ITExpo Photo Highlights

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

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

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

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!

smart grid summit - product of the year awards deadline fast approaching

Many hats to wear to make the Smart Grid Summit happen, but we're almost there. For those of you on the vendor side, this post will be of interest and importance. The Product of the Year Awards were recently launched, and this is a great way to gain recognition in an exploding market space and at an event that's poised to become a leading Smart Grid showcase in 2010.

In that regard, I have a bit of news. The final deadline for submitting applications is Monday - January 18. The Early Bird deadline has passed, so you have to pay the full fare, but if you win, I'm sure you won't think twice about that.

The winners will be announced in March, and TMC will publish this on the Smart Grid portal. Recognition like this is especially important in a newly developing market, and needless to say, TMC has a multitude of ways to help the winners maximize their 15 minutes of fame, which hopefully will soon become fortune. Isn't that how life works?

Wryness aside, it's a great program, and I want to be sure you know about it. You can read more about the details and registration process here, and I'll certainly be doing my bit blog-wise when the winners are announced.

Smart Grid Summit - Fly to Miami, Drive Home in a Honda Element

Well, I wouldn't say this if it wasn't true. Crappy economy be damned, Rich Tehrani and his never-stop-working team at TMC continue with the big prize draw hook to get you to Miami next week. Although it's been insanely cold there lately, the weather is usually reason enough to go in January.

The other day, I posted about 5 reasons to be at the ITExpo next week. Nothing has changed there, so I won't say anything more. Well, the Honda giveaway is a great reason #6, and if you want a 6B, they're also giving away a Honda motorcycle on Thursday. Maybe that's reason enough for you to go - if you're not sure, check it out for yourself here.

Our Smart Grid Summit is much smaller than the ITExpo, and we can't compete with that. I could offer something like one pick from my vinyl record collection, or an online guitar lesson by my shredder wiz son, Dean. He's only 13, but I've been taking him out with me to play to play at a local blues jam, and he's got the goods. I've been playing for decades, but he passed me by a long time ago. Remember his name - someday he'll do something cool....

Back to Smart Grid. With just a few days to go, we're tapping all channels to get the word out and hope you can join us in Miami. I just started writing a series of preview articles about the program, and you'll see those starting today on our portal. I've also been busy with shout-outs on my Linked In and Facebook pages and groups, and gained some good exposure on CircleID with my recent article about Google Energy.

By the way, if you haven't subscribed to our eNewsletter, you should do that now.

Finally, you may already be receiving eblasts from TMC with the latest news about the summit. Here's the latest one, and I think this will give you even more reasons to come. If you'd like to receive these eblasts, let me know and I can get you added to their database.

Five Reasons to be in Miami for the ITExpo

As it gets colder in Canada by the day, Miami is looking better by the minute. Weather, beach and Latin music aside, it's time to start thinking about why TMC's ITExpo is the place to be later this month for all things related to communications. Here are my fave five...

1. The ITExpo. Having cracked the 10 year barrier, TMC's flagship event has become a cornerstone of our market, especially for anyone focused on enterprise and SMB communications. Many shows have come and gone in this space, and ITExpo keeps getting bigger and better. There are lots reasons to be there, and you don't have to spend much time at the show's website to see why. Digium/Asterisk World is a reason all by itself, but there's much, much more to see and do. If you can only look at one quick link, try this one - it's a great summary from Rich Tehrani about who's coming and the sessions you can see there.

2. Smart Grid Summit. Self-promotion aside, this is our second summit with TMC, and it didn't take long to expand this into a three-day program. We know we're on to something good here, and I really believe this is one of the ways that the ITExpo experience is truly different from most any other communications conference. We have keynotes from Redline Communications, Fujitsu, the Secure Smart Grid Association, and Ron Sega, a former NASA astronaut. Our agenda and roster have pretty much filled out now, sponsorship and industry support has been strong, and we've added a BOF session with the SIP Forum to talk about their new Smart Grid working group.

3. 4GWE. We have followed in the footsteps of Carl Ford and Scott Kargman to partner with TMC for a vertical event. Their wireless event has been a success from the start, and provides a lot of depth into all things LTE and 4G. Whatever stolen moments I can take from my Smart Grid duties, I'll be checking out their sessions. A sidebar to this is the M2M event, which they also put together, and is another important vertical for emerging communications technologies.

