So National Mints Behaving Like Ostriches? Or is it only Ian Bennett of Canadian Mint who is afraid of mobile money?

 

I don't know how to write this article, it seems like an episode of an alternate universe. I have never been censored before. And even now, more than a day after the fact, I cannot get my head around the fact that this happened. Or why.

 

THE INVITE

 

So, first the what. I was invited by the Canadian Mint (yes, the people who actually manufacture the coins) to speak to the 26th annual Mint Directors Conference, that is running right now in Canberra, Australia. I have a formal, signed invitation letter from the Canadian Mint, dated November 6, 2009, inviting me to speak at the opening session chaired by the CEO and President of the Canadian Mint, Ian Bennett. They wanted me to 'represent the mobile payments industry' and the reason they wanted me was 'given your expertise'.

The Mint Directors Conference is in Canberra Australia, and this was the Canadian Mint inviting me to come and speak. What a wonderful honor, and given my books on mobile related topics, including the world's first book on mobile money; and my countless lectures, articles, blogs and presentation on the developments in mobile money, this seemed like an ideal opportunity to talk about what is truly relevant to the coins-oriented minting industry - their future.

I of course agreed. We made our arrangements and the Mint Directors Conference would use my name as part of the advertised speakers scheduled to speak on the opening day, 27th of September of the Conference that runs to October 3. I found of course now in September that there would have been many paying customers asking to have my Monday 27th of September, but I was of course committed to Australia and the Mint Directors. Meanwhile as the date of the event neared, I started to mention this upcoming speaking engagement on my Twitter feed, at this blog, and in my public speaking engagements.

As the Canadian Mint had invited me, and was my host at the Conference, I wanted to be very open and generous in thanking them, so when I presented in Toronto on Sept 15, at the Mobile Media event (and my topic happened to be mobile commerce) - I clearly thanked the Canadian Mint for inviting me to speak to the upcoming Mint Directors Conference. I also showed a small preview of some of the slides that I had prepared to show in Canberra.

There was even a video of me at that event, interviewed by Rob Woodbridge for Untether TV. In the video I mention that I am soon speaking in Canberra at the Mint Directors conference, and that in my speech I will be talking about the end of money, etc. See for yourself (Tomi on Untether TV)

TOMI ARRIVES

I flew in from Africa on Sunday afternoon, arrived in Canberra ahead of schedule, and checked into my hotel. As I collected my delegate package, I found the printed official program to include my presentation topic same as it was online. My speaking slot was listed very precisely to start at 08:32 in the opening session entitled Imaginative Payment Developments. My topic was 'The future of money and payments: Mobile Payment Industry Perspectives."

We were setting up my microphone and other speaking arrangements, when about 15 minutes before the morning session was about to start, the conference producers informed me that I 'would not be seated'. This means (apparently) that I would not be allowed to approach the podium and deliver my presentation.

The room was filling already with about 500 very senior national banking directors, the national mint directors of the USA, UK, China, Japan, France, Switzerland, (Finland) etc and national bank directors etc and I am very visibly in the front of the room, and the organizers now were clearly indicating me to move 'back' away from the stage.. What could I do? I couldn't 'insist' that I should be allowed up on the stage. I tried to behave as professionally as I could, and I was shown where the delegates could sit, and I took a seat at the side of the room. I was not so much surprised as flabbergastered. They did.. what? Did they now 'censor' me? Was I just being stiffled? What happened? No explanations, other than that I was 'not to be seated'.. No reason given.

 

I was not ejected from the room, I had not done anything, not said anything. They allowed me to sit in the room as a normal delegate so clearly I was ok. But for some bizarre reason, I was not being allowed to present. This has never happened to me before and I could not see why.

Well you'd think you've seen it all, but it really gets more bizarre still. The chairman of that session was no other than Ian Bennett, the CEO and President of yes, the Canadian Mint - my hosts! So he has censored me? First he invites me to speak, then he says I cannot speak. How incredibly weird is this?

IS LIKE A BIZARRE BAD DREAM

 

So, the online program on the morning of 27 September, 2010, for the Mint Directors Conference listed Tomi Ahonen still as speaking at 08:32. At about 07:45, I am told I will not be speaking. And yes, the printed conference program also listed me as speaking at 08:32. And of course, on the big screen, the delegates even see my name as one of the speakers for that session. All other speakers of the morning are allowed to speak.

