Paul Adams, User Experience Researcher, Google

Bio

Paul Adams is a researcher and designer. He currently works in the mobile team at Google. Most of his time is spent conducting strategic user research, facilitating innovation and design workshops, and doing conceptual design. Paul has conducted research in many different countries and is part of a User Experience team at Google trying to understand the challenges and opportunities of designing for people in emerging markets.

Before Google, Paul worked as a User Experience Consultant for Flow Interactive, working with clients including The Guardian, BBC, Vodafone, Betfair, Standard Life and the UK Government. Before Flow, Paul worked as an Industrial Designer for Dyson and Faurecia.

Paul carries his camera everywhere, constantly capturing people's behaviour, and examples of good and bad design. Some of the photos end up on his User Experience blog (www.re-frame.info/blog). Others end up on Flickr (www.flickr.com/photos/padday).

www.linkedin.com/in/pauladams

Speaker's statement

Many in the mobile industry talk about their next billion customers coming from 'emerging markets' such as India and China. But what is rarely mentioned is how life in these emerging markets is very different to what we in the West know and understand.

Products and services designed for Western markets cannot simply be adapted and 'ported' to different cultures. For example, how do you design a contact solution for the many people in India who have over 1000 contacts and no internet connection? How do you design for people who openly share phones? How do people living with no electricity charge their phones and what does this mean for hardware design?

This presentation is based on research done deep in the field of these markets. It tells stories from the ground, from the streets of Mumbai to the skyscrapers of Shenzhen, and describes some of the challenges and opportunities that exist.

Why are they participating at MEX?

I want to shift people's perception of what it means to design for emerging markets. I want people to understand that adapting solutions designed with a Western mindset are not likely to succeed in different cultures.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.google.com

Tom Airaksinen, Interaction Designer, Ocean Observations

Bio

Tom Airaksinen is as deeply in love with mobile phones as he is outraged by poorly designed applications and services - a highly suitable combination for an interaction designer at Ocean Observations.

During his two years at Ocean, he has been driving numerous mobile user experience projects, ranging from concept development to usability testing and redesign. The applications and services has been as diverse as music players, advanced address books, switchboard applications, messaging applications and TV clients.

Prior to joining full-time he worked for Ocean Observations as a sub-contractor. His handheld experience also includes mobile web browser design for Opera Software and localization of the Neonode M1 handset into Russian. His academic background is the cognitive science MSc programme in Linköping, Sweden, where he specialised in interaction design and service design.

Speaker's statement

I am a strong advocate of the current trend of letting content itself take a more prominent role in the mobile user interface, not only on fancy touch-screen devices but also in less advanced handsets with key-driven navigation. We must put an end to the era of mobile UIs full of excessive information and metaphors carried over from desktop computing!

I also believe that coherence is very important in order to offer a superior mobile user experience and that is why the poor integration between different applications is such a large problem. However, currently there seems to be a rising awareness of this problem and initiatives like Open Handset Alliance's Android might help give the industry the push it needs to solve the issues.

During the presentation I will explain my views in more detail and also show some hands-on examples of this thinking.

P.S. As for the icons? Well, I'd say that they might be dead today, but that they sure don't have to be. We just have to change the concept of them a little...

Why are they participating at MEX?

I've been following the PMN newsletter for quite some time and also heard so many good things about MEX, so I jumped at the possibility to inspire and get inspired at this fabulous gathering of great thinkers and doers within the industry!

Agenda link

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Web

www.oceanobservations.com

Cyrus Allen, Director of User Experience, Telstra

Bio

Cyrus Allen is Director, Customer Experience at Telstra Corporation, responsible for bringing to life the company vision of "oneclick, onetouch, onecommand simplicity' through embedding customers at the heart of product experience design. His role includes management of Telstra's user centered design activities, UI planning across Telstra's consumer, business and enterprise products and operational management of the new Telstra Experience Centre, a world-class customer engagement and demonstration facility.

Prior to joining Telstra in 2004, based in the UK Cyrus contributed strongly to the emerging mobile content industry as Director Global Content Alliances for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, where he led the early formation of Sony Ericsson's global content strategy, including innovative new content partnering, packaging and distribution models. Cyrus was also elected the 2002 Chair, Sony EuroTop Executives' team, a forum for exploring and implementing cross-company collaboration projects. Before joining the Sony Ericsson Joint Venture Cyrus held various roles in product, brand and business management at the local and global levels within Ericsson Mobile Communications.

Cyrus has extensive experience in the mobile domain, and sustains an ongoing fascination with the power of converged digital mediacommunications experiences to positively change people's lives.

