The day before the conference is always an interesting one. People are flying in from everywhere (some get in tomorrow) but the exhibition if full of bees putting together the booths. This year I was here ahead of time, so I helped our marketing team to assemble the booth, I put down the carpet and I got dirty.
I love the atmosphere in the exhibition, when there are no visitors around. It is a pure mess until a minute before the door opens. The carpet is missing, there are boxes everywhere. Magically, just when the crowd gets in, everything is ready. Polished. Like it was prepared months before.
I like our booth and where we are positioned (same place as last year, Hall 1, stand #1J46). We are going to have a lot of fun tomorrow.
Meanwhile, today I read an article about the EU pressuring operators on data roaming. I mean, they are getting hit from every corner. Now they are not only forced to be a dumb pipe, they need to be a cheap one as well. I am starting to feel sorry for them, with all the investments they put in the network... Oh well, cheap data plans are what we need, so who cares? I am happy ;-)
Also, I went to the pre-show party of the Mobile Monday crowd, called Mobile Sunday (how clever!) Barcelona. Lots of people, jam-packed (last year they had 70 people, this year we were 350... something good is going on...) and very interesting networking. The tone is super-positive. The opening of the networks and the cheap data plans are about to start a big wave. We are all so happy to be here to ride it.
I will report more in the next days, trying to pick the themes of the year and where the buzz is. Stay tuned.