Disruptive Telephony

Jeff Pulver's resignation and the apparent demise of Pulvermedia and VON

In a short and direct statement yesterday, Jeff Pulver yesterday confirmed the fears many of us have had for some time:

A little while later, notes like this were showing up in his Twitter stream:
(Note: I am not PhoneBoy - that's Dameon Welch-Abernathy.)

Jeff's resignation was not unexpected, given the rumors swirling around since the end of March (chronicled here: Marc Robins blog, GigaOm) when Pulvermedia's primary investor, TICC, apparently shut all operations down. Regardless, it was sad to see the finality of this action. While Jeff had turned most of the Pulvermedia operations over to others and was no longer as directly involved with the company, I know given Jeff's passion for the company and this industry - as well as the fact that the company (Pulvermedia) includes his name - this was obviously a hard personal decision.

So what does this mean for Pulvermedia's various events and conferences, most importantly VON?

Good question... and one that we perhaps don't know the answers to yet. I'd held off writing about this whole saga in part because I hoped that Jeff and crew would be able to figure things out behind the scenes to continue operations. Perhaps they still will. In a crowded conference space, I always enjoyed going to (and speaking at) VON shows and enjoyed getting to know Jeff, Carl Ford and many of the others in the Pulvermedia circles. Jeff's shows brought many of us in the "VoIP blogging" circles together and through that some truly great friendships have formed. Obviously Jeff can't say much about what is going on... we'll have to stay tuned to see what does develop.

In the meantime, I just have to join Andy Abramson, PhoneBoy and I'm sure many others in thanking Jeff for all this passionate work promoting our industry, bringing people together to see what would happen next and his tireless efforts in evanglelizing his vision of how communication can be. Andy wrote in part:

As a Pulver Media advisory board member, I think I speak for all by saying "thank you" and "your contributions were endless in creating an industry around your beliefs and dreams. We, as a community THANK YOU and hope for your return in whatever form or fashion that may be."

Best wishes, Jeff, as you continue to "explore Life 3.0"... and we look forward to see what that might be!

Technorati Tags: pulver, pulvermedia, jeff pulver, von, voip

If you missed eComm 2008, the presentations are now online...

If, like me, you missed out on eComm 2008 last month you can at least now view (or download) almost all of the eComm 2008 presentations via SlideShare. You can view all the different presentations and download them as well.

eComm organizer Lee Dryburgh also said that he's working on getting the audio recordings of the presentations up online as podcasts which will be great to have, too. (As I wrote about on a Voxeo blog, you really need audio to understand many of the slide decks (which I actually view as a good thing!).)

Kudos to Lee for getting all the presentations up there - there's 58 right now and it's good to see the range of presentations given. As a longtime fan of SlideShare, it's also nice to see it being used for a conference like this.

Technorati Tags: eComm, eComm2008, presentations, slideshare, voip, telephony, telecommunications, communication

Walking through VoiceCon in a fog...

It's been a rough week for me down here in Orlando at VoiceCon. As you've noticed, I haven't really posted any blog entries. In fact, there have been a number of "firsts" down here which I really would have preferred to avoid:

• first conference ever where I haven't gone out to dinner with anyone;
• first conference where I've not recorded any audio interviews (or video), despite carrying all my audio gear with me each and every day;
• first time I've gone back to my hotel room early each day to collapse;
• first conference in eons where I've felt like I'm walking around in a fog.

This is all very bizarre me. Being the extreme extrovert that I am, conferences are a time to have conversations, to meet new people, to go out to dinners and lunches, to "schmooze"... "network"... or whatever you want to call it. To learn of people's stories and try to tell those stories through all these social media. I enjoy these events and am so completely in my element. I love it! There are just so many interesting people out there.

But it's darn hard to do all that when you feel like a truck has run you over... and then backed up to run over you again.

As long-time readers know, I've been traveling to what? 20 or 30 conferences over the past couple of years... and never in all that time do I recall being sick for the duration of the event with a bad cold like I am now. Hopefully, the rest, liquids and medicine will eventually kick this, but in the meantime it's been rather a struggle. I've had three speaking events (last one coming up in 45 minutes) and so all my energy has been focused on being ready for those.

It's been a very bizarre show for me!

How do YOU see social networking changing enterprise communication?

How do you see "social networking" and "social media" changing communication within companies, enterprises, etc.? How do you think blogs, wikis, etc. will change enterprise communication? What about Facebook and other similar sites?

What would you say on this topic to an audience at VoiceCon Orlando this week?

That's the task ahead of Irwin Lazar and I as we talk with Eric Krapf and Fred Knight in a keynote "conversation" from 10:30-11:00am on Wednesday. The panel, called "Social Networking Meets Enterprise Communication"has this for a description:

It's no secret that world of enterprise communications is undergoing a transformation; IP Telephony and Unified Communications are changing the nature of the game. Now new forms of interaction, which began in the consumer/personal communications market -- blogs, wikis and online services like Facebook are migrating into the enterprise. Where do these social networking systems and mindset fit into the enterprise communications landscape? Join us for a discussion about what's real today and what's likely to happen in the future.