 

Ok. This is now an episode of an alternate universe, yes? So get this - When 08:32 comes, and the previous speaker has ended his presentation, Mr Ian Bennett says that the next speaking slot is Mr Tomi Ahonen, but that Mr Ahonen will not be speaking. He mentions that that I am in the audience and points me out (I wave) and Mr Bennett says he will be publishing my paper with the conference proceedings. He says the reason for why I am not speaking is that I arrived so late last night, from my long journey from Africa. He seemed to suggest that I was apparently too jetlagged to speak, that I somehow arrived past midnight like in the early hours of the morning.

Ok. Number 1. If I arrived late from Africa (I did arrive from Africa) but I was here, at the event, ready to speak, then isn't that a bizarre reason why I am not allowed to speak? That I arrived late?

ARRIVAL TO CANBERRA

Secondly, if I was severely jetlagged and delirious, but still willing to speak - isn't it MY decision of am I 'in the condition to speak' and not his?

But the truth is, that the official registration form that I had submitted for the 26th Annual Mint Directors Conference had a requirement of specifying what airline and when the delegate would arrive. (Yes, they were quite... 'detailed' ... in the specifics on their conference registration haha). And trust me, these money guys can be pedantic. So yeah, on the form that I submitted to the conference on the 13th of August, 2010, I listed that my arrival flight was Qantas QF 1483 from Sydney, which lands at 17:10. I added the detail that my connecting flight was QF 064 from Johannesburg to Sydney, just in case there was some flight connection problem and I might be forced to take a later flight.

So. The official expected arrival time for Mr Ahonen was 17:10, on Sunday 26th September. And the organizers of the Conference had known this for more than a month before. And they were totally satisfied with this, they issued my delegate pass etc. What happened? I arrived so early in Sydney, that Qantas kindly put me on an EARLIER flight to Canberra. I flew QF 1485 (and yes, obviously, I have the airline ticket stub!). I arrived more than an hour BEFORE my expected arrival time.

Yet Mr Bennett says that I arrived too late to the conference and suggests my jetlag prevents me from speaking?

I AM NOT A HAPPY PUPPY

Now, I think its pretty rotten of my hosts to be so rude to me, that they - the Canadian Mint - forbid me from speaking. I mean, Canadians for heaven's sake. They are known as some of the most kind and generous and friendly and polite people on the planet.

 

But here's the kicker. I did not fly into Canberra on Canada's dime. I flew there on my own dime, and my own time. I arranged for my own flight into Canberra - they did not pay for it, they are not reimbursing me for it! And I was not charging for this presentation.

So, the Canadian Mint invites me to speak, the event uses my name to promote the event. They publish my speaking slot in the printed brochure and even on the morning of the event, my slot is there and even on the big screen they audience of 500 bankers sees my name and topic. I have been promised the chance to give an opening address to the big global mint directors annual event on the future of money. I was led to believe that I would get the chance to speak to the event, that is why I came there. Its not a trivial trip from Hong Kong to Canberra, there are no direct flights. I volunteered not just a full day of my time in Canberra for this one speaking slot, I also sacrificed two further days of travel into Canberra and back to Hong Kong. Yet 15 minutes before the event starts, I am told that I am not to speak.

The person forbidding me from speaking is none other than Ian Bennett himself who invited me, and he then points me out from the audience, recognizes that I was in attendance, and that says he'll publish my paper. But because I was late in arriving from Africa, somehow Tomi is now unable to speak (as if I was somehow jetlagged perhaps?)

 

WHAT WAS HE AFRAID OF

Ok. I have now talked about this with several of my trusted friends in the industry, to try to figure out what happened.

Mr Ian Bennett, CEO and President of the Canadian Mint, has clearly been spooked by my presentation that he has had for over a month.

Now, first of all, that presentation has NOTHING that is particularly new to anyone who follows our industry! I had written here on this blog just last week about the future of mobile in retail for example. I have written extensively about mobile entering the small payments space (ie coins, ie Mint Directors' domain). I have reported and spoken widely about how coin-operated parking was terminated in Estonia, and today parking can only be paid by mobile. And I have been recently adding the story from Sweden where public transportation payments are no longer accepting cash, and the most prevalent use to pay is mobile.

But I do understand, that my presentation may have caused Mr Bennett alarm, as clearly I do show in it the power of mobile. And clearly the facts do now prove beyond any doubt, that mobile will not cannibalize parts of cash, mobile will kill cash in some industries. The facts are in on that. The only questions are, whether that will hit every industry (of course it will) and how long it will take.