4. Cloud Communications Summit. Just as we've followed 4GWE, our good buddy Thomas Howe has followed us. He's teamed up with TMC to put this one day event together during the Expo. Tom will always be Mr. Mashup to me, but this venture will be a great showcase for something much bigger. It's one of the big trends I'm following this year, and am hoping to contribute some content that will be included with material Tom is preparing for the attendees.

5. Telephony Startup Camp. I feel like I'm building a pyramid here. One step behind Tom is Larry Lisser - another colleague I've worked with on several occasions. Larry is one of the best guys out there for working with startups and getting them to market. He also had brought a new concept to TMC, and hats off to them for running with this is as well. The economy can't suck forever, and in time, startups will get their mojo back. There are lots of reasons to believe that we'll see momentum build in 2010, and Larry has put together a mini-event to showcase a series of startups. The lineup hasn't been announced yet, but it will be series of 15 minute pitches. I don't think ITExpo has done this before, and I think it's a great way to expand their reach and give startups a new platform to show their stuff. Larry's event runs Thursday evening, and I hope to catch it after we finish up our Smart Grid sessions.

Meet the Canadians at IT Expo in Miami

Over the next few days, I'll be posting about the upcoming TMC ITExpo in Miami, running from January 20-22. It's coming up quickly now, and my hands have been very full with the Smart Grid Summit, which is co-located there. More about that on another post.

Right now I want to update you on the networking breakfast that's happening Friday morning. For those of you attending the ITExpo, I'm hosting this get-together sponsored by the governments of Ontario and Canada. I've been part of these breakfasts before, and it's a great way to network with up and coming Canadian tech startups in a relaxed environment.

I've posted about this before, and as of today, about half the available spots are taken for guests. If you'd like to attend, or review the agenda, drop me a line, and I'll send you the invite, which includes how to RSVP.

TMC ITExpo - Canada/Ontario Business Breakfast, January 22

The winter edition of TMC's ITExpo - in its 10th year, by the way - is about a month away, and it's time to start thinking about Miami.

Normally, I'd be talking about sessions that I'm moderating, but this time my focus is primarily on the Smart Grid Summit, which regular readers will know all about by now. I'll leave that for another time, and will now switch back to my ITExpo hat.

One thing I'll be doing for sure at the ITExpo is host a networking breakfast jointly sponsored by the Governments of Ontario and Canada. They've been doing this the past few years at the Expo, with the idea being to showcase Ontario-based startups in the communications space. So far, they have six companies lined up, and the breakfast is being held as a friendly forum to meet with them away from the din of the show floor. The companies confirmed to date are:

- PIKA Technologies
- Comwave Telecom
- SVK Software
- Hostopia
- Phybridge
- InGenius

The breakfast takes place Friday, January 22, and requires an RSVP. If you want to meet these companies and see more about what's coming out of Canada, please drop me a line - jon@jarnoldassociates.com. To learn more about the details as well as the companies being showcased, I'll have to send you the invitation - or check my website - it should be posted there shortly.

smart grid summit - product of the year awards launched

The Smart Grid Summit is moving forward rapidly on many fronts, and it's all good. If you've been to the website recently, you'll see that the speaking roster is filling out nicely - same for our sponsors and media partners. There's a lot more coming, and soon we'll be adding info about our keynotes. We have four scheduled so far, including a former NASA astronaut (he was on the first mission that hooked up with the Soviet space station). Others are pending, and we'll be adding those to the website shortly.

I should also add that people have started registering for the summit, and the e-blasts are going out now on a regular basis. Over on the Smart Grid portal, the content continues to flow from many sources, including a guest article today from Brendan Herron of the Current Group, with his take on the Copenhagen Climate Conference. If you like his insights, then you'll definitely want to join us on the Smart Grid Initiatives panel, where he'll be speaking.

Before moving on, I have two more items about the portal of note. First, our traffic continues to be strong. Our November visits were up from October - not as dramatically as the previous months, but still going in the right direction. For anyone looking to get their message out to the Smart Grid space, this is the place to do it. Second, if you haven't subscribed to our Smart Grid eNewsletter, now is as good a time as any. It's free, and it just takes a minute - click here, and you're on your way.

This has become a long preamble, but I'm getting to the real news item. TMC knows how to run a conference, and they're starting to add the pieces that will make the Summit really distinct from other grid events. Today, we launched the Smart Grid Product of the Year Award, and it's open to anyone in this space - not just exhibitors. You can read all about it here, and for those of you who want to apply, here's the form.

