My abiding memories of this conference will have to be the failure by the press to keep to matters of import ie broadband and broadcasting in the future and away from Jade goody and Big Brother, the storms that prevented me from getting home for well over 24 hours.
Oh yes, and the failure once again for an organisation to save money on posh hotels and actually pay me for attending, instead of expecting my small business to fund their profitable conference. £130 for a hotel room? Why oh why couldn't I be permitted to stay somewhere cheaper and take the difference to cover MY time and MY expenses to be there as one of their speakers? Attending this event cost me 3 lost days of work, and near as dammit £200 of my own money in out of pocket expenses. Yet they were happy enough to give their money to Richard's train comany and a hotel chain, but not to the person they needed to contribute to their panel.
GRRRRRR!
However, there were some very interesting issues raised at the event, although it did once again reinforce the notion that far too many people who live and work in London need to get out more. These people in organisations such as DTI, Ofcom, and even amongst roving journalists firstly couldn't even point to Cumbria on a map, let alone comprehend the massive problems we have in rural areas getting a basic broadband connection, and hence the effect this has on our daily working lives, and our kids' existence.
Considering ofcom's large attendance and the purpose of the event, there was a distinct lack to actually allow citizens and consumers representation at the event. There was an overwhelming number of journos, govt org and industry reps, but very very few from the consumer space. And at £400 throw a ticket, how many consumers could even afford to go? Bring back the ABC events with fair pricing for all I say.
There was too much focus on broadcast rather than community/consumer content being created at local level by the people, but then that was hardly surprising considering the voices chosen to contribute and the audience. BBC are about the only one, as well as a few of the community type broadcasters, who have worked out the value of consumer content, and tieing it up with good quality production units and skills that the broadcast industry have. But then I couldn't go to some of the pensl as of course they did triple streaming which means you invariably miss contributions and presentations from people who would interest you. Luckily, with any luck, much of this will be online shortly, though possibly only for those who attended. We'll wait and see.
As ever, I suggested that carbon footprints could have been reduced if some videoconferencing had been used, and the audience could have been massively extended with backchannels, webcasting etc, but of course these guys have never seen that stuff at work in a live conference cos the technology always flops out at the big events trying it. Now they tend to run scared of it, instead of keeping going trying till it works seamlessly.
There were approx 300 delegates in Ed Richards keynote at the beginning and I counted 10 laptops. Pah! Where on earth are the technosavvy delegates in the world of new meejah???
The best contact made was purely because the 100mph storms stopped all trains and buses north of Birmingham and having managed to find somewhere to kip for the night (for free cos I was paying) I met a very very nice lady in charge of dark fibre services for a major telco who seemed more than just a little interested in some of teh ideas that other telcos have failed to grasp. Oh and the guy from the DTI who never got to finish his lunch for talking to this unhungry broadband obsessive!
Go again? Not unless someone else is paying.
posted by Cybersavvy UK @ 10:13 AM
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