Obviously, this is a topic about which I am rather opinionated and have been writing about in my various blogs for years (including this blog, as well as on Disruptive Conversations and in my reports into For Immediate Release), so I'm very much looking forward to the session with Irwin on Wednesday.

We've already got a long list of points we can cover... and obviously won't be able to cover them all in only 30 minutes (and we've got a hard stop at 11am as what's next is a presentation with Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers!). But I thought to myself - how can I do a keynote panel on the impact of social networking in enterprise communication if I don't somehow include social networking into the prep for that panel?

So here's my question for you all -

What do you see as the top one or two ways that social networking / social media will change the ways in which people communicate within enterprises?

Both internally among employees and also externally between the company and its customers and partners?

To perhaps get the conversation going, here are a few of the topics that Irwin and I already have in our list:

• interest in the opportunities to improve collaboration among employees, especially virtual/distributed
• interest in the opportunities to improve collaboration with customers and partners/vendors
• concerns over enterprise usage of public sites/services, i.e. what security is there for corporate data out on these sites?
• challenges with rolling out these services internally (from a deployment point-of-view as well as business case, who owns it, integration of different systems, etc.)
• expectations of new generation of incoming workers

What do you think? How do you see social apps/services changing enterprise communication? (Or do you take the contrarian view that it won't?) Your feedback is definitely welcome... (thanks in advance)

Technorati Tags: voicecon, voicecon orlando, facebook, socialnetworking, socialmedia, irwin lazar, enterprise, irwinlazar, danyork, dan york

My presentations at VoiceCon this week...

I'm down in Orlando this week for VoiceCon Orlando and will be part of three sessions. Tomorrow, I'm moderating a panel at 8am on VoIP security and on Thursday I'm moderating a panel on open source telephony. On Wednesday, I'll be part of a keynote panel with Irwin Lazar on "Social networking and enterprise communication", which should be quite fun. I'll include below the full descriptions of the various sessions. If you are attending VoiceCon and want to connect, please do contact me.

---

Session Title: Top VOIP Security Threats
Date: 3/18/2008
Time: 8:00 AM
Room: Osceola B
Session Description: There's been a lot of concern about voice over IP security, but have there been many actual exploits? This session will inform you about the state of VOIP security. You'll learn about generalized IP attacks that have affected IP telephony systems deployed on IP networks, and you'll also find out what VOIP-specific attacks have actually been observed "in the wild"--and what to expect in the future.
KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the most serious voice-oriented attacks that are actually being carried out? What potential attacks haven't occurred yet but probably will before long? * How do you protect your VOIP systems against these attacks? * What types of equipment and technologies must you implement to stop voice-oriented attacks? * What specific kinds of damage can these attacks cause?
Moderator(s): Dan York - Dir of Emerging Comm Tech - Voxeo
Panelist(s): Sachin Joglekar - Vulnerability Research Lead - Sipera Systems
David Endler - Director of Security Research - TippingPoint
Mark Collier - CTO - SecureLogix

---

Session Title: Open Source for Enterprise Voice: How Much, How Soon?
Date: 3/20/2008
Time: 11:45 AM
Room: Sun C
Session Description: Open source PBXs are gaining a higher profile: Asterisk and other open-source PBX software packages continue to gain acceptance, and some traditional PBX vendors have implemented open source code for their products. But these efforts still aim mainly at smaller implementations. In this session, you'll learn why open source PBX software has growing appeal, and whether it will appeal to larger customers as the market progresses.
KEY QUESTIONS: * What level of market share and acceptance has open source PBX software attained? What is expected? * Which products use open source PBX software? * What are the most compelling reasons for choosing open source PBX software? What are the greatest areas of concern in making this choice? * What are the technical challenges of an open-source PBX deployment, and how are these overcome? * What are some real-world customer experiences with open source PBX software?
Moderator(s): Dan York - Dir of Emerging Comm Tech - Voxeo
Speaker(s): M Raza - Product Management - 3Com
Bill Miller - VP, Prod Mgt & Mktg - Digium
Tony Pereira - Business Leader Business Communications - Nortel

---

Session Title: Social Networking Meets Enterprise Communications
Date: 3/19/2008
Time: 10:30 AM
Room: Osceola C
Session Description: It?s no secret that world of enterprise communications is undergoing a transformation; IP Telephony and Unified Communications are changing the nature of the game. Now new forms of interaction, which began in the consumer/personal communications market -- blogs, wikis and online services like Facebook ? are migrating into the enterprise. Where do these social networking systems ? and mindset ? fit into the enterprise communications landscape? Join us for a discussion about what?s real today and what?s likely to happen in the future.
Panelist(s):
Dan York - Dir of Emerging Comm Tech - Voxeo
Irwin Lazar - Principal Analyst & Program Director, Collaboration & Convergence - Nemertes Research

Technorati Tags: voicecon, voiceconorlando, asterisk, opensource, socialnetworking, communications, danyork, irwinlazar

Down at IETF 71 in Philadelphia this week

This week (March 10-14) finds me down in Philadelphia for IETF-71, the 71st meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (the people who write the standards for the Internet). I don't honestly know how much I'll be blogging here on this blog. I do hope to be writing some over at the "Speaking of Standards" blog on Voxeo's site. We'll see. These meetings tend to be rather intense.