TMC - January ITExpo - bigger and better - two new events

It's not often that things really do get bigger and better, but it's true for TMC the updcoming IT Expo. The next event takes place in Miami Beach, running from January 20-22. Am sure you'll be hearing your share of updates for the main event soon enough, and if you're paying attention, I'm doing my bit to get the word out about our Smart Grid Summit, which is now a 3 day event.

While you may be familiar with these, I wanted to cite two new events they're launching in January. Each is being run by people I'm friendly with, and it's great to see these initiatives find homes. First up is Larry Lisser, who along with Phil Telio are with a Montreal-based consultancy called Embrase, and have partnered with TMC for the Startup Camp Telephony event, which runs for one day at the Expo. Embrase has been doing similar events here in Canada for some time, and it's good to see them extend their model to TMC's audience. As the event name implies, this will be a showcase for promising IP telephony startups, and by extension, a destination for investors - two audiences that TMC has not typicially catered to. You can read more about it in the press release that went out on Friday.

Next up is Tom Howe, who should be no stranger here. He's had something in the works for a while, and under the guise of his latest incarnation - Light and Electric - has also partnered with TMC for an event that shouldn't surprise anybody. Tom is the mashup guy for sure, and the ITExpo should be a great showcase for the Cloud Communications Summit. It's also a one day event, and is positioned as a training program comprised of five tracks. Whether you see these as workshops or discussion forums, if you want to stay on top of cloud communications, this will be the place to be. Again, I'll steer you to the press release to read about the details.

There you have it. Two smart guys who know their markets, doing cool things with TMC. You have to give kudos all around. First to TMC, for being open to new partnerships like this. There's always a risk with new events, but there's plenty of upside in terms of strengthening TMC's brand and reaching new audiences. Kudos as well to Larry and Tom, who are putting their faith in TMC to bring new ideas to market, and keeping the spirit of innovation going.

Most recently, TMC went down this road with Scott Kargman and Carl Ford for the 4GWE event, and again this fall with our Smart Grid Summit. The formula seems to be working, and I'm hoping for success all around. I'll be pretty tied up with our event, so I don't know how much I'll get to see of their events, but there's no doubt that the big winners will be the attendees. TMC now has an event with both great depth and breadth, and in terms of getting your money's worth, the upcoming IT Expo will be pretty hard to beat.

Smart Grid Summit, Miami - Call for Papers

Seems like our inaugural Smart Grid Summit was just yesterday, but we're already in planning mode for the sequel, which takes place in Miami, January 20-22, 2010.

I've been remiss about getting the word out for speakers here, so I'm telling you right now that we do have a Call for Papers out there, and you're welcome to submit ideas for presentations or topics. For basic guidance, here's a range of topics we're thinking about:

- Industry Standards and Interoperability
- Emerging Smart Home Applications
- Demand Response
- Home Energy Management
- Utility Success Stories
- Grid Security, Privacy and Resilience
- Regulatory Issues
- Wireless Broadband Opportunities in the Smart Home
- Wireless/WiMAX Opportunities for Utilities
- Smart Grid Startup Showcase
- VC/Investor Perspectives
- Emerging Business Models for Utilities
- Monetizing the Grid
- VC/Investor Perspectives
- Emerging Business Models for Utilities
- The Green Grid
- The Clean Grid
- Best Practices ? Global Perspectives
- What Utilities Can Learn from Telcos
- What Utilities Can Learn from Software Providers
- Broadband Stimulus Strategies
- Smart Grid Crystal Ball Outlook
- Smart Grid Startup Showcase
- A Smart Grid for Distributed Generation
- Electric Cars and the Grid
- Energy Storage and the Grid
- Social Networking and Energy Awareness

We won't be able to do all of these, but at least you'll get an idea of what we have in mind. You can access the basic submission form and more details here and by all means, drop me a line if you have any questions.

Smart Grid Reprise/300,000+ Visitors and Counting

I have two quick updates to pass on about our Smart Grid venture, and then I'll move on to other things.

First, for those who missed the Summit and want to hear more, my recap article was just posted to the portal today. Comments/suggestions are welcome!

