I will be at Nice again this year to enjoy the sights, the sounds and the smells of our industry’s principal trade show.
TMW is a mix of the fascinating and the dull, the informative and the vacuous.
It’s difficult to predict what will be of value and what won’t. Some keynotes offer a candid insight in to the industry, and a fresh perspective. Others feel like they were put together on a short-haul business class flight using existing collateral.
above. Sol Trujillo of Telstra. One of the more interesting keynotes of 2008.
Personally, being a bit of an OSS geek, I am a big fan of catalyst projects, at Forumville, down in the basement. Ok, some of the presentations are not well rehearsed, but you almost always get a better insight in to the vendors products, and hints at their roadmap, than you will find on their marketing stand up stairs.
You want a candid, no-marketing-bs, answer to a question? Ask a flustered engineer after they’ve fluffed the technical demo in a 30 minute catalyst presentation.
No… I’m not really that cruel.
above. The Amdocs beautiful-people manning the stand in 2008.
Two things for you, my intelligent, regular reader:
1. I will be blogging the show as it happens. I’ll try and keep it interesting. No transcripts of the keynotes or anything like that. Only key news, product announcements, highlights, gossips, the latest polo-shirt fashions.
2. If you’re attending TMW this year and have anything you’d like to discuss with me, drop me a line at james.pullen@ossline.com . I will be available to meet over coffee and cakes. Feedback on OSS Line? Project opportunities? Want to discuss blogging your new product? A chat about emerging technologies? Anything!
And to all those marketeers pulling 18 hour days to get ready for next week, our thoughts are with you….