But this event is the 'Mint Directors Conference' subtitled 'Imagination, Inspiring, Innovation' - and most of the other speakers of the morning session spoke of how safe and secure the mint business is. (Can you believe that? Its like the music industry a decade ago, or print a few years ago!) Almost all speakers talked of the web based payments (a trivial opportunity compared to mobile) and of credit cards, debit cards and contactless payments. But few mentions of mobile in most of the other presentations on the 'future of money' opening session, haha..

Then in that context, Mr Bennett considered my last slides in my presentation where I show how coins have been eliminated of very significant coin businesses in Sweden and Estonia - perhaps he was spooked and felt, at the very last moment, that he does not want that story out?

I mean, there was clearly a strong delegation of press in attendance. Perhaps driven partly by the expectation to see Mr Ahonen speak about mobile money? I have a strong following among journalists in Australia. It may have taken Mr Bennett by surprise? Perhaps the journalists did not know of me from beforehand, but had done their homework as professional journalists; and that their preparation work illustrated, that the biggest threat to coins is - indeed - mobile. And now, the journalists would see a global guru about mobile money to be presenting to the mint conference? Its like an engineer of airplanes, talking to a conference about Zeppelins and other airships and ballooning.

 

One of my colleagues suggested the hypothesis that perhaps some journalist had asked Mr Bennett about Mr Ahonen specifically, and mobile money and perhaps even knew the Estonia or Sweden example? Easy, if you follow my writing or a good journalist doing a bit of reading about some given speakers? And obviously most of my Australian journalist friends would again know that story. Was one of them covering the Canberra event? Was Mr Bennett, CEO of Canadian Mint, suddenly frightened that his big opening session would end with 'the wrong message' that reporters would be writing about?

That would explain why my name was still showing as a speaker on the online program AFTER my session had ended, on the morning of 27 Sept. That would explain why Mr Bennett in his prepared written opening remarks, had no mention of the fact that one of his speakers is not to present. That would explain why my name was still showing on the title cards, when my turn was to speak at 08:32. That would explain why it wasn't until then, that Mr Bennett 'remembered' to tell the audience, that oh, Mr Ahonen won't be presenting - and that would also explain why he said - Mr Ahonen is in the audience - and pointed me out - AND it would explain why he was willing to put my slides into the conference proceedings - but not let me show them! It would also explain, why he has a total bogus utter palefaced lie about when I arrived in Canberra. That was simply a last-minute excuse.

 

He knew if I showed my slides, that would be the big story of the press. But if he hid the presentation into the proceedings of the event, it would be long after the event, that the facts would emerge, and no journalist would be focusing on that matter. They could effectively hide the truth.

 

And rather, they would show those obsolete slides that were given about the significance of mobile today.

HE BETTER NOT EDIT MY SLIDES

Now, Mr Bennett has promised a live audience of 500, and is caught on video - that he will publish the slides that he has from me, in the conference proceedings. Here is my position - he better not touch my slides in any way. When I talk about Sweden and Estonia, he better have those slides exactly as I sent them. I do have the original slide set, of course, and I will scrutinize every comma and exclamation mark haha..

So.. That is the story from Canberra. I was censored. Censored by the very man who invited me to come and speak. I would have thought that they had bothered to read what I wrote, BEFORE the Canadian Mint decided to invite me to speak, haha, or perhaps thats not really worth doing, is it Mr Bennett?

Obviously I will monitor this space. And I have already tweeted about this and will do more tweets about it. I have also decided that I think this is a story of interest to journalists on my mailing list. I think Mr Bennett may have bit a bit more than he thought he did, in attempting to 'control the story' haha. Isn't it like Communities Dominate all over again?

...But yeah, your faithful mobilist has been censored. I can tell you it did not feel good.

UPDATE 1 - 29 Sept - as many have asked to see the 'dangerous' slides, I will be showing them of course, and the first chance to see how mobile money eliminates coins totally, nationally, in two small coins-related industries - those 'dangerous' slides haha, will be shown at the Forum Oxford conferece at Oxford University in two weeks - come see us there with tons of superduper superheroes of mobile thought leadership like Ajit Jaokar, Chetan Sharma etc etc etc. Event page is at Forum Oxford Conference 2010.

UPDATE 2 - 29 Sept - The story has been getting a lot of support on Twitter, with many retweets, and some bloggers have weighed in, and this full blog article has been reprinted at Brighter Side of News (thank you!). I will keep monitoring the space

Comments

[Aage_Reerslev]

In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. Awesome story - you have to publish your presentation deck

[Dave Birch]

Tomi,

Please publish the deck and send a link to it and I will put it on the Digital Money blog.