Speaker's statement

My focus will be on the transition occuring in the mobile UI design space as presence and location enable a new way of managing communication experiences. IP-based messaging together with the emergence of broader unified messaging capabilities will blur the lines between traditional vertical communication channels and drive new possibilites for truly seamless, any-one, any-device, any-content communications. We are learning through our transformation work here at Telstra that integrated messaging and people-centric enablers like presence open both great opportunities as well as presenting many challenges. The seamless delivery of a truly integrated communications experience that supports and drives continual consumption of services and content may involve rethinking parts of the existing silo-based service and content delivery models employed today.

Why are they participating at MEX?

User experience is the new battleground for customers, revenue and profit. MEX brings together leaders from across the mobile experience value chain and is a key forum for exchanging ideas and best practise to further push the envelope of experience design that will ultimately reward customers and shareholders alike.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.telstra.com

Nick Allot, Chief Technology Officer, OMTP

Bio

Dr. Nicholas Allott joined OMTP as CTO in 2005 from Fastmobile, a company specialising in cutting edge convergent messaging solutions, where he was the Technical and Strategy Director. Prior to this Nick held a number of executive positions within Motorola including acting as Engineering Director for European internet division. Consequently, Nick has a blend of commercial, technical and strategic experience from across the mobile value chain. Before entering the mobile industry, Nick held a number of consultancy positions serving Gaming, Multimedia, Internet and Data Analysis Industries working for companies such as Shell and Pearson Group. Nick has a Joint Honours degree in Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology, and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence focussed on Computational Linguistics and Neural Network Technologies. He has published several articles in this area.

Web

www.omtp.org

Ken Blakeslee, Chairman, WebMobility Ventures

Bio

Ken's involvement over the past few years has been specifically in the area of private equity investing in the mobile sector, and his previous experience in developing telecoms, IT and web commerce business strategies spans 25+ years. His recent focus has been on the emerging new media content, applications and commerce methodologies, and the merging of these with the ubiquitous, personal access of mobile.

Ken's company, WebMobility Ventures, focuses on private investing and advising companies on bringing innovations in multimedia mobility to market. Prior to that he was Chairman of WirelessWorks with The Vesta Group, managing the investments of one of Europe's top networked venture capital funds, Frontiers Capital. Now fully invested, this fund focused on Mobile Internet enabling technologies and was a joint initiative between Vesta and the Carphone Warehouse. In addition to being a venture partner, he established and was Chairman of their Board of Advisors. He has also served on the board of directors and advisory board of several companies, all innovatively active in various sectors of mobile investment, product definition and service delivery. Previously, he was VP of Business Strategy for Wireless Internet at Nortel Networks.

Ken has held numerous industry positions including chairman of the Mobile Data Association, vice chair of the UMTS Forum Market Aspects Group, and in 2001 was named to the GSM Association 'roll of honour' for "longstanding commitment to the GSM industry". In 2004 Ken launched and produced "Cool and Connected" a 'Wearable Technology Fashion Show' and in 2006 the "Innovation Showcase" of emerging key technologies at 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona and also at the International Broadcasters Conference in Amsterdam.

Ken was born, raised and educated in New England, USA (NH and Maine mostly) and has settled in the UK "for the time being" (24 years so far!).

Web

Email kblakeslee@webmobility.com

Simon Crowfoot, Strategic Business Development Director, Spinvox

Bio

Simon Crowfoot is one of SpinVox founding employees. He has a rich history of customer service and product development in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, having forged his career before joining SpinVox in some of the largest and most successful UK-based retail organisations.

After graduating from Southampton University, Simon joined J Sainsbury plc progressing rapidly in the retail buying and marketing division. He was then recruited by Tesco plc to lead the fresh produce and grocery divisions. In this role he traveled extensively to source the highest quality products for the chain and helped Tesco grow from 13 per cent market share to 30 per cent market share in the UK.

His next move was to DSGi Group, Europe's leading electrical retailer. At DSGi he held a variety of roles including European Category Director and board member of The Link, a high street retail chain that was a joint venture with Mobile Carrier O2.

During his time at The Link, Simon met Christina Domecq, founder and CEO of SpinVox, and became intrigued about the potential for voice to text conversion. He joined SpinVox in 2005 to initially lead the company's strategy to partner with the Mobile Carriers.

After securing some of the company's initial Mobile Carrier partnerships and structuring the sales teams in line with the rapidly growing company, Simon turned his attention to SpinVox next target market - Web 2.0 - closing deals with companies such as Skype and LiveJournal. Simon now also leads the company's drive into its third strategic marketplace - Enterprise Unified Communications a potential corporate marketplace of 250 million customers worldwide.

In what little spare time he has Simon is a keen snowboarder, sailor and extreme sports enthusiast. Simon is married and lives in Bath with his wife and two young sons.

Agenda link

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Web

www.spinvox.com

Rudy de Waele, M-Trends

Bio

Advisor, Strategy & Market Development - Enabling Next Generation Mobile & Web Services Strategies

Rudy De Waele, a Belgian, living and working in Barcelona, Spain has been working in internet media since 1995 and in mobile since 1999. Often invited as a speaker and contributing writer to a number of professional publications, his visionary thoughts on Mobile 2.0 have gone around the world. You can view his last presentation on the subject here.