Second, today TMC posted a piece to the portal summarizing our traffic for August. We had over 319,000 page views and just under 82,000 unique visitors. That's over 100 unique visitors every hour for every day of the month. I'm not an expert on SEO marketing, but that's pretty good traffic for our first month of operation. Now that the Summit has passed, we'll be further ramping up our content and expanding our reach using both conventional and viral channels. If we play our cards right, those numbers should continue to grow, and we'll have a real, live portal on our hands. For those of you who want to take advantage of this traffic, we'd love to have you on board as a sponsor, and our partners at TMC are ready to take your calls!

IT Expo/Smart Grid Takeaways

Between the IT Expo and our Smart Grid Summit; along with jet lag, email catchup, Labor Day and back-to-school, blogging has been limited lately. I don't blog from my BlackBerry, but I'm back at my desk now, and trying to get back in gear.

I'd venture to say that anyone who attended TMC's events last week came home happy, myself included. I'm not going to rehash the daily blog/TMC recaps, but will quickly summarize a few takeaways and highlights that stood out for me.

First was our Smart Grid Summit. By all accounts, we feel this was a successful launch - the room was full, it stayed full throughout the day, the panels were lively, the speakers were great, the audience was engaged, and I think the sponsors were pleased. I posted about it briefly last week, and we're already in planning mode for an expanded Summit at the Miami Expo in January.

For some objective analysis, here's a nice wrapup piece by noted IT/tech writer, David Greenfield, which ran on the Ziff Davis Smarter Technologies portal. And if you follow David on Twitter, you'll know he was tweeting throughout the whole day. Thanks Dave! And of course, a big thank you to all the people at TMC who worked hard to make the event happen, and to have faith to partner with us with such a short timeline.

I'll be posting more Summit highlights as they come, including the video interviews both Shidan and myself did with various speakers. Here are some photos of the sessions - Demand Response, and Security...




Tuesday was all Smart Grid, but for the rest of the Expo, I was wearing my JAA analyst hat. I moderated two sessions - one on SMB IP telephony, and one about bringing voice and Web 2.0 together. Both panels were well attended, and the speakers were very good. One of the speakers (seated, far right in first photo) just sent me a video clip that an audience member (Suzanne Bowen - thanks!) made of his presentation - Kevin Corson of HBN Inc. Hah! You never know when/where things like this will turn up - here's the YouTube link.





One quick shout-out to add for another speaker - Bill Bumbernick of Alteva (speaking in first photo). Here's something cool. I've been a fan of Alteva for a while, and they're part of a competition called Shine A Light, co-sponsored by American Express and NBC. The idea is to spotlight promising businesses, and the top 3 submissions share in some nice cash prizes and marketing support. It's a pretty neat idea, and nominations are open until September 13. If you want to support our space, I'd urge you to check Alteva out for yourself, and if you like what you see, you can endorse them here.

Quickly, a few other highlights and items of note from last week...

- Terry Matthews gave a great keynote on entrepreneurship - pretty inspiring, not just for attendees, but TMC and conferences in general. Hopefully we're on the right track here with Smart Grid.

- the show floor was solidly busy from what I saw - it's always tough to balance time between the exhibitors and speakers, but it worked out pretty well on both ends

- Carl and Scott's 4GWE event looked quite good from what I saw. They were running sessions in 2 rooms, including the M2M tracks, which had some nice overlap with our content. I liked the fact that they were videotaping the sessions - we'll consider that for the next summit.

- Some familiar companies came away with Best of Show recognition, namely Voxox (Telecentris), TelcoBridges, Airespring, Interactive Intelligence, Ooma, Intelepeer, 8x8, AudioCodes, BrightCom and ShoreTel. Overall, many of these companies point to continued vitality in voice applications, along with the growing trend toward collaboration. On the voice front, media/VoIP gateways are becoming more intelligent to support today's applications, as demonstrated last week by TelcoBridges, AudioCodes and Dialogic. In terms of collaboration,some of this is about UC, but some is just using one or two tools to be more productive working with others. I'll be writing more about these themes soon, as I'm working with some up and coming companies doing interesting things here.

- Finally, many of these thoughts were shared by Andy Abramson, and I'll steer you to his podcast wrapup of the Expo here. It's a nice change from regular blog posts, and Andy probably saw much more of the Expo than me. No mention of Andy and the Expo would be complete without a big thank-you for hosting yet another great industry dinner last week. This was the biggest gathering I've seen yet - almost 40 people - and it was especially nice to have Terry Matthews join us. If you enjoyed seeing his keynote, he was even better in tight company, and he has a great sense of humor. Great job, Andy and Comunicano crew!

