The schedule rocks. The audience size is perfect, the audience caliber is exceptionally high (going by the registration details), so with that in mind, I poured a quick 30 minutes writing time into the welcome message for the programme guide. I believe we'll run with this:
Welcome to eComm Europe 2009,
I'm honoured that you joined us for the first European Emerging Communications Conference and Awards.
The first event held in Mountain View, California, gathered the communications innovation community, along with leading visionaries. This was also the first conference to cover both the iPhone and Android. Back then in the programme guide I stated:
"We believe a new era requires a new kind of conference. Previous industry talking to the industry type events have yielded nothing save consensual hallucinations. The gap between what telecom operators are doing (or allowing) and what the innovation community COULD do, and where end users are taking us is widening fast. Communications innovation is being democratized. The winners will be those who embrace it."
The second event held in Burlingame, California, added to the mix those who are battling to move policy and regulation beyond the framework of the "industrial information age". The programme guide back then stated:
"For telecom operators and media outlets there is not a migratory way from where we are to the future. There is a clear consumer shift underway that runs in the opposite direction to that of telecom and media incumbents; emergent social practice is increasingly clashing with the very structure and desires of incumbent players."
This third event held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is adding into the mix those who are questioning the fundamental financial structure of the global telecoms mammoth. Economics are changing, power is shifting.
Operators who have failed to innovate are already on the path to implosion; telephony and SMS revenues are already declining in developed markets.
Some will seize the short window of opportunity to re-invent themselves as new intermediaries in a global platform race.
The future of communications is a Global Cloud Computing Fabric.
Once again we'd like to think that what happens this week will have reverberations globally.
The significance of which should not be understated as the future of communications will have profound effects on ourselves, our relationships, and society.
Glad you've joined the vanguard at this critical point in time.
Lee S Dryburgh
(Founder, eComm)
Oct 28-30, 2009
Transformatorhuis, Amsterdam
