Toronto Blues Society - Maple Blues Awards Event Highlights

I haven't posted about the Toronto Blues Society for ages, but this one needs to get done before the week is out.

On Monday of this week, I attended the Maple Blues Awards, which is Oscar night for the Canadian blues community. As always, it's a great event, and this is the first chance I've had to post about it. I've been involved with the TBS since inception (1985), and an active Board member for most of that time, so pardon my cheerleading here. That aside, Canada has long been a world-class producer of blues talent, and our work at the TBS plays a big part in keeping the blues alive.

The MBA event is a great showcase for just how good the blues can be in Canada, and is a testament to the commitment of blues lovers to support the artists as well as live music in general. The reticent musician in me has a hard time getting off that soapbox, so I'll stop now.

The MBAs are a great celebration of the Canadian blues scene (and if you're in the roots music biz, the event capped off the weekend-long Blues Summit IV, which is the biggest event on our calendar), and this will either be very familiar or very foreign to you. For that reason, I'm not going to run down all the winners here - better you read up on it at our website, and explore what else we're up to. If you follow Canadian blues artists, you probably know the results by now anyway - and if don't, then you should! So maybe - just maybe - this will be your entry point into the blues, and if you like what you see, then c'mon and join the TBS.

I'll leave you with a few photos, which are just ok. I recently got the BlackBerry Bold - love it - and am still figuring out how to get decent photos. Plus, it doesn't help to be shooting in a dark nightclub. Anyhow, there will be much better photos taken by others coming soon on the website, as well as in the newsletter, which we do post online. Enjoy - and if you ever want to talk about the blues, I'm your man.

View from the bandstand before showtime




The Maple Blues Band - as good as it gets



Treasa Levasseur and The Sojourners - perfect blend of gospel and blues - magic



For many, the biggest highlight of the night was a video tribute to local legend, Jeff Healey, who sadly passed away way before his time about a year ago. Any fan of modern electric blues guitar will know his name, his amazing talent and unparalleled lap-style technique. The video tribute was prepared by local music entrepreneur Mako Funasaka, who also posted a very sharp photo gallery of the event on his site. Great stuff. Of course his photos will be much better than mine, but I did manage to get this shot showing Jeff's style of playing off the monitor showing the video.



TBS President Derek Andrews and Jay Sieleman



Shakura S'Aida - fabulous singer - see her if you can - or get her CDs



Shooting the shot - my neighbor, Frank Nagy photographs live music for a living, and his work is first rate. Got this impromptu photo of Frank lining up a stage shot.




And...bonus coverage - I shot a few short video clips during the performances. The quality is so-so - both audio and video - and it's nothing like what I used to get on the Nokia N-Series phones. Well, it's better than nothing, and here's the best clip of the bunch - and runs about 3 minutes. This will give you a nice taste of the music, and the clip features Toronto's own - Amos Garrett (of Midnight at the Oasis fame) - jamming with the Maple Blues house band. He's 67 years old, but don't let that fool ya, and is a great example of how music keeps you young! Enjoy.

TMC IT Expo Momentum Building

I'll be plenty busy at TMC's IT Expo in about 10 days time, and have been posting fairly regularly about what I'll be up to. This is a short post to update on some recent coverage on TMCnet, some of which will tell you more about what you can expect to see from me at the Expo.

- Yesterday, Rich Tehrani ran a spotlight feature about my views on the IP comms space as well as some predictions for 2009. Thanks Rich!

- Yesterday, Rich also published a list of thought leaders for his readers to come meet at the Expo, and it was nice see him include me there. I'm really glad he's doing this, as there will be lots of smart people at the conference from all ends of the market - analysts, vendors, service providers, PR, etc. - and we all know that the best part of these events is the time we spend talking to each other and learning from each other. I know I'll be seeking out a few of those people on his list.

- Also yesterday, TMC's Erik Linask wrote a piece about 4G. It was nice to see him cite my latest TMCnet column there, but more importantly, he's drawing attention - as I am doing here - to the 4G Wireless Evolution conference, which is co-located at the IT Expo. This event warrants its own attention, and not just because 4G is a big deal for the entire mobile sector. It also marks the debut of Carl Ford and Scott Kargman in the conference space following the demise of VON. I'm not alone in being very happy to see this happen, and am looking forward to dropping in on their sessions as time allows.

- To round this post out, last week, TMC's Greg Galitzine ran a Q&A piece with me about the SIP Trunking sessions that take place during the Expo. That will be one of my main involvements there, and if you're interested in SIP Trunking, this should be high up on your list at the show.