If you'd like to follow along with what's happening here at IETF, I've written up some instructions about how to join in the audio streaming and IM group chats. I've also posted what I think will be my schedule, which will give you a sense of what the various VoIP-related sessions.

That's the news...

Technorati Tags: ietf, standards, ietf71

Today's Squawk Box podcast - A conversation with Jeff Pulver about VON.x

For some time now, I've been participating in the daily "Squawk Box" podcast hosted by Alec Saunders. These calls take place using Iotum's Facebook app - "Free Conference Calling" - and they are, in fact, free outside of your normal costs to connect to the calls. I haven't made it there every day, but I've tried to get there when I can. I know Alec well and the calls also include many familiar faces like Jim Courtney, Ken Camp and more.

Anyway, the call today (March 6) was with Jeff Pulver about his upcoming VON.x show. It was a fun conversation and VON should definitely be a great show again this year. (Even if I'll be on the other coast at VoiceCon!)

Technorati Tags: alec saunders, jeff pulver, conferences, von, squawk box

I'll be down at VoiceCon Orlando in March 2008...

FYI, I will be down at VoiceCon Orlando on March 17-20, 2008. I'm moderating two panel sessions (see the schedule). First, up, bright and early at 8am on Tuesday, March 18th, I'll be moderating a panel on "Top VoIP Security Threats". This should be a fun one as it has VOIPSA Chair Dave Endler, Mark Collier of SecureLogix and Sachin Joglekar of Sipera Systems. I know all three of the guys, particularly Dave and Mark who have both worked on VOIPSA matters, and this session should be a good bit of fun. I'm planning on making it a rather interactive session. :-)

At the other end of the show, on Thursday, March 20th, at 11:45am, I'll be moderating a panel "Open Source for Enterprise Voice: How Much, How Soon?". This would should be interesting because it has Bill Miller from Digium (makers of Asterisk), who I know well, and M Raza from 3Com... and then Tony Pereira from Nortel! 3Com's presence on the panel isn't particularly surprising given their relationship with Digium, but it will be interesting to see Nortel's view on the matter.

All in all it should be quite an interesting show. Lots of good sessions and, I'm sure, interesting people to meet. If you're going to be down there, please do drop an email as I'm always interesting in meeting readers of the blog.

Technorati Tags: voicecon, voxeo, voipsa, securelogix, sipera, 3com, digium, asterisk, voip security, open source

Join us tomorrow (2/15) morning for a discussion of eComm 2008 on the Squawk Box conf call / podcast

What are you doing at 10am Eastern time tomorrow morning? (Friday, February 15th) How about joining us for a "Squawk Box" conference call to discuss the upcoming eComm 2008 conference?

The call will take place using Iotums Facebook app called "FREE Conference Calls". You can just visit the show web page and RSVP (and add the Facebook app if you need to). I'll be hosting the show tomorrow while Alec Saunders is flying back from Barcelona and Thomas Howe and I will be interviewing Lee Dryburgh about the upcoming eComm 2008 conference... what it is, who is speaking and why people should attend. It should be a lively conversation with a great group of folks.

Bring your questions and join us!

P.S. The show will be posted later in Alec's blog and I'll provide a link here.

Technorati Tags: alec saunders, applications, etel, ecomm, ecomm2008, lee dryburgh, dan york, thomas howe, squawk box

The EComm 2008 Interview with Skype's Jonathan Christensen should be required reading...

As we enter into the final month before eComm 2008, I would suggest that the interview with Jonathan Christensen, Skype's general manager of audio and video, should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in this space. Why? Well, in part because Jonathan Christensen does provide some good information about what Skype has done and is doing but also because it provides some good insight into what one of the people driving Skype's agenda is thinking about this space. Take one of the final paragraphs where he answered Lee Dryburgh's question about what he saw as the the future of communications (bold emphasis added by me):

Well, a big question I guess and, having worked on the space for quite a while, I think that it's only going to get more interesting over the coming years since, well, like this open spectrum for example. You know, I just have to reiterate, I think that anybody who has not figured out that the Internet is the platform and that there isn't any such thing as walled gardens that will survive, or sub-networks [such as AOL tried] that are going to survive, those people are doomed. The intersection of these worlds is going to be chaotic. It's going to be violent. It's going to be messy for a while but it is going to happen, and the Internet will survive as the one open platform. You are going to see a trend towards extreme innovation at the edges - on the devices, in the PC platform, in software, all around the edge of the Internet.

I think that you are only going to see further disruption of the telecom industry and the emergence of totally new businesses that we can't imagine today. I think that [the] net result, that drives me every day, is that we're going to have this very rich, open, cheap and accessible communications. This is going to be not just a game changer for the telecom industry, but will be a change agent for all of humanity. So, a platform that allows us all to see each other and hear each other more clearly maybe makes us a little bit less crazy, less polarized and more open as a world society.

Good stuff... and the whole interview is worth a read. Given my recent criticism of Skype, I'm particularly pleased to read the comments I emphasized in bold. Jonathan Christensen will be giving one of the keynotes at eComm 2008, March 12-14 in Silicon Valley and if you haven't considered going, I would encourage you to do so. It should be a great event!