Currently he works with dotopen, an open innovation consulting firm advising start-ups and established companies with their strategic positioning, defining business models, creating alliances, and identifying market and funding opportunities.

Rudy is a creative, visionary, thoughtful and self-motivated strategist with international technology platform experience across the Internet, Mobile Internet and Wireless Media. Well-connected among key players in the digital media distribution and global mobile value chain players, he has worked on projects as diverse as R&D, competitive intelligence analysis, digital concept, content and event development, mobile and digital music distribution, building communities, social network analysis and development, and content integration of wiki's, blogs, moblogs and RSS feed technologies.

He is also part of the organizing committee of Mobile 2.0 Conference in San Francisco and the founder of MobileMonday Barcelona and MobileMonday Madrid.

Web

www.m-trends.org

Gus Desbarats, Chairman, The Alloy

Bio

Since Gus began his design career, in 1982, he has directed many hundreds of projects leading to tens of millions of mass-produced items, with recognised commercial and critical success. In 1999 he founded Alloy, which has since, grown rapidly to become the 4th largest product design consultancy in the UK. The Alloy team have created many mobile device designs for global brands (HP and Ericsson among others) but has recently been focusing on operator-led handset design driven by the demand for an excellent user experience. This includes work for Toshiba-Europe (DoCoMo), Inquam, BT and Radixs.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.thealloy.com

Steven Dotsch, Managing Director, WirelessMatch

Bio

Steven has over 20 years of experience as a venture capitalist and international corporate financier. He worked in The Netherlands at AMRO Bank, ABN Bank and Bank ITEC, before moving to the UK in April 1989 to work for Hill Samuel Bank, Singer & Friedlander Group Plc, Equity Growth Research Ltd, Libertas Capital Corporate Finance Ltd and Pridie Brewster Corporate Finance Ltd. Steven is a director of Match VC Investments Ltd.

In 2005, I launched WirelessMatch - the UK's wireless, online media and mobile telecoms funding network for sector dedicated business angels- catering for the funding requirements of earlier stage companies. This was followed by Match Capital Partners, launched earlier this year. Match Capital Partners is a logical extension to the introduction-only service of WirelessMatch: as well as the introduction to funders, private as well as institutional, Match Capital Partners offers a full blown small cap corporate finance service to revenue generative growth companies requiring later stage funding. Match Capital Partner's strategic relationship with Capital Partners Group allows Match Capital Partners to assist companies when they are considering a listing on ShareMark, PlusMarkets or AIM, as well as operating in a wide range of corporate finance advisory transactions (type, size and geography).

Web

www.wirelessmatch.co.uk

Mike Grenville, Director, 160characters.org

Bio

Mike founded 160Characters.org in 2001 to promote and report on the potential he saw then of mobile messaging. Activities of the forum include news, seminars and the annual Global Mobile Messaging Industry Awards. Mike is also a journalist and a frequent conference speaker about mobile messaging. He is also a campaigner and speaker on environmental issues.

Why are they participating at MEX?

The mobile industry is so focused on the technology that it consistently fails to explore the real needs of users. Since communication on the move brings so many benefits to users the industry has been able to grow so fast inspite of this. MEX brings one of those fresh air moments into the industry.

Web

www.160characters.org

Tim Haysom, Chief Marketing Officer, OMTP

Bio

Tim Haysom is the CMO of OMTP, having moved from Orange in 2007, where he served as Industry Relations Manager. Tim has spent over 16 years in the mobile telecoms industry, working first on the standardization of the GSM system, through the launch of the Orange network and moving through innovation and strategy roles. Tim has extensive knowledge in the areas of technology evaluation, business case development, due diligence and the overall environment of the global mobile telecoms, media and internet industry. He participates as a speaker at industry conferences and is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. Tim holds a B.Eng. degree in Electronics from the University of Southampton.

Web

www.omtp.org

Steve Ives, CEO, Taptu

Bio

Steve Ives is founder and CEO of Taptu Ltd, a mobile search company based in Cambridge which is developing a novel mobile search service. Previously he was founder and CEO of Trigenix, a Cambridge-based mobile software company which was acquired in 2004 by Qualcomm Inc. He worked for Qualcomm Europe as VP Business Development and then VP Strategic Marketing until mid- 2005.

Steve graduated in Biochemistry from Cambridge University, holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvannia, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. He also serves as non-executive Chairman and director of Teamstudio Inc, a software tools company with operations in the USA, UK and Japan.

During his period as CEO, Trigenix won the 2003 3GSM Award for Best Wireless Application Developer, and the 2003 Sunday Times Fasttrack 100 Award for Best Management Team. Steve has presented at several major industry events, including 3GSM in Cannes and the GSMA General Plenary. Past media coverage includes Britain's Financial Times and the Sunday Times.

