NXTcomm Day Three Keynotes

Dr. Richard R. Green, President and Chief Executive Officer, Cable Television Laboratories Inc. kicked off the final day of NXTcomm with a keynote focused on convergence, interoperability and the importance of openness in networking.

“No longer are we telephone people and cable people,” Green said. “We are all basically in the same kind of business competing with each other to the benefit of the consumer.”

Green highlighted Cable Television Laboratories’ adoption of True2way as an example of industry collaboration and adoption of open standards. Time Warner Cable has deployed nearly two million True2way boxes and CE manufacturers including Panasonic and Sony are incorporating the technology into their television sets.

“Greater openness and open platforms in the access network are fundamental to attracting innovators,” Green said.

Jagdeep Singh, President, CEO and Founder, Infinera spoke on the importance of innovation broadband network deployment.

“Are we up to the challenge of overcoming and innovating around a dangerous bandwidth bottleneck?” Singh asked.   “The current pace of innovation in the optical core network is insufficient to meet future demand.”

Singh urged the industry to move away from creating similar products that compete on price in favor of differentiating themselves through innovation.  “Go after unsolved problems and deliver significant value.”  Singh recognizes that, “It is difficult to invest in research and development if the company isn’t healthy,” but believes in-house R&D is a key factor in developing innovative products.

Singh cautioned against reliance on off the shelf components and suggested that companies focus on developing key components themselves.  Further, Singh urged service providers, carriers and venture to get over their reluctance to invest in and buy from young innovative companies and to demand and reward innovation from vendors.

Phil Asmindson, Vice Chairman and National Manager Partner - Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Deloitte LLP and Jay Samit, CEO, Long Beach Studio followed with a lively discussion on mobile entertainment.

“Every new media starts by repackaging a previous product for a new medium,” Samit explained.  “All the different screens make things very complex.”

Samit said that the entertainment industry was reevaluating the difference between marketing and entertainment content and suggested that consumer desire is relative equation. “In entertainment you have to start with what are their expectations, how much control they want over it and how long is their attention span,” Samit explained.  He used celebrity chatbot site www.spleak.com as an example.  Samit said the site plans to engage an entirely different demographic by applying their celebrity gossip model to fantasy football. “If you can find the entertainment they are passionate about, they will consume it.”

Mark Burnett, Hollywood Producer and Creator of “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” wrapped up NXTcomm’s keynotes with his take on content creation and technology.  Burnett used entertaining stories from his life and rise to fame to illustrate the importance of entrepreneurship and creativity.  Burnett’s success has been based largely on his ability to take inspiration from nature or personal experience and apply it to something completely different.

For example, the idea for The Apprentice came to him while he watched ants working on the rain forest floor.  He later pitched the idea to Donald Trump who liked it and asked that he work with his contact at a talent agency to develop it.  When Trump discovered that the agency had dismissed Burnett and his idea, the agency contact was summarily dismissed himself with Trump delivering the now signature line, “You’re fired!”

Burnett was quick to point out however that while inspiration can be found in many places, it takes more than simple adaptation to generate compelling content for new mediums.  As with all the keynoters at NXTcomm08, Burnett was clear that this era of mobile broadband and multiple screens is an entirely new ball game and must be treated as such.  A fitting end for an excellent event!