Alec Saunders SquawkBox

“Ever had a chicken-fried steak?”, I asked the boys.

“No, what’s that?”

I described chicken-fried steak, in all its glory — crispy batter wrapped around a steak, smothered in white sausage gravy. They were sold.  Worse than the steak, even, was that they both ordered onion rings (battered and fried), and country fried potatoes (battered and fried again).  So, there we sat, enroute to Waterloo, at Denny’s, confronted by impossibly large piles of golden brown food smothered in gravy. It’s a heart attack on a platter, which is the reason I only eat it when the boys’ mother isn’t along.

Chicken friend steak is one of those meals that has great profit margins.  Take a relatively poor cut of meat (or a chopped steak, in the case of Denny’s), add seasoning and batter, fry it, serve piping hot, and smother in gravy.  It can’t cost more than $1 for the ingredients, and it commands $9 on the menu. 

Today’s telecom is a chicken fried steak.  It’s familiar, high margin, soul food. 

You know, I grew up eating breaded meat.  Breaded chicken, fried.  Breaded pork chops, fried.  Chicken fried steak was a later bad habit I acquired, but it’s of the same genre.  The problem is that, just as consumers tastes have shifted away from this classic of Americana, so have telecom tastes started to fragment.  I’d like some vegetable with my steak, instead of those fried onion rings! Heaven forbid, I’ve even eaten, and liked, tofu!

When AOL decided to close down TotalTalk, they were recognizing that there isn’t any money in being another chicken-fried steak restaurant.  That’s fabulous.  Trends are created when ideas pushed by little restaurants are adopted by the mainstream.  AOL’s decision to focus on AIM Phoneline, and dump the TotalTalk business is a great validation of the concepts many of us, including myself, have been pushing for some time using names like Purple Minutes, and Voice 2.0.

I agree with Andy’s view that we should all see this as a positive sign of growth for AOL and our industry.  In fact, I’ll go even further than Andy.  The use model for VoIP in the future is, in fact, the VoIM model.  Your buddy list will be on your phone, along with presence, voice and IM, and you’ll interact with them via a network/handset based platform that can support all kinds of new applications.  By focusing on AIM Phonline on the PC today, AOL is setting the stage for staking out their turf on the future of the handset. 

Isn’t that a welcome change from chicken fried steak?

I’ve been following a small dialog between Jon Arnold and Garrett Smith on blogger ethics, arising from a Globe story about how an individual going by the pseudonym Boy Genius has been gleefully revealing secrets about RIM’s upcoming Blackberry Pearl on enGadget.

I guarantee that RIM isn’t happy.  A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to see one of the Pearl prototypes, up close, hold it in my hand, play with it and so on, and security was tight.  Rumour had it that RIM employees had been instructed not to use the devices outside buildings in case an enterprising photographer from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record happened to be stationed nearby with a long lens.

And, equally, I am sure that Boy Genius, whoever he is, is in violation of an NDA.  NDAs, however, aren’t worth much and most people signing them know that.  Maxim 1: an NDA is only as good as the relationship you have with the signer.  If you trust the person with your confidential information, then an NDA will hold.  If you don’t… well, sit down with a lawyer and try to figure out what the damage you suffered due to to violation was, and then figure out whether you want to go to the expense of prosecuting.

Is this really an issue of ethics? Some blogs, including enGadget, have an investigative journalism focus.  A while back, for instance, Andy Abramson obtained a copy of a lawsuit filed against Skype.  He broke the news.  Should he have done that? Sure. That’s why people read him.  Now, Andy’s case was a little different because the information was public, having been filed at a courthouse, but nobody had broken the story yet.   To me, enGadget is doing what readers of enGadget expect — finding the news about the latest hot gadgets, and reporting it.

Having lived through many leaks during my time at Microsoft, my opinion is that they’re rarely harmful, most certainly never fatal.  If that leak is widely reported, it shows real interest in your product.  Many times a leak can actually increase interest in the product, creating pent-up demand prior to launch. Both are good things. 

Leaks are a pain, especially to those orderly marketing types who now to have to revise their plans. By now, they’ve had three weeks of running around with their hair on fire trying to figure out how to shut this guy up. I say, suck it up guys — that’s what management pays you for! Your challenge now is to find ways to convert those “Boy Genius” leaks into value. That’s what I would do. 

The lesson for all marketers is simple. Maxim 2: Leaks happen.  Plan accordingly.

I just got this note from Carl Ford at Pulver.  It looks like VON Fall is going to have a pretty heavy Asterisk presence, including a repeat of the Asterisk user group meeting we held in Toronto at VON Canada. 
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The most ASTERISK activities at Fall VON ever.   