P.S. I also wrote about this interview in relation to SIP over on Voxeo's "Speaking of Standards" blog.

Technorati Tags: skype, ecomm, ecomm2008, telecom, jonathan christensen

Mobile World - Alec Saunders previews the new Nokia handsets

Over on his Saunderslog site, Alec Saunders previews the new phones announced by Nokia today over at the Mobile World Congress (formerly "3GSM") in Barcelona:

When you think of companies who really understand mobility and mobility use cases, there's only one contender, and it's Nokia. Even Apple's iPhone, as pretty as it is, is a sophisticated expression of ideas that others pioneered first. If you want to know where mobile is going, the company to watch is Nokia.

So it was with a great deal of anticipation that I accepted the invitation to sit down with a few of Nokia's product managers to preview their announcements for today - the Nokia 6210 Navigator, 6220 Classic, and the newest members of their multimedia computer line, the N78 and N96. These products are at the confluence of the two major mobile trends today - social networking and multimedia. They represent, in my opinion, both the future of mobility and the next logical expression of many trends that have been emerging for the last several years.

Alec goes on at some length explaining the new features of the various handsets and the new applications that are coming out along with the handsets.

Alec also discussed the new phones in his daily "Squawk Box" podcast that should be up on his website soon (and I'll provide a link here when it does). It all sounds quite interesting and I'd suggest giving Alec's post a read.

Technorati Tags: alec saunders, mobile world congress, 3gsm, nokia

TAUG - "Asterisk and Open Telephony Conference" - Toronto, April 7-9

Those of you interested in Asterisk and open source telephony may be interested in the "Asterisk & Open Telephony Conference" in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on April 7-9, 2008. Part of the larger IT360 conference, this Asterisk conference is being organized by members of the Toronto Asterisk User Group which is one of the largest Asterisk user groups in the world. Because of the TAUG influence, I expect it to be a solid show from a technical point of view with lots of practical information. I'm not currently planning to be there, but it looks to be a good one if you can get there.

Technorati Tags: asterisk, conferences, open source, voip, ip telephony, taug, toronto, it360

Heading off to Florida tomorrow morning for Internet Telephony Expo and a Voxeo visit

I haven't really written any blog posts on any of my blogs today (until this one) largely because I've been straight out trying to get everything tied up before flying out tomorrow morning down to Orlando, Florida. Once in Orlando, I'll be driving down to Miami Beach tomorrow afternoon/evening to speak at Internet Telephony Expo on Thursday, go to a SIP Forum meeting on Friday and then drive back up to Orlando to spend some time at the Voxeo office. I'll be in Orlando over the weekend and then there through next Wednesday, January 30th.

I am very much looking forward to trying out Jet Blue's new direct, nonstop service between Burlington, Vermont, and Orlando tomorrow. Flight leaves at 8:20 in the morning and arrives in Orlando at 11:50am. I am looking forward to NOT having to make a stop in JFK or any of the other hub airports.

I'll be speaking at Ingate's SIP Trunking Seminars at IT Expo in Miami next week

If any of you will be in Miami next week for Internet Telephony Expo, I will be speaking on VOIPSA's behalf at Ingate's SIP Trunking Seminar Series held in conjunction with IT Expo. Predictably, my session from 8:30-9:45am on Thursday, January 24th is titled "Seminar/myth 1: VoIP is not secure".

If you are going to be down at IT Expo, do check out the full schedule for Ingate's SIP Trunking Seminar Series. They have a good range of speakers and the seminars are free.

If any of you are attending either IT Expo or the SIP Trunking Seminar Series, please do drop a note as I'm always interested in meeting readers.

Technorati Tags: sip, sip trunking, ingate, itexpo, conferences

A video greeting from IETF 70 in Vancouver

I was up way too early out here in Vancouver, so I wandered over to the show hotel and recorded a little greeting:

Technorati Tags: ietf

My interview on PulverTV today...

Today at Fall VON in Boston, Jeff Pulver hosted a special version of his Pulver TV show where he interviewed a number of people from the conference including me. First up was Jason Calcanis of Mahalo fame. Next was James Tagg, Founder and CEO of TruPhone. I followed and then the show wrapped up with Bob Frankston who is perhaps most widely known as one of the inventors of VisiCalc.

My part of the show starts at 14:30 and goes until 23:24. (When I nicely leave the stage without taking off the lapel mic! Oops! Sorry about that... ) We talked about my presentation at VON (on Thursday), application platforms like Facebook, my new role with Voxeo, social media in general and much more. It was a good bit of fun to do and I have to thank Jeff for giving me the opportunity to participate.

Technorati Tags: applications, danyork, facebook, fallvon, socialmedia, socialnetworking, voip, voip security, voipsa, von, voxeo

VON - Innovator's Forum "Unconference" agenda posted

Here at VON in the "Innovator's Forum", we've now bashed out a schedule for the "unconference" portion of today's schedule. For those interested, it is posted on the VONCamp page and is:

• Social Networking Conversation 1:30 PM - 1:55 PM
• Residential VoIP - Can it be Sold as a Product? Dennis Peng, Ooma and Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates (M) 1:55 PM - 2:20 PM
• The Ruby Way / Watch a mashup in real time 2:20 PM - 2:45 PM

Should be fun...