Steve is married with four children and enjoys tennis, skiing and cycling. During a summer sabbatical in 2000, he raised $100,000 for UNICEF by cycling 7000 miles from San Francisco to Istanbul, crossing 2 deserts, 4 mountain ranges & 10 countries.

Agenda link

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Web

www.taptu.com

Scott Jenson, Manager for Mobile UI Design, Google

Bio

Scott Jenson has been doing user interface design and strategic planning for 20 years. He worked at Apple on System 7, Newton, and the Apple Human Interface guidelines. He was the director of Symbian's DesignLab, VP of product design for Cognima, and has been the Mobile UI Manager at Google for the last 3 years.

As a battle scarred veteran of the software industry, Scott has shipped a consumer spreadsheet, been a part of 2 Mac OS releases, 5 Newton product cycles, 4 commercial web site revisions, designed 3 different mobile phone UIs, run dozens of usability trials/focus groups/ethnographic studies, has fiddled with more bad XHMTL than he would care to admit, and has more than 12 patents granted.

Speaker's statement

Mobile search, for the most part, is dominated by the success of what has worked so well on the web. The current keyword/results model is simple, easy to understand, and scales well from novice to power users. However, the limitations are fairly obvious as well: the two most obvious being the limitations of text input and relying on web browsing on a small screen to explore the results.

What is surprising then is how this 'limited model' is proving remarkably useful in spite of these limitations. What is going on here? Are we lacking insight to find the right answers or are we asking the wrong questions?

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.google.com

JoEllen Kames, Senior Manager, Experience Planning, Motorola

Bio

JoEllen Kames develops and plans next generation user experiences within the experience planning group at Motorola. She has over fifteen years of design experience collaborating to develop human-centered information products and systems. Prior to working at Motorola, JoEllen honed her experience design skills working with HSBC and the Media Lab at Diamond Cluster International. At HSBC, JoEllen led the overall strategy for user research and testing and validation processes for the User Centered Design Team. Her early design career was in print and signage design at studio blue and Liska + Associates.

JoEllen holds a MDes in Strategic Design Planning from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, a BFA in Communication Design from the University of Illinois, Chicago and a BA in History from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

JoEllen is an active member of the design community. She is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Design in Chicago, teaching classes in interaction design and prototyping for interaction design. She was a co-program chair for the DUX 2007 conference. She is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Design in Chicago, teaching classes in interaction design and prototyping for interaction design. Her viewpoints on design have been included in design conferences such as About, With, For and the International Institute for Information Design and DUX as well as in various publications.

Speaker's statement

Information to be published shortly...

Why are they participating at MEX?

MEX is an interesting conference because the cross-section of attendees provides multiple perspectives on an exciting, volatile field. Bringing together competitors as well as complementers from device manufacturers, carriers, hardware manufacturers and software developers creates a well-informed, lively conversation that’s well worth the price of admission.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.motorola.com

Thomas Kleist, Director of Interaction Experience Design, Native

Bio

Thomas Kleist is Director of Interaction Experience Design at Native in London. Native specialises in developing exquisite product and interaction experiences through the expert application of an integrated design approach to some of the worlds most exciting companies and brands.

Thomas studied Industrial Design at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hanover, Germany, specialising at an early stage in bridging physical and on-screen interactions to create more meaningful and engaging product experiences. After graduating, he worked with Bosch Telecom on future mobile phone concepts and with it's successor company Tenovis (now Avaya) on integrated telecommunication solutions.

Since Thomas has joined Native, he has been instrumental in building a multi-disciplinary team of interactive designers working hand-in-hand with the product design team to provide award-winning design solutions and strategies to clients ranging from Audi and Bentley to HP and Orange.

Speaker's statement

The value proposition of mobile devices is drastically changing. As the technological barriers are disappearing, we as designers are experiencing a great sense of liberation to challenge and redefine the mobile user experience. While designing for the various aspects of mobile products used to be a very fragmented process, we finally have the opportunity to embrace a much more integrated design approach, encompassing the product and interaction design as well as all the associated services. The content itself is playing a pivotal role in the overall interaction within these emerging ecosystems.

The iPhone has demonstrated how access to content on a mobile device can be made much more seamless and enjoyable. From simple list browsing to photo and music navigation, we finally see a shift on mobile products towards much more intuitive and gesture-based interactions benefiting from a de-cluttered interface.

But while simple access to content is getting easier and more immersive, managing and organising content becomes an increasingly complex task. Using the iPhone to create playlists or to sort your photo library is still cumbersome. Advanced tagging of images, music or locations often relies on the use of dispersed online services that still don't work together very well. Users struggle to manage multiple libraries, living both locally on their devices and online. We at Native believe that simplified content access and organisation across multiple devices, platforms and online services will be the next big design challenge.