This VON is going to show the direct impact of Asterisk in the market. Besides the sessions and activities below we have many companies and groups who are using Asterisk to develop new services. With all these activities we have decided one more part of the program should be highlighted. 

We have set up a special user group meeting on Wednesday night for all members of the VON Community in room 211 at 6PM. Anyone who is attending VON in any capacity is welcome to participate. If you want to show what you’re doing with Asterisk send an email to carl.ford@pulvermedia.com. It is our belief that this will be the richest participation of the Asterisk community ever, so it is my strong suggestion that you identify your desire to participate now. And come early so you can put in for the Digium / Asterisk raffle. 

To Register for free access to the Exhibit Floor including the Digium pavilion and to attend the Asterisk User Group meeting use the priority code ASTERVON, or follow this link to register https://secure.pulver.com/von/register.html 

But wait there is more.  

On Wednesday at 8:30 until 10:00 in the morning Olle E. Johansson CEO of Edvina will be providing a tutorial called Meet Asterisk - The Open Source IPBX. And on Thursday morning Olle will provide a tutorial on the latest release of Asterisk (v1.4). 
To view more details click here http://www.pulver.com/asterisk/ . You can use the ASTERVON priority code which will save $100 on the individual sessions and more than that for the combined sessions. To register go here https://secure.pulver.com/asterisk/register.html 

Below are all the activities associated with Asterisk.

Monday, September 11, 2006  

Monday pre conference - the SIP Tutorial now includes hands -on SIP Asterisk implementation training. 

Tuesday, September 12, 2006  

Tuesday VON Theater (near the Digium / Asterisk Pavilion)  Joshua Colp speaking and Schuyler Deerman moderating a panel called Next Generation Networking - Literally. This panel of under 20 types are shaping our future with the development and efforts. Asterisk, SIP Foundry and Skype will be part of the discussion. 

Wednesday, September 13, 2006  

Wednesday Asterisk at VON training  8:30 A.M. until 10:00 A.M. Olle E. Johansson CEO of Edvina 
Tutorial Meet Asterisk - The Open Source IPBX.

VON Conference 4:45 P.M. - 5:15 P.M. Mark Spencer the President of Digium will give an Industry Perspective called “An Open Source Carol; The Ghost of Open Source; Past, Present and Future.” Note you must be a conference attendee to attend.  

Asterisk User Group Meeting  After the exhibit hall closes at 6:00 P.M. an Asterisk User Group meeting will be held in room 211. This will be unstructured and will be a chance for peers to hear each other out. 

Thursday, September 14, 2006  

Thursday Asterisk at VON training  8:30 A.M. until 10:00 A.M. Olle E. Johansson CEO of Edvina 
Tutorial an in depth look at the latest release of Asterisk (v1.4)  

On October 16th, Ottawa will play host to Voice 2.0, a conference which bills itself as a “day long voyage of discovery” into the evolution of the communications industry.  Genetically, this event will be a hybrid between a BarCamp style unconference and a more traditional panels and keynotes format.  The conference will consist of keynotes, panel discussions and participant defined workshops in five key topic areas: open source telephony, lead platform technologies and architectures, new applications of voice technology (mashups), alternative networks, and the new user experience. 

There are three tracks — a presentations / panels track, a workshop track, and a participant defined track (think BarCamp).  There are also a number of slots set aside for demos of new products as well.  The conference blog and wiki are already up as well, so if you’re interested in participating in or leading one of these sessions, zip over and check it out.

Between Voice 2.0, the Telco 2.0 brainstorm happening in London this fall, and next Spring’s ETel, it’s time that we collectively kickstart the future of communications. So, bring yourselves, bring your new products, bring your ideas and be prepared for a day of robust discussion, sharing and networking. 

See you in Ottawa on October 16th.

Postscript: While this conference bears the same name as the Voice 2.0 manifesto I wrote about a year ago, it’s much more. Ross MacLeod approached me after BarCamp Ottawa, and wanted to run a conference around some of the Voice 2.0 ideas and, of course, I was enormously flattered, and only too happy to lend support.  However, to give credit where it’s due, he’s taken it further and deeper.  This event will go far beyond what I had originally proposed.

I didn’t know Garrett Smith, author of Smith on VoIP, until a couple of hours ago.  His very successful gambit to get my notice (appealing to my ego by naming me to his list of top 30 VoIP bloggers) has landed him in my blogroll now.  Although, I feel certain that he has the order of my name and that of Martin Geddes reversed.  In any event, both Martin and I now have a pinnacle to shoot for… can we knock Abramson off his perch?

Many thanks for the recognition, Garrett.  Welcome to the Fraternity of VoIP Bloggers!