their website now, you'll see a couple of placeholder welcome video messages for our event. Trust me, it will look a lot better once we have our speakers up there!