Pat Phelan: Bits, bytes and telecomsMobile, Roaming and Social Media

One of my favourite events is fast approaching and is looking even better than previous years.
Spring Von.x
Luckily we have a series of meetings in the area so I am able to factor it in but am missing some other events which I really wanted to make.

So what makes VON special?

I suppose firstly and most importantly this guy.

Jeff has a spirit which in my opinion is unique in telecom’s and probably unique in business, it’s his event, his baby and he firstly makes sure we have an amazing event and secondly that we have fun.
This will be my third Von but this one is even more exciting with the addition of an X It’s no longer just voice or video, it’s everything over the Internet, commonly referred to as XoIP

Jeff is speaking on “How do YOU communicate?” and also attending and participating in the general session will be: Robert Scoble, Loic Le Meur, founder, Seesmic, Ramu Sunkara, co-founder and CEO of Qik, Brad Hunstable, co-founder of Ustream.tv and Jonathan Christensen, currently responsible for voice and video technology at Skype.

A new addition this year and probably where myself, Sean and Florian will hang out the most is The Unconference
so what’s an unconference?
For years Jeff has been running executive summits and other get togethers with the idea of having a free exchange of ideas. This dialogue has been at the heart of VON. These two tracks are intended to pump up the volume of the dialogue.
The Innovators Forum is a series of sessions that show case companies in our more traditional format. However dialogue in these sessions is encouraged. The VONCamp Unconference is harder to describe, because it gives people a chance to self identify as a speaker. At the present time there are 12 speaking slots. If you’ve got something you want to discuss that’s outside the formal program, VONCamp Unconference is the place to do it. We also have a SpeedDating session.

I am looking forward to catching up with old friends and making lots of new ones.