Building the Ultimate Conference for Mobile - Starts with Speakers

Lets talk a bit more about Mobilista Rockstars. So in October we are launching the world's first true 'all-stars' event, the 'best of the best' speakers on the topic of Mobile. 32 speakers, 3 cities on 3 continents in one week, October 7 to 11. We start in Hong Kong, fly to London and end in New York. How did this come about?

 

I'm one of the most seen public speakers in mobile. Here in Singapore where I am today doing the MMA Forum, I am speaking at my 314th conference in mobile (plus several thousands more in private consulting sessions and seminars to my clients). I've seen a lot of events, some good, some not-so-good. And we've all been there.

Sometimes we see a speaker who is just doing a corporate pitch. Or selling his company's solution (boy, is that annoying and a waste of everyone's time). Sometimes we see a VP level speaker from a big name in the industry, one of the Fortune 500 giants, but that person isn't really that famous by himself or herself, we're there to hear what that company has to say. We know by name the big CEOs of the giants of this industry, but if they show up at some event to do a keynote, they will give corporate PR spin, and they are not the people who think about mobile, they are professional managers dealing all day with management issues, and only occasionally think about mobile. Their presentations were prepared by the corporate PR department and the thinking is from their strategy guy or someone like that.

And of course we get all sorts of other mish-mosh of speakers, some who are new to the industry, others who are specialists in a very narrow technical field, others who are official spokespersons but start off their talk, saying 'I don't really know this stuff' and we of course get speakers who are fill-ins, when the advertised top guy couldn't make the trip, they sent this replacement. Etc. And then we get some speakers, who are clearly invited to speak only because they are sponsors of the event and have very little to contribute. Sometimes we see the speaker who seems a weird selection, talking about a topic not even related to the conference theme, etc etc etc.

And amidst all that, if we're lucky, on an average day at an average event, there will be maybe 3 or so good speakers, one or two truly great ones, that we'd want to hear much more.

Well, I've seen over 1,000 speakers delivering over 3,000 presentations on mobile in my career. I've chaired events on all six continents, I've delivered keynotes to just about every major event in the industry, including delivering the one 'strategy keynote' of the week-long extravaganza that is our largest event in mobile, the Mobile World Congress. After that speaking gig, I can say 'been there, done that' - there is no more prestigious speaking invitation than that.

So while obviously I haven't seen everyone, not even nearly everyone, I may be the person on the planet that has seen more of the big superstar speakers of mobile, than anyone else - as I've now been seen in 92 cities in 63 countries all around the world. And when you see a superstar on stage, talking to us about this, the most complex industry of all time, that is pure heaven. You just wish they could go on forever. Until the next guy steps on the stage and we fall back to earth. Thump.

I've seen the best. I always thought, when I see Russell Buckley speaking, or Tony Fish, or Jonathan MacDonald, or Michael Becker, or Madan Rao or Dave Birch - that why couldn't there be one event, just of speakers of that quality. Since we all know who are the best speakers in mobile, why hasn't anyone invited just superstars to speak? Ah, there is a good reason why. These guys tend to not be available, and they tend to request enormous sums of money to come and speak.

So I plotted and planned my Mobilista Rockstars event. I set the goal as 'best speakers on mobile.' I can honestly say, that of my personal Top 35 list (excluding myself), I have 31 joining us, including all of my personal Top 5 and 9 of my personal Top 10. These are 'the' guys in mobile. I quote them in my 12 books. They wrote 'the' books for the industry, often the very first book of its kind. These are 'the' gurus. And they all know each other, quote each other, and have been fans of each other for years, in many cases more than a decade, some of us have been in mobile for two decades already. When did you come to the mobile industry? Think about that.

If you want to do the best event in mobile, for the audience, then you want to start with the best speakers on mobile, doing the most relevant topics in mobile. If you have a bad speaker but great expert, you will miss much of what he or she could contribute. Much of the great insight is lost, because the great expert is not good at putting in words what he or she knows. If you have a great speaker who is a bad expert its worse - now you get false advice and pretend-knowledge but packaged very smartly by a great speaker, who will actually guide you astray from the truth. Obviously if you have a bad speaker who is also a bad expert, then everyone suffers in the audience and wishes that torture to be over.

But if you have a great speaker who is also a great expert, it is pure joy. This is the guy or gal, who wrote 'the book' on that matter. He or she spoke at countless events talking about that matter, getting questions about every aspect of it, answering them and constantly just learning more and refining the knowledge. This is the person quoted in all the press about that issue. When you hear such an expert answer a question on the topic, you hear that wow, this guy really knows his shit (or she/her). A great speaker knows that the audience absorbs 80% from the presentation style and only 20% from the content (bad speakers don't develop their speaking skill, thinking if they make their slides just a little bit better, they will win the audience over, because the facts should speak for themselves).

Yes. These are not just 32 of the best experts in mobile, they are the true thought-leaders of their area, and also - crtically - know how to tell that story well. They all have been invited as keynote speakers to prestigious events, and invited back and again, get rated best speaker at their speaker reviews, etc. This is the list of the 32 speakers on topics of mobile, that is the gold standard. These are the very best minds in mobile, when given a public stage to speak (others may be better at blogging about it, or analyzing the numbers or writing the code etc, but these are the best to explain the mobile issues, to a public audience)

I know very well that often when I go to a conference, there are speakers I will 'tune out' and there are others, I will try not to miss. This is the list of 32 speakers that I would say (ok, 31, with myself removed) that I would say, if that speaker is at the event, don't miss his or her presentation. No matter what 'big name' might be speaking at the same time. These are the true gurus.

