That time of year again?  Lee dropped me a note about eComm’s Call for Papers. If you are working in emerging telephony, and you’ve got something to say, why don’t you drop your name in the hat and send off a suggestion?  For three years running, eComm has been the place where the people who carry the knives that create the bleeding edge meet, and it’s on my short list of shows I’ll never miss.  I have heard that there’s a deluge of papers coming in, and my sympathies go out to this year’s advisory board, but don’t let that stop you. Send it in.

What did I love last year?

• Norman Lewis’ talk was just fascinating.  Norman is the past directory of Technical Research for Orange, and has his fingers on the pulse of social networking and generational consumerism.  He’s on the advisory board, so I’m sure he’ll be there.
• Hearing Irv Shapiro introduce the full scope of the IfByPhone offering was exciting for me, and made me wonder if eComm would be the place where that kind of cool stuff would be announced again.
• When people talk about voice mashups, it makes me think about my personal hero : David Troy.  My wife didn’t understand why I was so excited to see his Asterisk and Roomba mashup, but then again, she hasn’t lived her career in an industry where our walls have stood for a hundred years. Love to see David tear them down.  What David said I repeat weekly: our major issue is a lack of imagination.
• I loved Dawn Nafus’ talk about presence.  Dawn is an anthropologist for Intel, and she remarked that the use of presence and status derived from  your instant messaging client was exactly wrong: you display as available when you sit down to work on your computer, which is exactly when you’re not available, because you’re just sitting down to work.  I hope she comes back.

I suppose I should drop my name in the hat as well, but you’ll see me either way – hope I see you too.