By Tim Young, Editor-in-Chief, Pipeline Magazine
Management World is again upon us, and a mighty sizeable chunk of the OSS/BSS elite are here in Nice enjoying the sights, sounds, food and discussion. I know that we at Pipeline recognize Management World as an industry-leading event, in terms of one-stop OSS/BSS shopping.
This year, TM Forum’s Forumville installation is sporting some changes in hopes of further integrating the exhibit into the wider Management World picture and to further enhance the overall quality of the event.
In the past, Forumville has been separated from the general expo floor and has been divided into sections based on, at times, arbitrary designations, with segments determined by the scope of a Catalyst project or a step along the Content Encounter. No more.
“This year, we’ve turned Forumville on its head,” says Rebecca Sendel, Collaboration Marketing Director for TM Forum. “This time around, the organization of Forumville is based on business problems.”
Rather than arranging the exhibit based on external constructs, the Forum has divided the area based on 6 key business topics: Business Transformation, Software Development, Service Innovation, Revenue Management, Customer Experience and the Digital Media Value Chain. As a result of these 6 areas, and the programming dedicated to solving the problems within each area, the Forum has dubbed the Management World 2009 Forumville exhibit “Six for Success”.
“The challenge in Nice is to attract visitors down to that Expo level and the overall allocated space available,” says Johanne Mayer, Director of Systems and Applications Integration for Alcatel-Lucent, and a Member of the TM Forum Executive Committee. Alcatel-Lucent has been involved with Forumville since its inception and is still involved as the project enters its fourth iteration.
The new format attempts to deliver on all counts. “I really like the new format,” says John Myers, a senior consultant with Subex. “It should allow interested Management World attendees to find the information that they need/want in Forumville easily and quickly. In fact, I believe that the new format will allow attendees to find additional information that they may not have known about quickly and easily as well.”
Ease of access is the goal of the new format. However, Forumville is also really about collaboration, which has been an ongoing goal of any number of TM Forum projects. “[Forumville] gives us an opportunity to work with colleagues in the marketplace to promote standardization,” says Richard Mishra, Director of Strategy and Standards with Amdocs. “In the past it has given us the opportunity to add an ‘experimental’ approach to the standardization work, which makes a refreshing change from the dry conferencing and committee work.”
This facilitation of collaborative experimentation is part of what makes Management World a success. “Between Catalysts and Content Encounter, TM Forum has provided an opportunity for vendors and carriers to display solutions beyond the "marketing hype" associated with traditional tradeshow spaces,” says Subex’s Myers. Mishra also views the experimental approach that is fostered at events as all too rare in the industry. “We do not really know if we are heading in the right direction with pragmatic, real world standards unless we can try them out as part of the standardization process,” says Mishra.