That is who got invited to the first annual Mobilista Rockstars. I have said - for years - that Lars Cosh-Ishii is my personal guru to all things mobile about Japan. I've said - for years - that Tony Fish is my guru to all things about digital identity and privacy. That Gerd Leonhard is my guide to the media industry merging with mobile. If a client of mine asks who can help them with social media and mobile - I say JMac, Jonathan MacDonald is the guy who teaches us how to build 'an Army of Fanatics' etc. I am not inventing this story now in 2013. You can go back and see, I thank Voytek Siewierski in my first books, and still today. I thank Russell Buckley in my first books and still today. I am literally a fan of these 31 rockstars.

I cannot promise you that this list is the best 32 speakers of the industry of mobile, because I have not seen everyone. I can promise you, that never before has an event featured this powerful lineup of the best speakers in mobile. I may miss one or two (a few that I invited wanted to join us but could not come due to timing conflicts) but this is literally unprecedented in speaking quality. There are no mediocre speakers here, and no corporate BS and no weak speakers. No 'filler' speakers. No sponsors speaking. This is only rockstars. Only superstars. Only all-stars. This is the 'dream team'. This is the 'Woodstock moment' in mobile industry speaking, when the biggest rockstars came to the same stage.

We are still refining the topics for a few of the speakers. But I can now announce the first 24 topics that we will see at the Mobilista Rockstars World Tour 2013. Note none of these are any short abbreviated 15 minute or 20 minute 'snippets' where the speaker has to say 'there is more in the slides..'. Each is a full 40 minute presentation (plus 10 minutes of Q&A). Look at the speakers, and what topic they will deliver for us. Could you ask for anything more?

Tony Fish presents on Mobile and Your Digital Footprint - From Big Data to Privacy to Loyalty

Jonathan MacDonald presents on Advocurrency and the Army of Fanatics - How to Unlock the Full Potential of Mobile

Dan Applequist presents on Leveraging on the Power of the Web - Ecosystems, Apps and Mobile Internet

Chetan Sharma presents on Future of the Mobile Industry - Can Carriers Maintain Control

Madanmohan Rao presents on Changing the World Through Mobile - What is Role of BRICS

Caroline Lewko presents on Agile Developer and Agile Marketing: How to Make your App Last Longer than 30 Days

Gerd Leonhard presents on Music, Media and Mobile - Radical Rethinking Required

 

Dave Birch presents on Future of Money and Payments - Will Mobile Win in the End

Gary Schwartz presents on Digital Velcro the Retail Revolution Empowered by Mobile Consumers

Peggy Anne Salz presents on Role of Messaging from Engagement Marketing to In-App In-Box

Lars Cosh-Ishii presents on Mobile in Japan - Past, Present and Future

Michael Becker presents on Mobile Marketing Along the Path to Purchase - Consumers, Tech, Data & Regulations

Osama Manzar presents on Information Poverty and Digital Opportunity - I am Poor, Illiterate, Homeless & Mobile

Susanna Hahenohrl presents on Integrate or Die - Brands, Consumers, Payments, Converence and Mobile

Raimo van der Klein presents on Augmented Reality - First Lessons Learned for an Infant Technology

Rohit Dadwal presents on Life in Digits and Bytes - Humans and Mobility, Virtual and Mobile, Cloud and Mobile

Andy Zain presents on Mobile Social Networks in Emerging World Markets

Michael O'Farrell presents on Empowering Enterprises Everywhere for Employee Effectiveness and Customer Intimacy

Martin Feldstein presents on The Dark Side of Mobility - Cloud Tango Collaboration

Alex Tan presents on Future of Mobile Devices: Are Wearables the Next Paradigm Shift

 

Peter Miles presents on Youth and Technology - A View from the University Campuses

Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald presents on Augmented Reality - Emerging Business Models

Paul Berney presents on Trends in Mobile Marketing - How Mobile Effects Every Part of the Marketing Mix

and last and least of this list, a certain..

Tomi T Ahonen presents on The Real Decade of Mobile Is Only Coming

So thats the first 24 speakers with 8 more topics to be finalized with my last 8 speakers. If you look at the above, every one of my rockstars does his or her 'best hits' here. This is what you want these guys to talk about. There has never been this kind of collection of mobile talent in any occasion before. If you are involved in mobile, if you are running a mobile department or a mobile project or are an investor in mobile, if you're the strategy dude or business development gal, this is the shortcut to the future. This is the most accurate vision of what is to come. If you collected the top 32 strategy consultants specializing in mobile from McKinsey and Boston Consulting and Bain etc - you know what? They'd be quoting these guys or using their theories or books or calculations, but charge you a fortune for that, essentially second-hand knowledge.

With that, please consider joining us in Hong Kong on October 7-8, or London Oct 9-10, or New York Oct 10-11. The event is the must-do event for the mobile industry and you will learn more here than any other way you could use two days to immerse yourself into our industry. For more, including early-bird ticket sales - see

http://mobilistarockstars.com/2013/

And follow us on Twitter as @mobilistarocks

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