Technorati Tags: conferences, fallvon, voip, von

At Fall VON this week... speaking on Thursday

I'm in Boston this week at Fall VON. I'll be speaking on Thursday at 12:45 on (predictably) " Strategies for Solving Security". If any readers are at VON, feel free to drop a note. I'm always interested in connecting with readers.

Technorati Tags: conferences, fallvon, voip security, voipsa, von

Heading to New York today for Interop... speaking tomorrow on VoIP Security

In a few hours I'll be boarding a plane back to New York where I'll be attending Interop New York this afternoon and tomorrow. If any of you reading this will be there, please do drop an email. Tomorrow, I'll be on a panel at 2:45pm with Jonathan Rosenberg about "Voice-oriented Attacks". (Side note to Interop: Please make it so that we can link to individual sessions instead of having to link to the entire list of "security"-related sessions!) If you aren't aware of who Jonathan Rosenberg is, he works for Cisco and is a huge contributor to IETF efforts related to SIP and in fact was one of the co-authors of RFC 3261 which is the primary RFC defining SIP. He's also the author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to SIP" which aims to help guide people through the maze of the many, many documents that now are part of "SIP". More relevant to tomorrow's session, he's also the author of a series of NAT traversal protocols for SIP, namely STUN, TURN and now ICE. Eric Krapf, the moderator of the session, is aiming to make it a more interactive and discussion-focused session (i.e. no slideware-to-death)... we'll see if we can make it fun as well. I've also asked Interop for permission to record it and run it as a Blue Box podcast - we'll see if they give me permission.

Note that if you are a CISSP, the ISC2 is holding a member reception today (Wednesday October 24, 2007) starting at 5:30 PM in Jacob Javits Center Room 1EO2 - LEVEL 1. Assuming that everything works with my flights today, I'll be there.

I'll even have some new business cards to give out... ;-)

Technorati Tags: cisco, conferences, danyork, interop, jonathanrosenberg, voip, voip security, voipsa, voxeo

ETel, disrupted... O'Reilly cancels ETel! (But the ETel Program Committee is looking at what could be done instead...)

O'Reilly just cancelled ETel for 2008. Yes, indeed, it's sadly true as shown here:

Due to changed circumstances since ETel 2008 was announced, we have decided not to move forward with the conference this year.

It is somewhat ironic that part of the ETel 2008 graphic was this:

Obviously O'Reilly did.

Those of us on the ETel Program Committee were just informed of the decision yesterday. We are admittedly still in a bit of shock. This year's program had over 100 submissions and we were very much looking forward to what was shaping up to be an excellent conference this year. Great mixture of technical sessions, thought-provoking sessions and so much more.

We are not privy as to exactly why O'Reilly made the decision and on many levels it doesn't really matter. As far as O'Reilly is concerned, ETel is now dead for 2008.

Personally, I think it is a loss to our industry. I think it is also, frankly, a loss to O'Reilly. But I'll get into that perhaps in another post next week.

Right now, we on the ETel Program Committee are starting to look at what's next. I think for many of us ETel served a purpose in helping connect people who were looking at the bleeding edge of communication that just can't be found at any of the other shows. There are a lot of folks passionate about ETel... and quite a community has grown up around it. Many folks told me it was THE show they liked to attend most.

We've got a number of ideas about how to replace ETel... and we'll definitely be looking for feedback after we have a chance over the next week or so to put together a couple of proposals for folks to kick around.

For those of you who are passionate about ETel and what it came to mean, stay tuned.... (we'll need you soon!)

Technorati Tags: conferences, etel, oreilly

Astricon... way too much to write about...

Great sessions out here at AstriCon... way too much to write about - my head is exploding a good bit! It's been a bit frustrating to try to blog from the conference rooms, though. The hotel WiFi is struggling a good bit under the strain of all the people here with laptops.

Technorati Tags: asterisk, astricon

AstriCon kicks off with "Developer 101" and "Asterisk 101" pre-conference sessions

Here in Phoenix, Arizona, AstriCon has kicked off with two pre-conference sessions that run all day. "Asterisk 101" is running next door and providing a basic introduction to Asterisk. I'm sitting in the "Developer 101" session (pictured) where there are about 100 people gathered in the room. It turns out that this is about developing with the Asterisk code base, i.e. "how to become an Asterisk developer" versus what I was personally thinking it was, which was "how to develop apps that work with Asterisk"... although that is really just an extension of the first. So far, an hour into the session, lead developer Kevin Fleming has been discussing the various tools you need to use in order to work with the Asterisk code base (ex. subversion, makefiles, etc.). Right now he's been dealing with the fun subject of licensing code, the GPL, and the requirement of developers to sign a disclaimer over to Digium that: a) asserts that the developer can contribute the code (i.e. it is original), that it is not patent-encumbered, etc. and b) gives Digium the right to redistribute the developer's code under a different license.

One interesting note - Kevin stated very definitively that Digium has NO plans to move GPLv3. They are quite happy with GPLv2 and see no reason yet to move.