Cheers,
Dave.

[Ajit Jaokar]

a strange tale indeed! look fwd to deck :) tweeted.

[Alex Birkhead]

Superb -- lol. You surpass yourself!

I can't for a moment believe they were 'afraid' -- what on earth of? Surely the likes of Madoff and self-inflicted global financial meltdown are scarier even than the presence of the mighty Ahonen. The impressive rise of m-transactions in the Balts is not exactly news (and lots of fascinating stuff visibly happening on the ground in Africa and S.E. Asia, too.).

Perhaps you broke [un]written protocol by mentioning beforehand?

They do seem astonishingly rude/inconsiderate, though.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry at your tantrum, nor whether it will be to your [dis]credit outside of Scandinavia -- but fascinated to see how this runs! Could be wrong, but Ian Bennett's reported behaviour suggests he wasn't the culprit; some puppet-master in the backroom I'd guess....or perhaps even a genuine misunderstanding.

Do central banks care about PR, and will a charming Canadian drop off an ingot, a grovelling/flattering apology, and a husky...or will your electronic finances and cards mysteriously stop working!

Can't wait for the next installment...

[quick thinker]

Come on- Tomi - you are a bit exaggerating.

Its not that you were the one keynote speaker at that conference - if you
check out the programme here:
http://www.mdc2010.com/conference/main-conference

You were the 4th of 17 speakers that day with a 12 minutes slot.

A 12 minute slot as the 4th of 17 speakers is not really a keynote speech...

If I were you - I wouldn't worry to much about something like that...

[E.Casais]

> Come on- Tomi - you are a bit
> exaggerating.

I do not think that Tomi is exaggerating, since after checking the
conference site, as you suggest:

> Its not that you were the one keynote
> speaker at that conference - if you
> check out the programme here:

one realizes that Tomi's speech is the
only one whose slide set is not made
available on the programme page. A fact
that is quite consistent with his
suspicion of silencing his message about
mobile payments.

[Romain]

Pretty unbelievable...

@Tomi:
Didn't you get a chance to talk to him afterwards and get his explanations ?

[Daniel Perry]

Tomi - They were incredibly rude. You exhibited class in not standing up and announcing how great you felt - despite your exhausting trip.

Dan Perry

[quick thinker]

the whole things sounds crazy and incredibly rude.
why did they not think about this before?
strange.

could there be some other reason?

[Barthox]

Just post your presentation on Slideshare ...

[Tomi Ahonen]

Thank you to EVERYBODY

I really appreciate the support. The story is getting a lot of Twitter supporters too, and the full blog was reprinted already at Brighter Side of News (thank you!) and I will keep monitoring the space.

I will be showing the slides of course! The first place where they will be seen is now in 2 weeks at the Forum Oxford conference on 15 October..

Thank you all for the comments, I will soon return to answer each of you individually

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[James Pearce]

Talking to the organisers themselves might have been interesting...

...before you blew them out of the water in public on your blog, of course! ;-)

It does sound bizarre. But sometimes the best conspiracy theories do have benign realities.

[Tomi Ahonen]

I will start with the first replies..

Hi Aage, Dave, Ajit and Alex

Aage - thanks! I will publish the whole deck of slides but now I am curious to see what they do with my set they have. I cannot believe still what happened, and I am very curious to see if they actually do publish my slides in the proceedings, and if so, is it the complete set, or somehow a reduced set of slides (or no slides).. I will be showing the full set to any audience who wants it haha, and the best bits of the 'forbidden slides' to all audiences of the near future. The first place to see them is Forum Oxford where the 3 critical slides are shown in my opening remarks on Oct 15, so anyone who wants to be there to see them, haha, its also the best event of the year and being a university event, its also one of the cheapest. But yeah, you don't censor Tomi Ahonen for long haha..

Dave - thanks! you are a true friend. I will do that. Lets first see what happens with the official proceedings. Also here in public, we've already agreed in principle with Dave off-line, that he's inviting me to speak to the Digital Money Forum, so the story of the future of money (the full story, not just the forbidden slides highlights) has now a home and a conference. Thank you Dave!