Smart Grid Summit - Quick Highlights

Just been completely go-go-go here between our Smart Grid Summit yesterday and the IT Expo. Will have more thoughtful comments later - lots to share, but no time here to string my ideas together. Overall, though, we're very happy with how the Summit went - the room was full, the panels were great, and nobody wanted to leave. I think we've passed the first test to build this into a full-scale event at the January show.

For now, I'll just pass on some pictures and a link to some coverage of the Summit by TMC staffers. David Greenfield did extensive coverage throughout the day, and we did some video interviews, and I'll share these once they're posted.


Well, we're in the show business now...



Shidan Gouran, my partner in this new venture, DBA Intelligent Communications Partners



Welcome comments from Rich Tehrani, Shidan and myself




Summit keynote from Kevin Suitor of Redline Communications



Afternoon keynotes - Sir Terry Matthews of Wesley Clover and Don Brown, of Interactive Intelligence

Away to LA Today - IT Expo and Smart Grid Summit

Am flying out this morning to Los Angeles for I expect will be a great week between the IT Expo and the launch of our Smart Grid Summit on Tuesday. As noted earlier, this is the 10th anniversary of TMC's flagship event, and with all the challenges faced by telecom conferences in the past year, the Expo continues to stay fresh and explore new opportunities.

Last year they added a wireless event - 4GWE - which is becoming a conference of its own, and this year they've added a sister event - Machine-2-Machine and ours, the Smart Grid Summit. All of these represent new markets for TMC, and aside from what I'm doing with the Summit, you have to give kudos to Rich Tehrani and his team for evolving the Expo experience and staying on top of the leading trends.

I've done plenty of shout-outs and posts to promote the Smart Grid Summit, and at this point, you'll have to find them on your own - or just go to the Smart Grid portal.

Otherwise, I'd like to steer you to a post from Friday by Andy Abramson, who echoes my comments here, but in more detail and more objectively. If you're still sitting on the fence about coming to LA, I hope Andy's thoughts will get you off it and on your way. You might be thinking I'm attending so I can see Manny and the Dodgers - although it certainly crossed my mind - but the Expo will keep me pretty engaged all week, and I'll have plenty of distractions going on where I'll be. Come on out and see for yourself.

4GWE Preview - Focus on Wireless

Lots going on this week, and my latest Service Provider Views article is running just days after the last one. This column focuses on the 4GWE event - 4G Wireless Evolution - running next week at the TMC IT Expo in Los Angeles.

I've addressed wireless issues in earlier columns, and this one serves as a timely preview for what 4GWE will be covering next week. To do this, I put together a Q&A with Carl Ford, who most of you will know, and he shares his thoughts on the the evolving mobility market as well as what's coming at 4WGE. The interview was published this morning on the 4GWE portal, and you can read it here. Their event runs September 1 - 3, and I'll be dropping by during the 2nd and 3rd days, as I'll be busy running the Smart Grid Summit all day on the 1st. See you there!

IT Expo/Smart Grid Updates

Been running hard since our vacation to get the Smart Grid Summit program together. I've been so busy with that, it's easy to forget about the bigger picture. TMC's IT Expo is a little more than a week away, and it's their 10th anniversary, which is a pretty nice milestone in the show business. They've recently announced that Sir Terry Matthews is keynoting, and it sure will be busy.

I'll be moderating two panels - one on SMB IP telephony, and one on voice/Web 2.0 - and you can read more about these here.

I'm also part of TMC's Editor Day, and will be doing my share of briefings in their part of the press room.

On the Smart Grid Summit front, there's lots going on. First, our Smart Grid portal has added some new content, including Q&A's I did with the SIP Forum and Redline Communications. We've got many more of these in the works, and over time, we'll be adding podcasts and video interviews in addition to written contributions.

For the summit itself, we've made some recent tweaks to the agenda, and a full update will be published probably tomorrow. I can't share the details quite yet, but our panels are well represented, and we know the sessions will be good. We are lining up a couple of keynote speakers, and these will be announced ASAP. I should add that we have Redline Communications on as a sponsor now, and we have active interest from a few other majors in the works.

The website is open for registrations, and we're attracting media interest as well as inquiries from the social networking communities. All told, we've come a long way in very little time, and we can see already that a great foundation is in place to make this a full scale event in January for the next IT Expo.