In addition, we believe that content navigation will become more sophisticated. New engaging ways to browse interfaces and related content will emerge, taking more references from the 3 dimensional world, while integrating more closely with existing and emerging hardware components and advanced sensor technology. A new breed of devices will make navigation even more instant and enjoyable while exploring more expressive ways of product design integration.

But will content-centric interfaces make the use of icons redundant? We agree that a certain type of iconography is facing extinction. Generic navigation elements and scroll-bars are replaced by gestures and multi-touch input. This is a huge improvement, which is instantaneously understandable as complexity is reduced and interaction is simplified and more direct.

On the other hand, there is a contrary trend of content being used to enhance iconography through dynamically integrating elements from the underlying personal library. Photostacks are showing our recent pictures rather than a generic image collection while the music player is visually transformed into a portal or our personal music collection. As generic icons disappear, we are increasingly seeing brands taking their place, living side-by-side with homescreen iconography. YouTube, Flickr, Google or Facebook logos are providing instant access to the underlying services translating the brand itself into interactive iconography.

Overall, we are working on elevating icons from being generic tools to being true jewels in the interface, well selected and executed in their design to reflect the value of the brand as well as relating to the personality of the user and the physical design of the product.

Agenda link

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Web

www.native.com

Kirsti Lehtimäki, User Experience Design Team Leader, IDEM

Bio

Interaction designer and Idem's user experience design team leader, Lehtimäki works in mobile experience research, concept design and mobile UI creation for a variety of Finnish and international clients.

Lehtimäki studied MA in Interaction Design at Royal College of London. Her background is in product design and textile electronics, having worked for several years at UK based textile innovation company Eleksen Ltd, preceeded by working at a product design consultancy Kinneir Dufort in Bristol.

Currently Lehtimäki designs physical interaction and graphical user interfaces, especially for phones being designed by the industrial design team at Idem. Additionally she designs tangible AV interfaces for museums and lectures at University of Art and Design Helsinki.

Speaker's statement

Functionality to a modern consumer is something beyond a feature list; functionality merely enables the users' digital practices, such as checking and replying to e-mails on the move, reading the news as soon as the RSS feed arrives... However, not all consumers have the practices; they may have much more specific needs that the mobile phones (with their impressive feature lists) still do not even answer today. The users wish for a phone that in itself offers a rich experience, but at the same time can disappear once the user engages in their mobile practices.

If the device is not seen merely as a feature list, it is assessed in terms of the look and feel of the device and it's user interface, the perceived usability or functionality and the brand. Many consumers are just waiting for the right mobile phone, offering the correct value proposal for them. So fashion itself is not the only motivator (although it does influence the purchase decision), but the entire package, the phone's on screen experience and it's brand carry equal weight.

The functionality should be designed together with the product appearance to match the user desires and current consumer trends. Mobile phone brands are often too generic to be in touch with these trends, thus these branded "fashion phones" have stuck a cord; every aspect of their experience is designed in to target the end users. Moreover, they can offer services that are meaningful to these users.

Agenda link

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Web

www.idem.fi

Kim Lenox, Senior Interaction Designer, Adaptive Path

Bio

Kim Lenox is a senior interaction designer at Adaptive Path. With over a decade of experience in software design and development, she is a strong believer in the power of user experience design to improve our daily lives. Kim's primary focus is working with clients as a researcher, trainer, and designer for mobile, devices, and application software.

Before joining Adaptive Path, Kim led interaction design projects for Samsung Electronics America, where she researched and designed interfaces for next-generation and near-term consumer electronics products such as handheld devices, appliances, and home entertainment. Before Samsung, Kim worked as a freelance designer, developer, and producer of interactive media for a variety of mediums, including CD-ROMs, interactive kiosks, websites, DVD interfaces, interactive TV, and children's handheld devices.

Her past clients and employers include AT&T, Bolt Peters, Excite@Home, LeapFrog, NewLine Cinema, Organic, Palm, Samsung, UPC/Chello, and a variety of bubble start-ups of dot-com lore.

Kim is a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and a founding member of the Interaction Design Association's (IxDA) San Francisco chapter. In her previous life, she was a fine artist and professional photographer. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography back in the day of film canisters and chemicals from San Jose State University and in the early 1990s created a video installation that was part of a two-person show at San Francisco Camerawork.

Speaker's statement

Consumer electronics products are tapping into the emotional value of design, delivering products that are trendy, fashionable and offer users an outlet for self-expression.

The industry has been successful in understanding the desirability of physical form and aesthetics. But, in doing so, have encouraged a dangerous behavior: mobile phones are being discarded like last season's clothing.

As product designers and manufacturers, we have the opportunity and responsibility to shift the focus of disposable technology accessories into products that are longer-lasting and rise above the fickle trends of fashion.