Deloitte's Predictions Event

Yesterday I attended Deloitte's annual Predictions 2009 event here in Toronto. This is their 8th year doing this, and it keeps getting bigger and better, so there's definitely an appetite for their views. The presentation is built around Deloitte's ongoing global research covering TMT - Technology, Media, Telecom. There's a whole lot there, and for each area of TMT, they have 10 major global predictions. Yesterday's focus was on the Canadian market, and as a teaser, they narrowed it down to 13 with the most local impact.

The presentation was primarily led by Duncan Stewart, who is Deloitte Canada's Director of Research. He did a great job and is a very engaging presenter - not too geeky, but with enough edge to explain why these trends matter for the audience.

Key takeaway trends that resonated for me...

- Newspapers are in trouble - which we all know, but maybe not fully enough. The demand for news is actually growing, but their business model is broken and they're not moving fast enough. Lots to talk about here.

- The power grid needs to - and will - get a lot smarter in 2009. There is no other aspect of public infrastructure more critical for everyone, yet in such serious need of modernizing. We take power for granted, but SmartGrid technologies can't come along fast enough, and he talked about some Canadian companies doing great things here.

- Netbooks are very hot, and for good reason. Pretty impressive trend data showing just how popular they're becoming and why. I want one!

- Social networking in business is on the rise - not just because it's familiar to many of us, but because as IT investments go, it's very affordable, and can deliver a great ROI, especially in terms of knowledge management.

- Mobile advertising is set to take off. No surprise there, and this touched on a few trends actually. Was nice to see Duncan cite some Canadian winners in this space, namely Impact Mobile, MyThum and OZ Communications - companies I've posted about in the past.

- Mobile broadband is huge, but networks aren't expanding fast enough to manage the traffic. He cited companies like Sandvine, Bridgewater, DragonWave and Redline as having success helping carriers do this, not just for Canadian carriers, but globally as well.

- The browser is becoming the new OS. I really liked that line - he's basically saying that SaaS and cloud computing will be a major trend in 2009, and based on some of my current client work, I couldn't agree more. He cited a great stat showing how Microsoft has lost 10% of the browser market in the last 12 months, and he noted that he can't think of any other example where they've lost that much share in so little time. It's coming of course at the expense of Linux, but Chrome is gaining adoption too. This will be a very interesting and important space and I'll be following it for sure.

Overall, nothing really groundbreaking here, and for many of you, this will be familiar ground. Fair enough, but it's not just telecom here, and I like the broader view that Deloitte brings to all this. Plus, they focus as much on the business implications and homegrown solutions as the actual nuts and bolts behind each trend.

Finally, what I really liked about Predictions is how Deloitte is using the tools themselves to make this event interesting. Have a look at their website, which will give you all kinds of Predictions 2009 content - both traditional and new media. Aside from the press release and pdf downloads of the highlights, you can also view video clips of Duncan's presentations, a Flickr photo album, and links to all the other social networking tools they're using to build community around Deloitte's thought leadership. Definitely not your father's accounting firm.


John Ruffolo - opening remarks




Duncan Stewart moderating the group panel - Simon Avery (Globe & Mail), Barry Reiter (Bennett Jones), Harry Gruner (JMI Equity)



Room was packed - over 500 people, plus others watching the live web feed

Is VoIP Dead? The Sequel - My Latest TMC Article

For some of you, this issue is dead and gone, and beaten to death. Maybe so, but I still believe the flavor of VoIP that I'm seeing a lot of is very much alive and kicking in 2009. Some of this may just be arguing semantics, but the dialog that flowed from my last TMCnet article back on December 29 sure was interesting, and I've since felt obliged to follow this up and clarify things.

My latest Service Provider Views article ran today on TMCnet, and all that's left for me to do here is steer you to the link.

Give it a read, and tell me whether this changes your thinking or not. My position hasn't changed, and in fact, I've updated it with some developments that have come since my last article. Let's see where this goes...

eComm 2009 - Early Bird Discount Ends Today!

Last week I posted a few updates about eComm 2009, and can only assume you've bought your ticket and booked your travel by now. Right?

If not...the Early Bird discount ends today, so if you put it off til later, the prices goes up $300 starting tomorrow. Once you've got your credit card ready, here's the registration page!

And if that's not enough incentive, you can get an additional 20% savings by using my promotional discount code. I posted about this a few weeks back, and this extra discount is in effect up til February 17. So, you can apply it today and get a double discount, or just use it on its own for the remaining time after today. Let me know if you're interested.

For those of you still not sure why you need to be there, Lee has been posting some very thought provoking content on the eComm blog the past few days about the future of telecom, and it's a pretty good indicator of the kinds of people who will be speaking at the conference. He's been putting up transcripts of interviews, and while they make for VERY long posts, it's a nice option for those who can't spare 45 minutes or so to listen through the podcasts of each one.

And don't forget, you can catch Lee live tomorrow at 11am EST on Alec Saunder's Squawk Box podcast.