I'll keep you posted here, but don't forget to check out the summit itself, and hope to see you there.

Smart Grid Summit Updates

This has been the busiest week I've had in a long time. The Smart Grid Summit is taking shape on a few fronts, and we're starting to get the word out through both conventional and viral channels.

The event website has launched, so we're open for business. The details there are pretty sparse, but that will change in the next few days as we firm up the sessions and our speakers. We have a number of confirmed speakers, and several more pending - we'll be sharing the latest on that early next week.

What I can tell you for sure is that the summit takes place Tuesday, September 1 as part of TMC's IT Expo, and we have 5 sessions planned. There's an outline of the sessions on the home page of the site. We're not adding any new topics, but will consider sponsorship or speaking inquiries for the scheduled sessions if they're appropriate. Just get in touch with me and we'll see if there's a fit.

Our Smart Grid portal is also coming along nicely, with new content being posted daily. As our conference planning activities even off, you'll see more in-depth content that I'll be driving, along with my ICP partner, Shidan Gouran.

Smart Grid Venture Updates

All new ventures take up tons of time at the beginning, and our new venture is no exception. I posted the basic details about our venture - Intelligent Communications Partners - and ICP's venture with TMC for the Smart Grid Summit on Monday. Since then I have a few updates to pass along...

- the Smart Grid portal is starting to generate quite a bit of traffic, so we know it's getting noticed. Shidan and I will be driving regular content there very soon, and we posted a welcome message to the portal yesterday.

- we've been quite busy contacting prospective speakers for the panels for the Smart Grid Summit. Events usually have more lead time, but the opportunity to launch the conference is now, so we're running on pretty compressed schedule. We're planning to be far enough with the program to have the event website running by Friday, at which point people can register and read more about the program.

- we've had very encouraging feedback so far about the Summit, and believe we're on to something good here. To share the news, Rich Tehrani had a nice post about the event and our venture on his blog yesterday.

I'll keep posting updates here as they come, but as you can probably deduce, for those of you interested in Smart Grid, I'm hoping you'll migrate over to our portal and subscribe to the eNewsletter. Of course, I want you to keep following me here, but for specific Smart Grid content, the portal will be the place to be for everyday news and insights.

Finally, since I have you here, any suggestions for the Smart Grid Summit are welcome.

New Venture and Conference Launched in Smart Grid Space

Been a very busy day, but the news is out now. I've launched a new venture in the Smart Grid space, and there are a few pieces to this.

First, I have teamed up with Shidan Gouran to form Intelligent Communications Partners. Shidan is a Toronto-based tech entrepreneur that some of you will know, and we share an interest in Smart Grid. We have formed ICP as an entity to partner with TMC and build a new community around Smart Grid, with a focus on bringing the worlds of energy/utilities, telecom and IT together.

The news release went out this morning, and there are two key items:

1. We have launched the Smart Grid Summit event. This will be a 1 day event running during TMC's IT Expo in Los Angeles. Our event runs on the first day of the Expo, Tuesday, September 1. We are in the process of putting together the sessions now, and are actively engaged with lining up speakers (and sponsors of course!). Response so far has been very supportive, as there really isn't a forum like this to brings these worlds together. Later in the week, the event site will be ready, at which point people can register to attend.

2. We have launched the Smart Grid portal. This will be our home base from which we intend to generate ongoing thought leadership about this space. As with most TMC portals, the content is heavy on news feeds, but we will soon be adding original, exclusive content to make this a destination for Smart Grid players, especially in thinking beyond what the utility sector is trying to do on their own. We see telecom and IT having a key role in making Smart Grid successful, and the portal will focus on bringing these worlds together.

There's lots more to come, and I'll be posting details and updates as we bring this venture along. Would love to hear your thoughts any time!

IT Expo Follow-Ons and Other News of Note

I'm not alone in saying that this week's IT Expo was a great success and exceeded expectations on a few levels. That's saying a lot in this economy, and it's a testament to the TMC organization, and their continued focus on a market they know very well. I was pleased to be a part of it, and can definitely say being there was worth my while.

I only had a chance to post about the Expo once, and it's been totally go-go today following up on new leads from the show and fulfilling existing client work. A lot has happened since I last posted, and am going to round up a few notable items for you now in this post.