But how do we make this shift? Rather than forcing consumers to remain "loyal" by locking them in to a two-year contract, why not create products that offer services and features that not only support the users desires of self-expression but also products that meet their needs? We should be designing products that have engaging and pleasurable experiences through better hardware/software interaction design. We see great examples in products like Danger's Sidekick and Apple's iPhone. These are both fashionable and functional. While they may be purchased for the initial excitement of the shiny-shiny-new, they are not easily discarded because they are so much more useful than the average fashion phone.

As the mobile phone industry matures, we have an obligation to change the business models from disposable technology to providing services that support consumers desires and needs. Through observational research we can understand users' behaviors, motivations, needs, and pain-points to unearth possible opportunities for improving the overall product experience. With this understanding we can design products that are pleasurable to use and deliver compelling services to generate true loyalty. Nokia and Apple lead the way in designing products that support a full range of services for consumers. In both cases the device is only part of the total experience equation.

Takeaway: Trendy, fashionable phones get people in the door, but quality user experience and design keeps customers engaged and loyal.

Why are they participating at MEX?

Many mobile conferences today focus on marketing and advertising revenue whereas MEX is a gathering of mobile industry players concerned about designing compelling user experiences. I'm particularly interested in MEX because my work is about sharing knowledge of how to design for users' needs and desires. By speaking in a workshop setting, we have the opportunity to share knowledge through discussion and collaboration. MEX has set up the conference in a way that will offer the highest contribution from all, not just the few invited talking heads.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.adaptivepath.com

Norman Lewis, Chief Strategy Officer, Wireless Grids Corporation

Bio

Dr Norman Lewis is the Chief Strategy Officer for the Wireless Grids Corporation, USA. Prior to joining WGC, he was the Director of Technology Research for Orange, UK. Prior to this Lewis was the Director of Technology Research for the Home Division of France Telecom and of Freeserve.com. He is the Chairman of the International Telecommunications Union's TELECOM Forum Programme Committee.

Speaker's statement

My talk will focus on digital children and why their behaviour will be the major source of future disruption. The customer of the future is little understood or catered for. The belief that we can carry on as we have and expect different results is foolhardy. The generation who have grown up with digital technologies at their fingertips no longer make a distinction between the off- and on-line worlds. Nor do they think or care about connectivity. Digital technologies are merely tools through which they appropriate popular culture, particularly to express themselves and gain acknowledgment, connect with their peers and access entertainment. Instead of focusing upon segmentation, the industry needs to understand at a far deeper level what drives technology interactions by today's digital children - tomorrow's customers. Research and interactive/collaborative platforms that can model these behaviours and identify hidden needs and interests, can help to build frameworks for future innovation. Anticipating the pain of the future customer is vital for product and service innovation. Companies that understand that the future lies in partnering with the customer - giving them the tools, applications and platforms that will enable them to decide how and with whom and what they wish to connect - will be both able to design compelling experiences and develop new business models that place the end-user, not devices, technologies nor the network at the centre of the universe.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.wgrids.com

Chris Liu, Managing Director, Fjord

Bio

Chris brings more than a decade of experience in designing interactive solutions. He began his career leading Sony's mobile UI design team in the US and in Germany before leaving to help set up the Munich office for US based e-commerce consultancy Sapient. During his tenure at Sapient, Chris lead project teams delivering solutions for high profile clients such as Staples, Deutche Telekom, T-Online and Vodafone.

Prior to joining Fjord, Chris headed up the Human Interface Design group at Sony's European design centre in London. His responsibility ranged from working with Sony Europe's venturing unit providing future concept product and service propositions to delivering some of the most iconic Sony products in history: the BRAVIA television series as well as the NAV-U line of personal navigation products.

Speaker's statement

I would use the word 'beauty' instead of 'fashion'. Beauty and functionality historically do not go together because they satisfy different things. Beauty fulfills desires, while functionality fulfills needs. Us humans, we naturally gravitate towards our desires.

As the phone business matures, a significant part of it will resemble similarities to the fashion business, but with a twist where technology adds spice and passion to our desires and fuel for the rationale.

The Pink Razr, Apple's iPhone and Nokia's Vertu are icons which our passions and desires gravitate toward. They are all very different but yet fulfill the same core need of mobile voice.

The challenge now is to make functionality beautiful.

Some of the questions I'll try to examine include: looking at the fashion industry - Salvatore Ferragamo versus MBT, how to beautify functionality and the power of a 'beautiful, fashionable and functional' brand.

Why are they participating at MEX?

Looking at the topics for this year's conference, it is clear to me that MEX is providing much needed thought leadership in a space that has become increasingly commoditised. 2008, is not only the year of the bad touch screen, but also the year that the industry needs to wake up and start looking at how content, contacts, and devices can interact and flourish within this space, thus moving the industry beyond just voice and text. This year's MEX topics are both thought provoking and absolutely just in time.

