A timely take on mobile social networking

At Informa Telecoms & Media, my task of producing telecoms sector discussion/networking events is made much easier by being able to seek the input of our own industry analysts and by my having a wealth of ITM report products and subscription research services at my fingertips. Prior to joining Informa, I worked for companies who created useful and profitable conferences without the benefit of having such resources in-house. Frankly, this meant I had to beg and borrow information and insights in order to get my job done (I won't admit to stealing). During that time, I found some analysts to be particularly insightful.

One such was Dean Bubley, whose blog is linked from this one. The motto of Dean's mobile sector advisory business is "don't assume" and he asserts that "the technology industry - and its customers and investors - have accepted too readily nebulous, unsubstantiated and unchallenged predictions of self-appointed 'experts' and pundits." Dean's blog entries are written in just this spirit. Most recently, he has turned his attention to mobile social networking.

This was very timely for me, given that I spent a large chunk of yesterday working on a presentation on exactly this subject. This will be delivered on January 15th at the next Mobile Monday Istanbul meeting, at which I was invited to speak by the local organiser, Natali Yeşilbahar. While I am considering quoting Dean's comments to spice things up a little, most of my slides are drawn from the Informa Telecoms & Media 'Mobile Social Networking: Communities and Content on the Move'.

While I am delighted to be sharing some of our thoughts on this area, I was also motivated to travel to Turkey for the meeting by the prospect of being able to drum up local support for our Eurasia Com event, which will take place in the same city 31 March & 1 April. The Eurasia Com speaker panel is drawn from all over the Caspian region and Central Asia, with most of the former Soviet republics well represented. I have a great team in place to ensure that good numbers of delegates from these markets also attend, but I am keen to make sure we do not neglect the matter of marketing the event very actively to telcos in its host country. Hence my keenness to spend some time in Istanbul this month. I am looking forward to this first overseas trip of 2009. I'd better finish my presentation this weekend...