The afternoon session sounds interesting as they will be getting into the overall Asterisk architecture, diving into the code, talking about APIs and debugging. Certainly a day to feed my inner developer...

Technorati Tags: asterisk, astricon, conferences, opensource, voip

Facebook group created for ETel conference... please join if you think you might go to ETel!

For those of you using Facebook, we have created a Facebook group for O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference (ETel) coming up in March 2008. Please feel free to join the group if you are planning to go to ETel - or at least thinking about it. We're hoping to use it to connect people to each other in advance of ETel. We're not entirely sure exactly how we'll use it... it's all part of the grand experiment in social networking. Please join us in that experiment!

Technorati Tags: etel, facebook, conferences

Heading out to Astricon 2007 next week to talk on VoIP security...

Well, I just confirmed my travel schedule - I'm going to go have a bit of fun out at AstriCon 2007. AstriCon, for those who aren't aware, is pretty much the premiere event for Asterisk developers. I'm scheduled to speak on Thursday about (surprise!) VoIP security. My talk is an "industry perspective" in my capacity as a board member of the VOIP Security Alliance and won't be specifically Asterisk-focused, although I will include a few pieces about what you need to think about with Asterisk and the holes that Asterisk still needs to fill (like, oh, SRTP, which I know is coming). I know Mark Spencer and a good bit of the Digium crowd, so it will be fun to hang out with them (especially given my new independent status).

If any of you reading will be out there, please do feel free to drop me a line so that we can connect.

P.S. After AstriCon, I'll be heading over to the Podcast and New Media Expo in Ontario, CA. If any of you will be there, please do drop a note as well.

Technorati Tags: asterisk, astricon, voip

O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony (ETel) 2008 Conference - I'm on the Program Committee and we're looking for submissions (due by September 17th)

Prior to getting distracted last week by employment issues I was intending to post here about the upcoming ETel 2008 conference on March 3-4, 2008, down in San Diego, CA.  For two years in a row, ETel has been my favorite conference to attend, primarily because it's all about the wacky stuff people are doing on the edge of telephony.  Unlike VoiceCon, VON and ITEXPO, it's not a trade show.  There's no real exhibit hall (or hasn't been)... it's all about the content.  And there have been been some great sessions showcasing projects and products people are doing that really push the edge of what we are calling "telephony" today.

Two reasons to post about it.  First, I'm on the ETel 2008 Program Committee along with a number of others who may be familiar to people in this space. (Note to self: I'll need to update that bio in two weeks.)

Second, and the main reason I wanted to post - the ETel 2008 Call for Participation is open and we're looking for submissions!

PROPOSALS ARE DUE SEPTEMBER 17th

As the page says... are you a:

• Technologist, strategist, CTO, CIO changing the world with your ideas?
• Technology evangelist, scout, entrepreneur looking to reach similar minds?
• Researcher, academic, programmer with new findings from research?
• Artists, hacker, modder, phreaker, activist with something cool?
• Someone with something intriguing to share about telephony?
• VC's with killer new startups?
• Companies involved in this industry who "think different?"

If so, we'd like to hear from you and have you potentially share your idea at ETel 2008.  More information about the type of talks we're looking for can be found as you scroll down the Call for Participation page.  If you're reading this blog, you probably have some ideas we'd love to hear!

Technorati tags: oreilly, etel2008, etel, emerging telephony

FYI - I'm speaking at Ingate SIP Trunking Seminar Series Sept 11 in LA (concurrent with Internet Telephony Expo)

FYI, for those of you attending the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Los Angeles on September 10-12, I'll be participating in a panel session that is part of Ingate's SIP Trunking Seminar Series.  I expect it will surprise no one to learn that I'll be on the panel about "Enterprise Security and VoIP" wearing my VOIP Security Alliance hat.  My particular session is Tuesday, September 11, 2007, from 9:30-11:00 am.  (And yes, I guess it is appropriate in a way to be talking about security on 9/11!)   More details and the schedule are available online.

The sessions are free and open to anyone to attend.  Simply fill out the pre-registration form.

Technorati tags: sip, sip security, sip trunking, ingate, ingate systems, voipsa, voip, voip security, dan york

Heading out to VoiceCon, Aug 20-23 in San Francisco. Will you be there?

If any of you reading this will be attending VoiceCon out in San Francisco, August 20-23, please do drop me a note. I'll be there from August 20-22 and am looking forward to connecting with a range of people from around the industry.

FYI, if you are a Facebook user and are attending, there is a Facebook event for VoiceCon to which you can add yourself to facilitate networking with other FB users at the show.

Technorati tags: voicecon, voip

Facebook event created for ACUTA conference... (and the ongoing challenge Facebook has in moving beyond its college/university roots)

Interestingly, there was no event inside of Facebook for the ACUTA annual conference that I referenced in my last post.  Continuing my ongoing exploration of Facebook, I thought that perhaps because ACUTA is the "Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education" there might be an "event" already created in Facebook.  There wasn't one, so naturally I created an event notice.  If you are going to the ACUTA conference this month and are also a Facebook user please feel free to join that event.

ACUTA?

