January 25, 2005
Its the Dialogue not the schedule
We are at the Exec Summit and I have again blown the schedule up. I think the goal is to have the dialogue alive and well and not to keep to the schedule.
I do have a hard stop that i have to live up to because of a speakers schedule.
I will keep the discussion moving for the rest of the day.
Posted by carl at 05:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2005
Eureka - Now I have 2!
When I develop the conferences, I am constantly aware that I have some companies that are standalone in my mind. Until today I thought Voxpath was the only company supporting MGCP iPBX hosting, but Centile is out there too.
Now that I have heard Bertrand's presentation I can have them in a session together or add Shoretel as the MGCP advocates.
Posted by carl at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
January 23, 2005
When in New Jersey - Do as the French do!
Having no control of the weather and still not sure, we made the right decision to wait a day to get to Europe, I woke up at 4 AM which is 9AM in France.
So I figure this is a good way to get in sync and adjust since I would normally have a day there to get in mode, and now we are arriving and leaving for ETSI right off the bat.
The Exec Summit should be a very interesting experience
Posted by carl at 05:07 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2005
Hole - Session Descriptions
Spring VON is now pretty stable and I am working on Europe. Things have a tendency to slip my mind and the session descriptions for Europe are long overdue.
Many companies these days want to see the Session Descriptions which is a shame. Jeff used to just give titles and let the speakers explore the possibilities in the name. It was a good freeing experience in the wild wild west days of VoIP.
Now, if I write and the spin doesn't match. Rather than critique they withdraw. Often its the speakers I had in mind that reject my prose.
I will work the VON Europe descriptions today and tomorrow.
Posted by carl at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Day Off - line
Traveling back from Hawaii left me out of contact with the world.
A few phone calls found me, but most of the day I was MIA.
Posted by carl at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
Adult Supervision - The Role of a Moderator
The SIP Summit was a 2 break out conference and we got out of sync between the 2 conference rooms. I made the mistake of thinking that some of the speakers would "self-moderate".
At summits I feel that as a group we go on the journey so if the time gets delayed.... We as a group have made the choice by asking questions.
With breakouts that changes, because the groups need to stay in sync.
Moderators need to do the following
Make sure all the speakers present.
Make sure they all share the time with the audience
Keep the audience engaged
Allow the next session to start on time
Report on the audience and speakers caliber to us.
Posted by carl at 08:22 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2005
More on Ingate
Steve Johnson and I talked about the problem of providing a session that makes sense for them at the conferences. In my head, Ingate gets lumped with all the session controllers, plus they have a sister company called Intertex which does similar things but in different markets.
Some of the neat aspects of their product is the support for IPv6 and the SIP proxy that inside that can be used to support multiple end points behind it. It also acts a firewall so they could be
We talked about getting a session in the shows which is either about security or the future of the Internet.
Posted by carl at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)
A quick call - Where can I learn about SIP?
A friend asks where he can learn about SIP. After I answer "VON", the next thing I suggest is Henry's and Alan's book.
Posted by carl at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
SIP and Billing - The Last Session of the Day
Camilla Dahlen of High Deal and Tim Hoolihan of Primal Solutions gave great talks on Billing to a small audience.
Both of the companies have made markets for themselves in particular segments of the industry; 3G for High Deal and Cable for Primal.
The most interesting thing said to me was that RADIUS (the protocol I am use to using for billing information transfer) was considered too much overhead cost in the cable space and event records were being streamed using alternative methods.
My notes are included below. for your review.
Download file
Posted by carl at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2005
The Great Session Controller Wars
Here at the SIP summit the Birds of a Feather session was well attended by the IETF participants, and unfortunately did not catch the eye of our Session Controller Friends.
The nite before all the IETFers and myself went to a party sponsored by Nextone, which is a session controller.
Maybe for that reason that the speaker deck was staffed with only IETFers our session controller friends were mostly absent, except for Ingate (which is more of a edge solution).
It was a good session, but I should have specifically invited the Session Controllers to participate. A lesson learned for next time.
Posted by carl at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2005
The SIP Tutorial
Henry Sinnreich and Alan Johnston are going to be presenting today as precon to the SIP Summit. The quality of their class is amazing. While both work for MCI, Henry brings an ability to express all of the latest information associated with IETF standards work while Alan teaches at George Washington University as an adjunct professor.
If you are an engineer or someone who closely with works with this class is wonderful.
Posted by carl at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2005
Travel Day
Diana and Marni left Friday for the SIP Summit. This is the show I have been looking forward to since Fall VON. The IETFs in abundance giving us their insight. The BOF where the IETFers endorse the concept of a session controller.
This is going to be a very interesting event. So today I spent the day travelling to
Tomorrow the conference begins.