First, some buzz around the show itself. TMC's Tom Keating had a solid round up today of commentary about how the Expo was. The headline of Tom's post made me smile, as his writeup was a nice vindication of my TMCnet columns a few weeks back proclaiming that VoIP is not dead, which sparked a healthy debate on both sides of the argument. No doubt in my mind that the IT Expo places another checkmark in the "alive" column.

Second, continuing with the IT Expo theme, TMC's Greg Galitzine posted the Best In Show winners the other day. Lots of familiar names there, and I just wanted to wave the flag to acknowledge the Canadians in the mix:

- Phybridge - best Large Enterprise Solution
- Industry Dynamics - best Large Enterprise Solution
- Pronexus - best Development Tool
- Sangoma - best Development Tool
- TelcoBridges - best Onsite Product Launch

I'm especially glad to see the first three on this list, as they were all part of the Ontario/Canada Pavilion trade delegation, which had a prominent presence on the show floor, and a ridiculously popular reception on Tuesday. I don't get to say this very often, but their initiative to support emerging Ontario tech companies is a great example of our tax dollars being put to good use!

Third, Fierce VoIP had strong coverage throughout the Expo, and it was nice seeing Doug Mohney popping in and out of the sessions. They posted a nice slideshow of the Expo, including a couple of me during my SIP Trunking presentation.

Fourth, Response Point/SMB Phone launch. Microsoft had a healthy presence during the Expo around Response Point, and they seem bound and determined to become a player in the SMB IP telephony market. Building on their launch with Packet 8 at the previous IT Expo, the news I want to focus on here is the launch of SMB Phone. Huh? Ok, SMB Phone isn't a household name, but many of you will know Erik Lagerway. Aside from his blogging activity, he's a classic serial entrepreneur, and SMB Phone is his latest venture along with partner Trent Johnsen. Erik and Trent most recently ran Shift Communications, and SMB Phone looks to be a bigger and better story. At the Expo on Monday, they announced the launch of their Digital Voice service for the Canadian SMB market. SMB Phone is solely built around the Microsoft Response Point product, and they are the first and only service provider partner to support it in Canada. For now, they have the market to themselves, and I sure hope they can lock Canada up before the space gets too crowded. Congrats, guys - nice to see you back in the game.

Fifth - Iotum's iPhone news. Gee, this Canadian theme sure is strong. Don't let the cold winters fool you - we don't just hibernate in our igloos, y'know. Iotum has been on a good roll lately with its Calliflower conferencing platform. The latest news came Tuesday, announcing their availability on the iPhone. While not an IT Expo item, it's another good news story out of Canada, and CEO Alec Saunders provides a graphic walk-through of how Calliflower works on the iPhone on his blog.

Sixth - more Apple news. Another item that got a lot of attention today was Jajah's announcement of their latest service that gives the iPod Touch the voice capability of the iPhone. Their platform provides a turnkey solution enabling any operator to offer a service for iTouch users to make calls or send SMS. It's great news for Jajah, and it helped make my day, as they were nice enough to quote me in their press release.

That's enough news for one day. Back to work now...

IT Expo - So far...

So far, so good here at the IT Expo. All told, actually, I'd say better than expected. Monday was totally go-go for me, and didn't get a chance to post at all. Others did, though, so a good starting point is,of course, Rich Tehani. Just scroll through his on-the-spot, up-to-the-minute posts, and you'll get a flavor of how well attended these sessions have been.

Other posts I've picked on so far with first impressions of the show include Andy Abramson, IPCI partner Marc Robins (yes, he's finally back blogging!), and Moshe Maier. Am sure there are plenty others, but I need to get this post done quickly before my next round of briefings.

If you want to a great read on why conferences matter and why you should attend them as best you can, you need to take in Andy Abramson's post from yesterday morning, which set the tone nicely for the Expo. People must be taking his advice, because in spite of a gloomy economy and travel restrictions, the attendance here has been very strong. That's good news for TMC, and it's great news for Carl Ford and Scott Kargman, who partnered with TMC for their 4G wireless event, and they've been pulling in great numbers as well.

Just have time to quickly post a few images from yesterday and this morning...

This morning, I hosted a breakfast sponsored by the Ontario government and the government of Canada. It's part of their trade delegation to support Ontario based companies, and they have a pretty big pavilion on the show floor. Lots of good companies there, and the turnout this morning was great.



Last night was the Microsoft Response Point dinner. Just a handful of bloggers invited, and it was a great way to get better connected to where Microsoft is going in this space. As you can see, the Bold doesn't take great shots in low light, but this dinner really did happen...