Agenda link

Click here to read the full session description for this speaker.

Web

www.fjord.co.uk

JD Moore, Senior UI Designer, Nokia

Bio

Developed an interest in IxD while working as an Information Systems Technician in Yokosuka, Japan from 1998 - 2001. Moved to San Diego, California to pursue a BSc In Cognitive Science with Specialization in Human-Computer Interaction. While conducting special studies at UCSD's Interactive Cognition Lab, interned with QUALCOMM's 'User Experience Group' and began studying regional and cultural aspects of mobile User Interface Design.

Joined Nokia's San Diego CDMA headquarters upon graduation in 2006.

Currently a lead UI Designer with Nokia's Java Development Group in the United Kingdom. Focusing on innovation-related projects and enabling a full ISP experience via Java mobile applications.

Passion lies in mobile application development via User-Centered Design, focusing on regional and cultural aspects, within the context of emerging markets.

Specialties include Java Micro Edition - Technical and UI Design; Regional and cultural awareness for emerging markets.

Speaker's statement

Information & Communications Technology (ICT) has reached a level of relevancy and convenience - in the shape of the mobile phone - that now enables it to be useful, practical and affordable in emerging markets. This is very exciting as it opens up a world of first-time opportunities for a rather significant percentage of the world's population.

ICT in International Development has a somewhat chequered history. (Imagine villagers without access to clean drinking water feigning interest in aging PCs at an "Information Centre".) The tremendous success of the mobile phone has significantly overshadowed past failures, but we're not yet out of the woods. Unfortunately, emerging markets often remain subject to imposed technologies developed sans contextual research or design.

I believe it is time to evolve the relationship between International Development and ICT in order to design for - and with - populations in emerging markets. I offer a look at blending Ethnography, User Centered Design, and International Development principles, to move towards regionally and culturally relevant services, products, and experiences.

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Web

www.nokia.com

Stuart O'Brien, Editor, Mobile Entertainment

Bio

Stuart gained a BSc in Media Studies at South Bank University before joining Daily Mail & General Trust subsidiary Market Tracking International as a media analyst in July 1998. In November 2000, he started work at Informa Media Group as an analyst within the company's reports division. Between November 2000 and January 2002, he wrote more than 20 titles encompassing the video game, Internet, film, music and television industries. Stuart's work within the video game industry saw him promoted to reporter for Games Analyst, an Informa Media Group newsletter, from where he moved on to become senior reporter on Informa Telecoms Group publications Mobile Games Analyst and Mobile Media. Stuart left Informa in July 2004 to join Intent Media, where he is now editor of mobile content trade magazine Mobile Entertainment, which launched in March 2005.

Web

www.mobile-ent.biz

Kieran del Pasqua, Interaction Designer, Intel

Bio

He is an interaction designer with the People and Practices group at Intel where his focus is on making things real based on insights of the world around him.

Kieran is currently fascinated by the design challenges of blending mobile technologies into the existing fabric of our daily routines. He has led or designed multiple mobile experience projects covering topics such as family co-ordination, inter-personal computing and context awareness.

He finds people watching fascinating but likes getting involved even more, is annoyed by design that does not truthfully connect to a human goal, and loves falling off a surfboard.

Why are they participating at MEX?

I believe the next true breakthroughs in the mobile experiences are going to be reached though an integrative approach that will allow us to break away from pure screen based design constraints. Because of the wide representation of industry players attending MEX I believe the open exchange of ideas and methods we will be able to explore the true potential of designing a uniquely mobile experience.

Agenda link

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Web

www.intel.com

Jo Rabin, founder, MobileMonday London

Bio

Jo Rabin is an independent consultant working in the mobile field. One of his major assignments at the moment is working with dotMobi (mTLD), the registry for .mobi top level domain). dotMobi has a special interest in providing an enhanced user experience of the Web from mobile devices. As part of his role he represents dotMobi at W3C, and is editor of the Mobile Web Best Practice Recommendations and co-editor of mobileOK Basic Tests. Other recent assignments have been with Segala (on whose behalf he was he was co-author of the W3C Web Content Labelling XG report), Flirtomatic and AmbieSense. He worked for a number of years with Reuters Limited where he held various roles, including CTO of Reuters Mobile as well as being responsible for the development of Reuters foreign exchange trading network. Earlier in his career he helped start the UK's first public electronic mail system, Telecom Gold.

Web

www.mobilemonday.org.uk

Antony Ribot, Creative Director, Ribot

Bio

Antony is co-founder and creative director of ribot; a design house focused on interface design for small screen devices. Within the first year of business, ribot have won business with Orange labs, BT and lastminute.com labs among others.

Antony spent his early years with London-based Tomato, during which, amongst other things, he earnt a D&AD pencil award for his work on an interactive project for Levis. He then decided to take a break from London and head to the seaside, earning an MSc scholarship to study ants, bees and termites at Sussex University.