Ingate SIP Trunking Sessions at IT Expo

Wanted to draw some attention to one of the activities that will be keeping me busy at the IT Expo in about 2 weeks time. With each day, there's more and more stuff going on, and everyone involved is trying to lock down their sessions, meetings, presentations, etc.

On Monday and Wednesday of the Expo, I'll be doing things with Ingate and their SIP Trunking Sessions. I posted some details the other day, and you can see the full agenda here.

To support the event, Ingate has issued a press release, and TMC's Greg Galitzine did a Q&A with me the other day. You can read the interview here, and you can register for the sessions here.

Nortel - the Good News: Web.Alive

Ok, ok - it's pretty hard to ignore the bombshell news that's on front pages everywhere today in Canada. It looks like Nortel is going to seek bankruptcy protection, perhaps as early as today. This may be a minor story in the U.S. business press, but it's a big story in tech/telecom, and a HUGE story here in Canada.

You don't need me to tell you what Nortel means to Canada in terms of pride and joy, although that's more of a distant memory these days. Today's news isn't totally unexpected, and Nortel is hardly alone in facing hard times. Still, it hurts, and sadly takes Canada down a notch or two in the scheme of things. Of course we have tons of successful and promising tech companies here, but if you mashed them all together, they would still be far behind all the things Nortel has accomplished over the years.

Seems that every time I have an interesting post to write, I get trumped by something like this. I had a great demo call with Nortel yesterday, and I'm probably the only one out there writing something positive about the company today. As big as this morning's news is, I don't care. My story is better, and I'm gonna give you some good news about Nortel! :-)

So, what's Web.Alive? Last week I posted about Web.Alive and Nortel's announcement at CES with Lenovo. If this is new to you, then you should start with that post. Web.Alive is Nortel's virtual collaboration platform, and was developed with help from DiamondWare, a company I know quite well that Nortel acquired last year.

Lenovo is their first commercial customer, and yesterday I got a personalized demo in the Lenovo eLounge, led by the key Web.Alive leaders, namely Arn Hyndman and Nic Sauriol. This is a very cool experience, and if you're a gamer you'll find this a lot of fun. I'm not a gamer, and it took a little getting used to, but it's a pretty intuitive experience. Everyone has an avatar - which can be personalized, of course - and once you're in the eLounge, it's like being in Second Life. You can wander around, talk to people, ask questions, and most importantly, check out all the Lenovo laptop computers there for sale.

As you read this, you're getting a mental picture, which is fine, but once you experience this and interact with others in the lounge, you'll get a much better understanding about what makes this a great application. For example, when I start looking at the features of a particular laptop, the bottom of the screen dynamically links to a spec sheet in real time off the Lenovo website. So, while I'm getting a close up 360 look at the laptop, I can also review the speeds and feeds as well as the special price if I buy it during my eLounge visit.

At one level, this will really appeal to people who love the virtual reality experience, and those who are into shopping at 3 am - wherever they are on the planet. That's pretty neat - and a great way for a manufacturer to extend their retail presence without building standalone stores. It's also an option for people who aren't comfortable dealing with sales people in person, or people who want to project a different persona when out there shopping.

On a one-to-one level, Web.Alive makes a lot of sense. But it gets even more interesting when you think about the collaborative possibilities. During the demo, I was taken to siderooms where you can have private meetings, or presentation rooms, where in depth demos were done for a seated audience. People are free to drop in and out of conversations - just like you would in a real store. The more people there are in the eLounge, the greater the chances are you'll talk with others who may share your interests, or who can help answer your questions. I could go on, but you really need to see it for yourself. You can check out the Lenovo eLounge for yourself here, although I don't know how much you can really experience without a guided tour.

Beyond selling laptops, I should add that Web.Alive has all kinds of other applications. First and foremost, sure, it's a great 3.0 platform to help companies grow their sales online. It's also a natural forum for training, distance education and meetings. At Nortel's analyst day back in May, they showed us how Web.Alive can be an effective substitute for video conferencing, and even telepresence. Taking this a step further, they envision Web.Alive replacing the PBX altogher, and becoming the native platform for all forms of everyday communication.

That last point to me is the BIG IDEA, and the next curve for companies to jump to when thinking about communications. There's a lot of exciting innovation happening here, and while it's still ahead of what the market is ready for, I think it shows vision for where things are going and what Communications 3.0 is going to mean.

To me, that sure looks like the mojo Nortel had when they were BNR, and Cisco wasn't on the map. Perhaps this is too little too late, but Web.Alive may well be the most valuable asset Nortel has that can be a game changer for someone who gets it. Am sure the Nortel watchers have much higher priorities today, but if you want to look beyond the smoke to see what will have value tomorrow, this is where I'd be going.