Martin Geddes, analyst, blogger and Telco 2.0 meme trendsetter gave the opening keynote at the Voice 2.0 conference in Ottawa. A small room, but packed to the brim listened intently as he dissected with sharp observations the forces impelling the voice and telecommunications market to change.

While Alec Saunders has done a great job of summarizing the whole conference, here are some of the highlights from the opening keynote:

Some of the things he had to say:

• He mentioned a seminal paper by FCC Douglas Galbi (and blog) I think he was referring to this one. In it, Galbi proposes that communication can be modeled in three distinct manners: information transfer, storytelling and presence. In analyzing it this way, much of what telephony does today makes dubious sense. For example, mobile telephony has traditionally competed on coverage… an unsustainable competitive advantage.
• Some of the bigger failures of telephony that he sees:

• It’s socially insensitive (secretary vs. boss)
• Context unaware (I’m having dinner)
• Allows no progressive disclosure about my contact information. Even online. You, as a contact, either have it or not.
• Treats every call in isolation, never a conversational aspect that goes beyond the one call.
• Could care less about why we talk (e.g. in the Skype-Ebay deal, the promise was the capture of transactions, but he doubts the current arrangement will be able to monetize this)

• Some examples of misguided applications

• 3G videophones, not successful because of the high cognitive load

• Camera + phone not equal a camera phone! (check this one out!)

• Some examples of promising applications:

• SMS augmentation, where voice is used to combine the best of both modes (It’s faster to dictate than to type on a phone keyboard, but it’s faster to read on the screen than to listen to a recording)
• New call modalities (Ring, pickup, talk, goodbye vs push to talk)

• Perhaps one of the most illuminating points was an explanation of the changes in the economic model for telcos (and anybody who is trying to compete in the voice world).

• Martin talks about an inversion of the model. While most of the money was being made once the call was connected, now most of the money is to be made pre- and post-talk.
• Before talking you have devices, connectivity, privacy, presence, availability, directory and integration
• After the call, social networking.
• Google managed to create $400B of market value by exploiting digital social gestures around hyperlinks, but Telcos still fail to see how CDRs are a goldmine.
• Some of the growth areas: B2C (I’m soo glad he mentioned this…), C2B — whenever you cross the trust of a social boundary. An example: In Finland, some people organized a grassroots, non-official Voice Idol type system, creating tons of value for the carriers without much of their involvement.
• Some examples of new thinking: considering a cell phone as a retail outlet you get to carry with you wherever you go.
• In the end, whoever controls the context in which conversations happen. (Following the Starbucks model, where they get to capture the bulk of the value generated by the chain starting at the bush of Juan Valdes). He mentioned how, in the future, when in a hotel, options for room service will be in a buddy list.

• So, if you’re a Telco:

• You’re losing control. In the triangle of users, handset vendors and network operators, the power is moving from the edge to the core of the network. In essence, users decide
• There’s a very high risk if you’re in the business of disentermediation — or if your play is basically founded on arbitrage (or at least so I think)
• IMS is not the future (but what do I know about this)
• The real assets are hidden within the organization. Eg. “Digital identity reseller” (maybe delivered through retail stores).
• You will make money because of the network, but not with the network.

• What’s next?

• Innovation is not happening at Telcos (it’s happening at Angel.com-like companies!!!)
• There’s an opportunity to use Telco’s leverage with standards and interoperability to speed up the adoption of innovations
• A sort of “chaotic” order will emerge… e.g. In the enterprise world, Tello is federating LCS directories accross companies

To me, this conference was an invigorating event. I got a chance to hear other people speak about things I’ve strongly held as beliefs for a while. In a nutshell, the way we understand voice communication is changing, and many of the paradigms we’ve used to understand and deliver service are breaking down, and giving way to new ones. And those who manage to keep it simple for users, win. What remains to be seen is if the amount of complexity that we experience today is just a stepping stone towards funding the efforts necessary to make voice better, or if the innovation will come from the inclusion of new creators (software people) in an industry that has traditionally held a different set of values than the ones necessary to make it work like magic.

Thanks Ross for a great event! (and Steve for connecting me)

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