Creating this event caused two discussion threads in my brain.  The first was about ACUTA as an organization and the question of perhaps why there is no mention of ACUTA within a search inside Facebook.  While my co-workers involved with education sales have been involved with the organization for some time, I personally had not heard of it prior to being asked about speaking at this conference.  From the corporate FAQ (and university FAQ), it seems very obvious that ACUTA comes from the telecom side of the house and is looking now at the larger "communications technology" space.  I would think for the folks involved, all of these social networking services will play an increasingly larger role in the future.  One of the talks I'm interested to hear at the conference is "Millenials Go to College", which looks to be about how communication is changing with the younger generation.  Will ACUTA members be inspired to delve more into Facebook after that?  (Will the talk cover Facebook? One would expect so...) We'll see.

Facebook events and corporate choices?

The second discussion thread in my head was about how Facebook still needs to adjust to being more than a college/university place.  For instance, let's look at the choices I have when creating an event:

First choice... a party!  Woohoo!  But wait... there are even many individual types of parties!  (Do Facebook users actually schedule a "Night of Mayhem"?)

Next up is "Causes"... with a sub-type of "Fundraiser, Protest or Rally".  So where do you put a "conference"?  I thought perhaps "Education" might be a choice, but that gives me these choices very clearly targeted at higher education:

The answer would seem to be under the fourth choice of "Meetings":

where, sandwiched between "Club/Group Meeting" and "Dorm/House Meeting" there is... ta da... "Convention".

Now, I realize that Facebook came out of college/university roots and that certainly parties are a major focus with that age range, but as Facebook tries to capture more "business" users... or at least more "professionals", one wonders if over time they will re-write this a bit to adjust more to the type of events that people within the business world usually attend.  Or perhaps at least re-order the priorities a bit (or let you do so).

They may not be able to easily do so, though.  They really have different audiences to which they need to cater.  One group is looking for social events and the other for more business focused events.  It's also not entirely clear to me that "business users" would actually want to use Facebook as the calendar for their events.  But if you buy into the vision of Facebook as your end-all and be-all portal (I'm not there yet, personally, but I can see that as the vision of FB.), it makes sense to think some of those meetings might migrate here as well.

We'll see... the evolution of Facebook continues!

Technorati tags: acuta, voip, education, facebook

Travelling to/speaking at ACUTA conference in Hollywood, Florida, July 29-Aug 2

FYI, on the week of July 29th - August 2nd, I'll be down in Hollywood, Florida, at the annual conference of the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education (ACUTA).  I will be speaking on... surprise!... VoIP security!  There look to be a great number of interesting talks on the schedule, and so I'm looking forward to wearing my CTO Office hat (versus my pure "VoIP security" hat) and listening to and learning from what many of the folks involved with deploying leading-edge IP communications technologies in the education space are doing.   There will, of course, also be some security talks of interest.

If any of you reading this weblog will be down there at the ACUTA conference, please do feel free to drop me a note, as I definitely do enjoy meeting with others who connect through the social media space.

P.S. And yes, Florida in late July/early August is definitely not my idea of a fun place to be... good news is that we'll be indoors!

Technorati tags: acuta, voip security, voip, education, mitel

It's the circumstances beyond one's control that are most annoying... I'm now NOT traveling to VON Europe - Stockholm/Podcamp Europe

As readers and listeners know, I've been very much looking forward to heading over to Stockhom, Sweden, for VON Europe 2007 and the co-located Podcamp Europe. Unfortunately, when my flight leaves this afternoon, I will not be on it.  I'm now not going.

Since about the middle of this past week, I've been experiencing some pains that made it extremely uncomfortable to sit or stand for long periods of time.  Oddly, walking is fine, but sitting or standing still starts to really hurt.  After spending literally the entire day Saturday in a medical center and then hospital, they think it might just come down to something like a severely pulled muscle... but they don't know and suggest watching it for the next couple of days.  It's strange because I can't recall doing anything that would cause a muscle tear.

The net of it, though, is that: a) spending 10-ish hours in airplanes getting over there is going to be very painful; and b) if anything gets worse, I don't really want to be going into a hospital in Sweden... (and then fighting with US health insurance about coverage!)

So very unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to miss out on this one... which is a severe disappointment!  I know that folks there will have fun... and I'm looking forward to hearing/reading about all the went on (including the Blue Box dinner tomorrow night).

Technorati tags: von, voneurope, podcamp

Come party with Jeff Pulver in Stockholm in June!

As Jeff Pulver notes today, he'll be once again hosting a big party at his VON Europe Spring 2007 in June in Stockholm.  Jeff's events are definitely always interesting... and I'm looking forward to being at this one.  If you're going to Stockholm, I'll see you there!

Technorati tags: jeff pulver, von, voip

Heading out to Arizona for US DoD/JITC conference on telecommunications

In a few short hours, I will be catching a plane heading out to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to swim in an alphabet soup of very different acronyms and jargon than my normal work - the "OSD-Sponsored, JITC-Hosted DOD Telecommunications Services Information Conference".  As noted on the page:

The purpose of the conference is to provide an open forum where DOD and vendor representatives can discuss issues related to interoperability of systems providing DOD Telecommunications Switched Services.