Posted by carl at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2005
ETSI TISPAN
Richard Brennan and Kevin Flynn joined me on a conference call about VON Europe and VON Australia. Jeff joined ETSI back in 1997. The benefit to pulver.com was to gain access to the standards people as speakers. The benefit to ETSI was to tap into this incredible stream of new companies that were participating in the VoIP Revolution.
The purpose of the call was to discuss how we could add content to VON Australia and VON Europe that helped promote ETSI's work. And the work is very good, particularly if you are a carrier that is trying to determine how to integrate from their existing network.
Here in a nut shell are the salient points. ETSI TISPAN is doing good work with blending of VoIP and 3G standards that we should make people aware of. Of particular interest is their Testing services, which is a much more vendor friendly version of the dreaded Telecordia / ILEC OSMINE process. So ETSI would like to help with the sessions and getting us representatives from the area.
The Follow up is a meeting while we are doing the Executive Summit
Posted by carl at 10:27 AM | Comments (0)
The Tutorial for the PTC
Getting Ready for the PTC conference, I have made the following slides.
I am thinking the one thing I am missing is a picture of all sorts of events. Let me know what you think.
Posted by carl at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)
January 13, 2005
Jeff's IP is done now its time for VoIP tutorial
Okay, Here is the status of the day. Dave and I chatted about the Independent Telco sessions and Peggy and he are going to work on Fast Net Futures in my absence while I am in Hawaii.
Posted by carl at 05:49 PM | Comments (0)
The One Man Show Dilemma - Carl Ford
For some reason, I have been designated as "the guy". I admit that I have years of telco behind me that has given me a rather odd perspective that few can match. But the effect is that often, due dates slip because I am being asked for comment.
I hate that. Its bad enough trying to keep my due dates, but having to match to others is truly impossible.
I went thru the precons with Kristin and I clearly have to focus on the Independent Telco strategy with Dave Burstein and the Voice WiFi precon. The rest is working its way out.
Posted by carl at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)
Swapping Content for Content
I was hoping to get the precons for Spring VON stable with Kristin and Peggy. Europe looks in worse shape then I remembered. So I have to focus.
Having said that, Jeff is in the office and his keynote at the PTC is on Jeff's mind, So Johnny and I are here working on the news slides.
We will ignore the fact that I have not put my slides together.
Hopefully sometime today I can go back to working Spring's VON precon.
Posted by carl at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
The Titles of the Proposals
I have a complaint about the proposals I see. Some companies think that the way to submit proposals is to give the same proposals multiple times with different speakers.
Titles are an issue (Sales and Marketing are normally not allowed), but the goal should be a breadth of topics and concepts.
Giving three different employees in the same title reduces the value, because if the topic is not chosen, all three people are rejected.
If the people are pitched in a variety of themes, it gives an opportunity to match to the people to sessions.
Take it for what its worth.
Posted by carl at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2005
The One Man Show Dilemma - Jeff Pulver
Often Jeff gets a request from people for speaking slots. Normally all Industry Perspectives are from his discussions almost a year in advance. Keynotes are a result of sponsorship packages. People looking for me to help are not aware how long this process takes.
But the Session carved out because of a conversation with Jeff is the scariest part for the speaker team. Often these people will talk with Jeff and assume that's all they have to talk to.
So we send them E-mails looking for names and confirmations and they ignore the E-mail for getting the names and people on the website. That leaves us scrambling for information and lots of people wake up to the fact that we have since cancelled the session for lack of information months before the conference.
If you get a commitment from Jeff make sure to follow through with Diana Falcon diana@pulver.com .
Posted by carl at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)
New Kid on the Block - Kristin O'Mahony
Kristin has been working for us for over 6 months, but komahony@pulver.com is not as recognized an email as we need it to be.
As a new E-mail address from pulver.com many of our speakers often think that her emails are part of our relentless marketing effort.
The result is that she is often frustrated by the lack of response to her E-mail. So we have resorted to her using my name in vain.
Please, if you get an E-mail from this woman, know that she means business and get back to her.
Posted by carl at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
Getting Back on Schedule
The Speaking Team has finally been together the last two days. Catching up on E-mails from the beginning of the year and providing me the hole reports.
I strongly recommend paying attention to websites with the understanding that they are always out of sync with the pending emails.
Our status is as follows.
Spring VON is the largest and the one that is craziest. Hundreds of speakers on the wish list and some sessions have to be redesigned. The Precons are the least determined.
Voice on the Net Canada has been reconfigured. Looks okay but IPs have to be completed. Most invitations are accepted.
VON Europe is suffering from some neglect only because of Spring VON. Keynotes and Industry Perspectives are complete but some sessions need real work.
VON Australian and the SIP Summit @ Supercomm are next on our agenda.
Posted by carl at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)