Last week I was fortunate to be one of the 120 'invitation only' guests of British Telecom to attend the 21st Century Global Summit held at their research establishment, Adastral Park (or as most of us still know it, Martlesham).   Described by the hosts as an "... exclusive summit for CxO level executives, leading innovators and luminaries from around the world  -  the premier event to discuss next generation products and services. The Summit is unique in bringing together media, telecommunication, financial services and global sourcing companies for the first time with the objective to share, learn and potentially collaborate in areas that will raise the bar in the industry."

A higher concentration of bright minds, inventive technologies and big budgets I cannot imagine.  Needless to say, BT outlined the aims and progress of its 21CN programme.  It is jaw-dropping in scale and scope and one cannot but admire the project management skills necessary to undertake this behomothic broadband project.   There is no doubt that BT has thought longer and deeper than most as to how to inhabit the new 'converged' territories.

But I left with a number of abiding memories and conclusions from those two days.  Let me share them with you.  When Her Majesty the Queen opened the BT Laboratories at Martlesham in 1975, few of us realised the impact these research laboratories and their brilliant teams of engineers would have on developing the seminal digital technologies of the second half of the 20th century (silicon [chip] + silica [fibre] + spread spectrum wireless) around the converging, nay colliding, industries of computing, telecoms and broadcasting.  I remember my first visit to Martlesham in the late 1980s and being awestruck at some of the brilliant innovations and but bewildered as they were assiduously patent-protected and then placed on the shelf to ensure they did not see the light of day before it suited BT and its slow, migratory, asset-milking march to the future.  ADSL was one of those technologies being developed when I was there - but the telecoms cartel had determined that ISDN was "step 1" and only after that, "step 2" .... ADSL.     Two decades later, BT is lifiting its foot to take "step 3" - 21CN.  Only I fear this will one will cause them to trip over!

Another over-riding impression from the 21st Century Summit was the near universal appreciation amongst those attending that something special and entirely new is afoot.  Call it "web 2.0", or "social networking", there was general unstated acknowledgement that the likes of YouTube are shaking the world ... the statistics speak for themselves - founded in February 2005 and within 18 months has become the 16th most visited site on the www; accounts for 29% of the US multimedia market; has over 2.5 billion video views in a month; helps unseat three-term veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman at the ballot box ... and is FREE!   Little wonder everyone at Adastra Park last week wanted to convey the impression that they understood what is going on and the impact and opportunity it held for their companies.  Each and every one of them, from their various perspectives, claimed to have a good handle on how to monetize this minefield.

Three words were on everyone's lips .... "convergence", "content" and "open".  I am not sure that the assembled executives really grasped the implosive impact of these three technology-driven trends.  One of many vigorous conversations I had was with the CEO of a major public company who did not seem to see that 'open' is almost the antithesis of 'content' (i.e. something contained and closed inside something).  So many of these major corporations just do not have business models that are pliable enough to cope with a world of mashing and peer-to-peer 'conversation'.   It's a shame really, because for a century, it was these very values that made the telephone such a 'must-have' and such a world-changing success.   No 'content' - just conversations, and with no content, no differentiation between 'consumers' and 'creators'.  I pointed out to him that all the world wanted to do was to use the low-cost digital technologies of abundance that anyone can purchase over the web or from their local WalMart, to 'converse' in a richer and more multi-faceted manner than the scarcity of the telephone network would ever permit.  I not sure he got it I am afraid.

And I am not sure BT gets it either!  At one major plenary session on the second day, I hear two senior BT managers make the following statements, without blinking an eyelid or without realising what they were implying.  Nobody in the audience picked it up either, but it is there for posterity on the hard-disks of the film crew that video-recorded the entire proceedings.

Al-Noor Ramji, Chief Executive Officer BT EXact and Group CIO stated, "At the end of the day, we (BT) are a telco... and by that I mean, we are fundamentally an infrastructure company".

Five minutes later on the same panel:

Neil Rogers, Managing Director 21CN says, "We are fundamentally a services company"

Of course, they are both absolutely right - and that's the problem.  (Just like that horse in my last blog entry!)   BT, like so many telcos faced with these shifting tectonic telecom plates, find themselves with assets supporting one, and earnings expectations based on the other.  It reminds me of the anecdote of an Irishman who, when a lost stranger asked him the way, answered: 'Well, if I were you I sure wouldn't start from here.'

But BT, like many incumbent telcos, have literally hundreds of brilliant businesses and thousands of highly talented individuals within the group.  It would be a shame if, by trying to hold them all together, it all fell apart.

Oh, and did you see the front page of Monday's Financial Times?   "Sell-off U-turn by Telecom Italia".  The story went on, "Telecom Italia is considering a radical restructuring of its operations in a move that could see the Italian market leader sell all or part of its network and mobile telephony arms to concentrate on broadband and media services".  Sounds pretty drastic, eh?