The conference will present the current program and discuss ongoing developments to the interoperability certification and information assurance procedures and test documentation. Other topics for discussion include emerging technologies, standards and their integration into the systems providing DOD Telecommunications Services.

I attended last year as well and it's definitely an interesting experience.  The US DoD is really doing some intriguing things with how they make use of VoIP / IP Telephony.  Obviously security is rather important.  They are also driving IPv6 adoption into their infrastructure and so, with the June 2008 mandate only a year away, it will be quite interesting to hear where they are with regard to IPv6 adoption.  Obviously, their huge size and buying power is of strong interest, so the number of vendors will no doubt be high.  Also, and I would think "obviously", I won't exactly be writing about things that I hear or learn there.

If any of you reading this happen to be out there at the conference, do drop me a note as I'm always interested in meeting readers or listeners.

Technorati tags: voip, security, voip security, jitc

Alec Saunders has videos and summary of ETel "LaunchPad" presentations (new VoIP startups)

Two of the cool "events" at the Emerging Telephony conference last week were the "Mashup Contest" and the "LaunchPad" (sponsored by GigaOm). In both cases new companies or developers were able to show off their products. I was going to write up my thoughts and summary, but it turns out that Alec Saunders posted about all the companies and included video of their presentations.  Definitely worth a look to see what companies are doing around emerging telephony apps and services.  Thanks to Alec for recording them all.

Technorati tags: voip, etel2007, etel, oreilly

ETEL pictures from O'Reilly now online via Flickr...

I mentioned it previously, but James Duncan Davidson has now put the set of photos he took for O'Reilly up on Flickr.  So if you would like to vicariously experience the conference, check out the set.  I particularly liked this one to the right (click for the larger image).  Just a great use of focus and depth of field.  The person in focus is actually Jay Phillips, developer of Adhearsion, a Ruby framework for building applications on top of Asterisk.

Technorati tags: etel2007, etel, oreilly, flickr

Stupid airline UI tricks... what would happen if I did NOT accept the rebooking through Dulles?

I was rather dumbfounded a few minutes ago when I went down to the kiosk in the hotel lobby to print my border passes.  After logging in to United's webs site, I was immediately confronted by a big warning message:

Due to cancellations you have been rebooked onto the following flights:

<new flight info>

[No thank you]                                         [Accept this flight]

"No thank you?"  Huh?  You have just been told that due to cancellations you are being rebooked - so why would you NOT choose "Accept this flight?"  What happens if you press "No thank you"?  Could you try another route?  In this case would I have actually been booked on the same flight?  Huh?  (Needless to say, I didn't try it.)

I guess the good news is that I'll be avoiding Chicago tomorrow and flying down to DC (to Dulles) and then from there to Burlington. The other good news is that I'm not going to have to be at the airport at 4:45 in the morning... the bad news is that the flight gets in 2 hours later... but hey, I just want to get home!

Technorati tags: travel, united

Pictures of me presenting at ETel... and O'Reilly's use of social media for photos...

When I go to conferences, I usually wind up taking many shots of other people and events, but I naturally almost never wind up with any actual pictures of me. So it was a bit fun to find out that the photographer taking pictures for O'Reilly is posting all the pictures to a Flickr photo set, and that there were a couple of pictures of me included (click on the pictures to go to the Flickr pages and larger photos).  I was a bit amused to see that my mouth was wide open in both of them, but then again, I was in the middle of presenting so of course that would be the case.

I just have to say kudos to O'Reilly for doing the "Web 2.0" or "social media" thing of posting all these photos to Flickr... and tagging them all appropriately.  Given that they are a company that produces conferences like "Web 2.0", it rather makes sense that they would walk the talk, but it's just good to see.

Which of these two photos do you like the best?  I think I like the one on the left a bit better.  Many other good photos of the rest of the conference are part of the Flicker set.

Technorati tags: etel2007, etel, oreilly, dan york, flickr

ETEL - Black Bag Security Presentation, 243 slides, Lessig connection, errata... slides available

So "the talk" finished around 11:15am this morning... I've just been straight out and unable to blog until now.  The "Black Bag Security Review" was fun to do and I've been receiving a great amount of positive feedback and kind words from folks here.  As you'll see below, I'm going to include the slides here in Flash (I finally get a reason to experiment with SlideShare!).  I'll put a PDF up here as well once I get back to Vermont.  It seems that after my laptop was reformatted, I never re-installed Acrobat to do PDF exports.

However, the slides aren't really that much use without the audio, but I'll be putting the audio up on Blue Box sometime in the next week or so and will post an update here with a link. 

Had a couple of interesting questions and points of feedback about the talk (and things I noticed):

• Yes, there were actually 243 slides and yet it came in a hair under 15 minutes.  This is a very different way of presenting than a "traditional" deadly PowerPoint presentation.  More slides... minimal text... fast transitions.  The point is to accent your story and leave the focus on you and what you are saying.  Keep people focused on you and the story you are telling... not getting them lost in reading a slide full of text.  One or two words maximum on a slide.
  
• Someone commented that the preso was like something from Lawrence Lessig. Indeed, he was definitely someone whose style I