Couldn't resist. I've never seen such an elaborate storefront for a Psychic before. Was tempted to ask what their outlook was for telecom was - maybe they know something we don't....



Shots from the show floor during the reception last night - busy, busy...







Finally, a couple of Miami views. The classic Deco hotels on Collins Ave., and the view from my room. Wish you were here....

Service Provider Views - Q&A with Jaduka

Just in time for next week's TMC IT Expo, my latest Service Provider Views column was posted this morning.

I've been big on the platform play theme in my column, and Jaduka is another company doing some great things here, especially for enterprise applications. For this column, I did a Q&A with Jaduka's President, Jack Rynes, so for a change you get to hear about platform plays first hand from a leading practitioner. You can read the column here, and if you like it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Jack too!

And if you haven't made plans to attend the Expo - or the 4G wireless show running next door - there's still time. Aside from the extensive content and exhibitor presence, it sounds like hotel space is available and the weather is getting warmer. When it's snowing like it is today in Toronto, these things all add up to a pretty good idea. Hope to see you there.

Flat Planet Brings VoIP to Mobility - and the IT Expo

On Friday, Israeli colleague Moshe Maier post some news on his blog that ties in nicely to TMC's IT Expo, which starts a week today. Can't wait!

Moshe's company - The Flat Planet Phone Company - has been doing its part to bring innovation and disruption to the masses with a VoIP platform that allows anyone - anyone - to become a service provider. You don't like your local telco? Now you have a choice - become your own telco. Why not?

The latest news is a LCR - Least Cost Routing - engine, that FPPC will offer now for mobile VoIP. There are lots of mobile VoIP solutions out there, but you don't see them talking about LCR. And it's great to see a mobile VoIP offering that works on all cellphones - not just smartphones. You can read the details on Moshe's blog post, as well as some follow up from Andy Abramson and Alec Saunders.

The service formally launches at the IT Expo next week, so you can expect to hear more buzz about it then. But as bloggers, we certainly don't mind getting pre-briefed now.

If you want to get more of a first-hand taste, please drop my IT Expo session next Monday at noon. With a bit of clever planning, I've managed to get Moshe added to this panel, so if mobile VoIP is on your radar, you'll want to join us.

TMC IT Expo Momentum Building

I'll be plenty busy at TMC's IT Expo in about 10 days time, and have been posting fairly regularly about what I'll be up to. This is a short post to update on some recent coverage on TMCnet, some of which will tell you more about what you can expect to see from me at the Expo.

- Yesterday, Rich Tehrani ran a spotlight feature about my views on the IP comms space as well as some predictions for 2009. Thanks Rich!

- Yesterday, Rich also published a list of thought leaders for his readers to come meet at the Expo, and it was nice see him include me there. I'm really glad he's doing this, as there will be lots of smart people at the conference from all ends of the market - analysts, vendors, service providers, PR, etc. - and we all know that the best part of these events is the time we spend talking to each other and learning from each other. I know I'll be seeking out a few of those people on his list.

- Also yesterday, TMC's Erik Linask wrote a piece about 4G. It was nice to see him cite my latest TMCnet column there, but more importantly, he's drawing attention - as I am doing here - to the 4G Wireless Evolution conference, which is co-located at the IT Expo. This event warrants its own attention, and not just because 4G is a big deal for the entire mobile sector. It also marks the debut of Carl Ford and Scott Kargman in the conference space following the demise of VON. I'm not alone in being very happy to see this happen, and am looking forward to dropping in on their sessions as time allows.

- To round this post out, last week, TMC's Greg Galitzine ran a Q&A piece with me about the SIP Trunking sessions that take place during the Expo. That will be one of my main involvements there, and if you're interested in SIP Trunking, this should be high up on your list at the show.

Ingate SIP Trunking Sessions at IT Expo

Wanted to draw some attention to one of the activities that will be keeping me busy at the IT Expo in about 2 weeks time. With each day, there's more and more stuff going on, and everyone involved is trying to lock down their sessions, meetings, presentations, etc.

On Monday and Wednesday of the Expo, I'll be doing things with Ingate and their SIP Trunking Sessions. I posted some details the other day, and you can see the full agenda here.

To support the event, Ingate has issued a press release, and TMC's Greg Galitzine did a Q&A with me the other day. You can read the interview here, and you can register for the sessions here.