Ajit - thank you my friend. And yes, you'll see the forbidden slides haha, already in two weeks at our conference where you are co-chairing. So you'll see, its no big deal haha. For us in this industry, my slides are simply not astonishing. But the mint guys, who manufacture coins for a living, come on, coins? In an age of SMS and soon when every phone will have near field. Of course the age of coins is coming to an end. They've had a good run, what how many millenia, isn't it about time already haha.. And coins aren't gonna disappear in our lifetimes, we'll all be long dead before the last coin is minted. But the transition has started and that is frightening to the mint guys (apparently).

Alex - I am laughing hysterically at your posting. Yes, in one cup is the global financial melt-down (mints survived) and in the other cup is the Mighty Ahonen haha, and they run away like a scared elephant runs away from a mouse.. So funny. I am still laughing. You really cheered me, my friend. I needed that.

As to the second installment, oh gosh, I haven't even thought of all those issues. Ouch. I better make logs and copies of everything and consider moving to an all-cash economy haha.

More replies soon..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[David Doherty]

Tomi,

Agree with DanielPerry - this was an act of incredible rudeness and you exhibited class in not rising to the bait and objecting.

Hopefully (diary permitting) I'll see you in Oxford as I just have to see the slide that shook the mint!

[Gerd Leonhard]

Incredible story Tomi. Hard to believe someone would be this stupid!!! They are messing with the wrong people. But don't let it get to you - they will have to face the mobile money future, and alternate , virtual currencies, anyway - publish your slides and scratch them off your list of contacts!

[maxxfi]

Tomi,
I can understand that you did not feel good after such treatment - they were rude! - on the personal level.
On the other way, you could take also it as a victory: you are probably so right on the mobile money that silencing such theories is their only way to delay the inevitable.

[jMac]

This is an incredible story...ironically, I only read this a few minutes ago after something slightly similar happened to me after I came off stage yesterday at Mobile Squared in London.

A senior executive from one of the largest tech companies cornered me and accused me of filling people's heads with confusing information.

Information like 'mobile is ultra personal to we need to adapt our methodologies into being more citizen focussed'

Apparently he thought it would be better for things just to carry on as they are - don't rock the boat - lets just make money whilst the sun shines...

But my case isn't as bad as yours Tomi...

The good news is, regardless of whether people WANT to hear whats really going on, or not - the truth will eventually come out.

No amount of censorship will stop it.

It must scare the bejesus out of people like Ian Bennett who (by the sounds of things) is petrified of rocking any boats or confusing people with information that doesn't fit some silo'd thinking.

Censoring people in this day and age is as realistic a concept as expecting oil not to run out in several decades time.

The speed of information surpasses ridiculous paywalls, egocentric censorship and biased bullying.

Let's pause for a moment and think how scared and confusing the lives of people like that are.

They are not like us - they aren't on a quest for betterment - they are on a quest for getting the pension secured as safely as possible.

Most big business is run by finance people. Due to this, stability and predictability are lauded constructs. Innovation and change is the enemy. Creativity is the devil.....and the system feeds the system.

I was discussing this with my colleague @tmedupin who said - brilliantly:

"Remember, the dinosaurs will always be dinosaurs.....until they become extinct"

I think that covers it from my perspective.

[Nicolaas]

Anyway I would send the organisers or Canadian Mint a bill for costs of travelling, accommodation and opportunity cost (hours you could have earned money elsewhere if not etc....). Come on, the deal was: okay I'll pay myself in exchange for the opportunity to speak. Now they are not allowing you to speak, so they have to pay (all costs including your normal rate for hours).

Nicolaas

PS: would really like to be in Oxford @ Forum Oxford event later this month but unfortunately too busy with setting up public screen/mobile project here. Can't you organize this twice per year?

[Brosephus]

Tomi,

As a Canadian working in the mobile industry I am ashamed at your treatment. For what it's worth - sorry, eh?

Though I'm not surprised at the slipshod/ham-handed nature of the reaction by Bennett. You may or may not know of an incident last year at the Royal Canadian Mint where $15.3M worth of gold was mysteriously unaccounted for. After a detailed public audit(at substantial cost to Canadian taxpayers), it was found officials at the Mint either double-counted or under-estimated "shrinkage" in the process. Of course, all this happened on Bennett's watch as CEO...

[Jonathan Marks]

Bonkers Bennett. I would send them a bill for the travel and the lost speakers fee. This is outrageous. They had every opportunity to discuss the contents of the speech and their excuse damaged your reputation as a speaker. If I was attending the conference I might not book you for my event because there seemed to have been a last minute problem.