Wow – way busier than I expected to be yesterday at The Canadian Telecom Summit.

Think of it as trying to organize a wedding for 550 guests, with 70 brides and grooms. And the wedding lasts for 3 days.

Sorry that I wasn’t able to get around to updating the blog yesterday.

We had great opening day coverage in the National Post, referring to our event as the Super Bowl of the telecom industry. The Post has a special 10 page Telecom Summit supplement in today’s paper.

As the Super Bowl of telecom, it was especially fitting to have John Tory, Ontario PC leader and former Rogers executive – and former CFL commissioner – as our luncheon speaker.

Other highlights through the day included the video lead-in to the keynote address by Michael Moskowitz from Palm. Interesting trivia – like the percentage of people who have interrupted sex to take a mobile phone call and the percentage of people who have interrupted a phone call to have sex.

No wonder people in the market research business like their jobs!

It’s showtime! Registration opens at 7:00 this morning – sessions get going at 8:30. The weather is supposed to be clear and warm.

The theme of the conference this year is Competing with Converged Communications. The morning starts with perspectives from a service provider, an edge device innovator and a core network supplier: keynote addresses by Nadir Mohamed of Rogers, followed by Michael Moskowitz of Palm and Dragan Nerandzic of Ericsson.

I plan to update throughout the week from the floor of The Canadian Telecom Summit.

I have an early version of a mobile blogging tool designed for the Blackberry and I will put my thumbs to work during my free moments. I understand that jules.ca is going to be attending, so we get to read her viewpoints as well. Watch this space.

We have opened our on-site office at the The Toronto Congress Centre, home of The 2007 Canadian Telecom Summit.

I like watching the set-up that is underway. Yesterday, there were about 25 people working on getting things ready for tomorrow’s opening. The big screens are up, the stages have been built and the registration kits are already prepared.

Something about watching all those people swinging from the rafters, stringing lights, sound equipment and WiFi hot spots. I need one of those scissor-type lifts to change my front hall light – what are the chances I could drive it home this evening and bring it back in the morning?

With more than 600 attendees this year, there is a lot of set-up required. Hall C is being transformed into our main meeting room with a breakout room being built at the back. There are a couple receptions in the courtyard on Monday and Tuesday evenings. It is also where we will have breakfasts and coffee breaks.

Coffee is one of the little details we look after with personal attention, right down to picking the specific roast from the supplier.

You will be able to catch daily news coverage in The National Post and other papers. The Post plans a preview in Monday’s paper and there is a special Telecom Summit supplement on Tuesday.

Watch this site for updates.

Andrew Keen has released a book: The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture.

Keen had an article in the Standard last year that described his views on Web 2.0. In democratizing the ability to publish, Keen argues that the internet has become a tool to extend narcissistic ‘self-actualization’ to a global level.

It is technology that enables anyone with a computer to become an author, a film director, or a musician. This Web 2.0 dream is Socrates’s nightmare: technology that arms every citizen with the means to be an opinionated artist or writer.

The Standard article continues:

So what, exactly, is the Web 2.0 movement? As an ideology, it is based upon a series of ethical assumptions about media, culture, and technology. It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone–even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us–can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves. Web 2.0 “empowers” our creativity, it “democratizes” media, it “levels the playing field” between experts and amateurs. The enemy of Web 2.0 is “elitist” traditional media.

Keen compares this to Marxism and goes on to say:

Just as Marx seduced a generation of European idealists with his fantasy of self-realization in a communist utopia, so the Web 2.0 cult of creative self-realization has seduced everyone in Silicon Valley.

It is a contrarian view worth examining and understanding. But take time to read the review by Lawrence Lessig as well. According to Lessig:

Here’s a book — Keen’s — that has passed through all the rigor of modern American publishing, yet which is perhaps as reliable as your average blog post: No doubt interesting, sometimes well written, lots of times ridiculously over the top — but also riddled with errors.

Polarizing views that should make for continued discussion – using the elistist traditional or the proletarian media.

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Andrew Keen, Lawrence Lessig