All change

Yesterday the UK's media heavyweights met at The Guardian's Changing Media Summit 2007 and I was lucky enough to attend. I'm going to write up some thoughts but for a taster visit Kevin Anderson's blog here for transcripts of the roundtable debates.

The central theme of the summit was social media and its effect on old media and how the two are/will integrate. The comforting thing I took away from the conference was that everyone's in the same boat. We are all trying to get our heads around how social media will continue to develop, touching our business and home lives, including the Guardian's editor! Just when we begin to understand one new technology along comes another application of it that changes the media landscape again. Anway I'm twittering now. More soon...

The geek shall inherit the earth

A new silicon.com survey has found that leadership skill is the key trait for CIOs who aspire to become CEOs.

43 per cent of those surveyed said leadership was the most important quality for an ambitious CIO, while 15 percent cited commercial awareness.

A greater focus on innovation and creativity has overtaken sales and marketing skills which have fallen again in the annual survey.

Commenting on the results, Phil Young, head of IT, said that often the CIO is viewed as a technologist, which is a perception they need to overcome to be in with a chance for the top job.

For me though the Silicon Valley saying that "the geek shall inherit the earth" rings true here. If you look around, the most successful companies of the moment are technology-driven and have CEOs who have a deep understanding of technology and the competitive advantage it offers now and for the future. What do you think makes a good CEO?

Sweden's corporate seagull

One million people are connected to the Web in Western Europe using Fibre to the home (FTTH) according to a new report from Informa.

Silicon.com reports that although this only accounts for just over one per cent of all broadband connections in Europe, Sweden comes out at number one with 27 per cent of heavy users on FTTH.

This reminds me of Morre, the corporate seagull, who I used to work with and who set up Sweden's first website (the world's tenth). Back during the dotcom boom I pushed Morre out to the media as a consultant for Roxen Internet Software - an open source web content management company.

At the time I got him into the FT as he said then that our broadband infrastructure in the UK won't compete in the future because "the companies control the motorway network, not the government". In Sweden, utilities and local authorities own most of the fibre infrastructure with companies competing to offer services on the 'A road' network on top.

As our broadband access creaks along in the UK due BT passing digital information through over-subscribed, copper wire exchanges, I wonder if Morre was right? Will the UK fall behind the rest of Europe as we require faster download speeds for heavier content or will BT's 21st century network be the answer for our woes?

In case you're wondering what a corporate seagull does, I'll leave you with Computer Weekly's take on the title at the time. The publication asked, is Morre a corporate seagull because he flies over businesses and takes a 'blue sky' view or is it because he craps down on them from a great height? I'll let you decide...

Mobile mad

At the risk of posting too much mobile news, here's a link to a new Global Mobile report from Netsize and Informa, which demonstrates of the 2.2 million GSM mobile standard subscribers worldwide, growth is strongest in African and Asian markets.

Titled, "Convergence: Everything's going mobile" it includes both up-to-date research and articles from head honchos at Nokia, Google, Vodafone and the like.

Unsurprisingly, China and India lead the pack in GSM and the research shows 3G has failed to take off in Europe, with people buying the phones but not the services. Music on mobiles has proved popular during 2006 with strong download sales but TV 'on-the-go' is where companies are focusing their efforts now.

Mobile growth in the UK is predicted to jump from 69,710 million subscribers in 2006 to 74,485 million this year.

Interestingly, there's a section on machine-to-machine(M2M) computing in the report. Using the Web as a network to transmit data from electrical products with embedded digital sensors, homeowners and businesses will be able to control and monitor machines and appliances remotely from mobile devices. Useful if you've left the lights on at peak time and therefore potentially energy-saving.

Pretty young things

It's not a queue to a rave but the European Young Professionals event which took place at Aura in London last week. Feedback on the networking event's blog said there were more women then men out of the 240 people that attended. The next one's on 14 March at Pangaea in Mayfair, London. One for the diary then.

Two hours in six seconds

At 3GSM, the world's main 'mobiles of the future' event, taking place this week, Vodafone and Google announced a deal to put maps on mobiles.

The FT reports it here saying that the two companies plan location-based services so that you will be able to type in 'pizza' to your mobile and bring up a map to your nearest restaurant.

The other thing on people's lips at the event is 4G, which promises download speeds to your mobile of a two hour film in six seconds according to The Times. Anyone using 3G yet?

The hiatus

Sorry about the gap in posts. I've been on holiday and got sick. Morocco is a beautiful country worth visiting but my stomach wouldn't agree. Broadband use amongst the youth is exploding thoroughout the country with groups of kids huddled around computers in most internet cafes. It's unrestricted so it will be interesting to see the Web's cultural impact in a developing Muslim country. International mobile phone charges are extortionate so internet telephony is popular too.