There are Events, and then there are events.
The past week saw a plethora of conferences and
seminars on wireless Internet: ‘Nordic GPRS’ (September 11-12), ‘A Glorious Day
for Wireless Communications’ (September 12), ‘Nordic Telecom 2000’ (September
13-14), ‘Brainheart Capital Seminar on Wireless IT’ (September 19), ‘Networks
Telecom’ (September 20-22). Having attended all of the gatherings mentioned, in
retrospect I have severe problems distinguishing them from each other. They all
tend to blur together in a heavy-eyelid haze of PowerPoint excesses and
intermittent meals.
The one conference that did stand out from the crowd
was the ‘Glorious Day’ event at prestigious venue Cirkus. This was partly due
to the strong line-up of speakers: The opening speech was held by Lars Berg
(former CEO of Telia and the telecom branch of Mannesmann) and the closing
ditto was delivered by Östen Mäkitalo (Executive VP
Strategy & Innovation, Telia). Mr Mäkitalo has recently reached guru status
in Scandinavia, being dubbed ‘the father of mobile telephony’, very much due to
ample advertising efforts from Telia.
Over the post presentation Italian buffet, the
attendees were dealing with two quandaries.
I: Why you never seem to learn how to save plate
space for the good (expensive) dishes typically found towards the end of the
buffet table.
II: Why you never seem to learn not expect insight,
rather than plugging of products, from speakers on such events.
The second point (never mind the first one) touches
upon what can be referred to as the conference conspiracy: How, under the guise
of serious and well-intended competence enhancement, conferences attract
knowledge-starved delegates to gatherings that are nothing but exposure
extravaganzas. Often attendees are left feeling disappointed, however not
disappointed enough to turn down the next offer to go to one.
The cynic delegate doesn’t
even mind the disappointment, being fully prepared for it. S/he is well aware
of the fact that the event is about propaganda, rather than insight, but just
doesn’t care since conferences are a nice distraction from ordinary life. Thus,
for a certain breed of conference attendees, the competence enhancement element
of the conference is more of an excuse for attending than a 'guise'.
What the participants at the ‘Glorious Day’ event
did seem to enjoy the most, though, was the ad-hoc appearance of illusionist
and performer Joe Labero. Possibly scoring somewhat lower in providing mobile
Internet insight, Mr Labero was the feature that made the event stand out from
the crowd. However, such features are regarded as unserious – not to mention
proper release parties and other ‘happenings’. Events like that are deemed
speculative and scheming.
Why? At parties, at least the hidden agenda is
fairly transparent. What you see is what you get. Let’s be frank: Every
business is more and more turning into show business. If there is product
plugging to be done; why not do something exciting with it?
Fortunately, conference days are over for me.
Tonight (September 21), I will be enjoying an honest cocktail party at
bachelors’ bar Tiger, hosted by a network for IT professionals called Shortcut.
Looking forward to some sincere PR.
