The next Telco 2.0 event (4-5 November, London) is looking extremely strong. A big thank you to the sponsors and partners, and to the senior industry speakers (presenters and panellists) who are participating. The latter includes:

Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon.com; Matt Bross, Group CTO, BT; Will Hodgman, EVP, ComScore; MungKi Woo, VP Payments and Contactless, France Telecom; Timo Soiminem, CEO, Habbo Hotel; Ben McOwen Wilson, COO, ITV ; Jonathan Dann, Executive Director, JP Morgan; Steve Zimba, Managing Director Global Telecoms Business, Microsoft; Will Page, Chief Economist, MCPS-PRS Alliance; Joachim Horn, CTO, T-Mobile International ; Helmut Leopold, Managing Director Platforms, Telekom Austria ; Andrew Bud, Chairman, Mobile Entertainment Forum ; Thomas Howe, CEO, Thomas Howe Company; Cenk Serdar, Chief VAS Officer, Turkcell ; Pieter Knook, Director of Internet Services, Vodafone Group .

We are finalising involvement of a number of other important people from across the value chain too. Watch this space (and the event site) for updates…

Our analysts will also be presenting summaries of research into new business model opportunities in the following areas to help stimulate the debates: Online Video Distribution, Mobile Internet, Comms-Enabled Business Processes, Digital Kids, Leveraging Telco Customer Data. Again, watch this space…

NB: 20% discount on places at the event for those who book before end of August. Registration here

Posted at 01:10 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

We’re delighted to announce the focus and draft agenda for the next Telco 2.0 event via its website here. We’ll be intergrating our research programme in tightly with this and looking to bring more ‘upstream’ players along (mediacos, banks, retailers, government, ASPs) to engender a strong debate. All comments, ideas, questions very welcome - either in comments section below or privately by email.

Posted at 10:47 AM | Link to this article | Add a comment

A TV show called Who Wants to Be A Millionaire is apparently now the most internationally popular television franchise of all time. Its popularity comes partly from the tension created by the huge amounts of money at stake and partly because of its interaction with the audience and with interested parties (‘phone a friend’).

At Telco 2.0 events we also have an ‘Ask the Audience’ format, but the difference is that the audience is also the contestant, the question master and, in fact, the prize giver too. That is to say, the audience (or ‘participants’ as we prefer to call them) represent companies who have a chance of taking a slice of the new $250bn+ platform opportunity, and they collectively can make it happen if they share knowledge and collaborate effectively. The new business model we are proposing is one which ‘floats all boats’.

We’ve already published here a set of FAQs that came out of the event. There is much more brainstorming output from it, the majority of which we keep for those who invested their time, effort and money to come to the event. However, there were also some votes at the event, the results of which are worth sharing here to demonstrate that there is a groundswell of opinion towards the propositions we are making. The votes were on these questions:

• How well do we understand the commercial needs of upstream partners (3rd Parties)? How well do upstream partners today understand the assets telcos have?
• What is the best ‘next practice’ for voice?
• Which approaches to fixed network video delivery will be most profitable 5 years from now?
• How important will new wholesale products be to mobile internet data revenues in 5 years from now?
• What is the best way of competing with a ‘Platform’ play?

Results here:

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 Strategy: Say It With Charts" »

Posted at 06:20 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment

Below are our responses to 56 tough questions about the new $250bn+ telecoms two-sided ‘platform’ opportunity generated anonymously in real time by the 200 participants at the Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm last month. The questions were responding to the opening stimulus presentation by a Telco 2.0 analyst which boiled down 400 pages of new market analysis into a 25 minute summary.

This rich set of ‘FAQs’ fall into 4 broad categories:
1) Market Opportunity and Structures.
2) Dealing with Google.
3) Operational issues.
4) Technology and Iinnovation.

We will continue to build up this FAQ list as we believe it’s a critical step in helping to increase understanding of the opportunity, refine it and define how to practically realise it.

A C-level exec at one of the world’s largest and most innovative telcos told us yesterday: “There is still too much organisational ignorance and resistance to these ideas. We need a better sales pitch and more details on the practical requirements to make it happen.” Our view is that the best way of starting to tackle ignorance and resistance is to give people the chance to process the ideas for themselves and to openly feedback back their issues and concerns. As a wise man once said:
“Tell me - I forget
Show me - I understand
Involve me - I learn”

The April event’s brainstorming process was essentially a large-scale involvement exercise. We think you’ll find the FAQs below instructive:

Continue reading "Telco 2.0 FAQs: A Starting Point for Change" »

Posted at 04:55 PM | Link to this article | Add a comment