After an inspirational year researching the emergent properties of simple agent systems, Antony worked for three years as J2ME developer and lead designer for Brighton mobile outfit Future Platforms, headed by the honourable Tom Hume.

Speaker's statement

People used to buy records, tapes, CDs, minidiscs... What do they buy now? Electronic purchases have quickly become the easiest way to obtain what you want. For a while, we'd lost the lovely tangible aspect of old media, but we're seeing tangibility slowly creeping back through the interface: digital album covers have been around for a while now, but by adding touch and the interaction of flipping that album cover around to see the track listings, the user is reminded of the paper-based sleeve.

This is just an example of how subtle changes in the user interface can affect the overall user experience whilst maintaining a high UI consistency throughout.

Fewer questions = a more luxurious user experience.

What design techniques can be employed to convey a sense of luxury?

Well, luxury is ease. Luxury is effortless.

Most mobile user interfaces really aren't that easy to use. Locating and successfully performing functions on most devices is hardly effortless right now - in fact it's rather lacklustre. So:

Easy + effortless = simple (+ fun?) = luxury

Confusing + lacking in consistency = Overly complex (+ frustrating?) = lacklustre

Case study of luxury: iPhone iTunes store purchases.

User:

- Touches icon to launch iTunes store -> sees great album - Touches £9.99 icon -> turns into 'Buy' icon -> Touches 'Buy' - Enters iTunes password -> album bought; added to music library (charged to iTunes account) - Plays album

A happy, quick and effortless process.

This iPhone functional process is advertised (telly) as something desirable - fashion is function!

Case study of lacklustre: On-portal music video purchase.

User:

- Navigates to browser somewhere in application grid. "Where is it?" - Launches browser, carrier deck loads by default - User navigates to and chooses music/video link option -> shown a page with latest/most popular videos -> "Where is what I want?" - User eventually finds video and clicks to download (web interface slightly irritating, clunky and pop-music led) - Downloaded to phone and charged to mobile contract - "Will it download fully?" "Where is it put?" "What about data charges?"

A mix of interfaces / applications throughout result in a fragmented feeling. User asks a lot more (unnecessary) questions through this purchase journey.

Such function is so pre-iPhone - but what was once acceptable is now deemed undesirable.

Why are they participating at MEX?

We are a small and passionate team of designers. Inspired by simplicity and elegance, our goal is to push the boundaries of mobile interface design bit by bit. We focus on the early stages of product design & development on mobile - we'd like to share our experiences and the design process that we've established.

Agenda link

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Web

www.ribot.co.uk

Bryan Rieger, Creative Director, Future Platforms

Bio

Bryan is a designer and researcher with a background in theatre design and classical animation. He has spent well over a decade designing digital experiences for a few large companies you've quite likely heard of, and many more modestly sized, yet equally interesting companies that you have probably never heard of - at least yet.

Bryan became obsessed with all things mobile while on sabbatical wandering around South East Asia watching people do simply amazing and unexpected things with their mobile devices. Originally from Toronto, Canada; Bryan moved to Brighton in 2007 where he now heads up design at Future Platforms and spends his days creating delightful mobile experiences.

Speaker's statement

I'm really not big on black and white. Quite honestly I think the world is generally best viewed with a healthy variety of shades of grey. The idea that fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality may make for a great sound-byte, but I think that in reality we're likely going to have to find some middle ground – especially where technology is concerned.

Some of the biggest criticisms of the iPhone are the quality of the camera and the lack of 3G. In a world where we communicate with others via our cameras that just happen to be connected to a pretty quick pipe it seems quite odd to design an absolutely beautiful device that largely ignores this fact.

A few years back the RAZR was THE phone to be seen with, despite the fact that it had a horrible camera and a user interface to match. Time passed. The RAZR became unfashionable compared to other devices; and unsurprisingly making it pink didn't seem to make it relevant again for very long.

No doubt that fashion is a very strong initial motivator, but fashion is generally something that absolutely thrives on change. With many mobile plans locking users into a specific device for long periods of time, where are the other opportunities for fashion to motivate through the relationship with the operator?

As engineers develop new technologies we as designers should be working with them to understand and explore what's possible and how to translate the functional aspects of a technology to an experience that not only doesn't confuse or frustrate the user; but might actually make them crack a smile.

Why are they participating at MEX?

I can't think of a better way to not only share our ideas and passion, but also to learn from others in different markets or sectors of the mobile industry.

Agenda link

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Web

www.futureplatforms.com

Andrea Rosengren, Interaction Designer, Ocean Observations

Bio

As a Mobile Interaction Designer, Andrea is passionate about creating inspiring mobile user experiences that unfolds over time in a sleek way. Luckily that is what she has been doing in a diverse set of projects since joining design consultancy company Ocean Observations in 2005.

A dedication to create innovative interaction conceptsis what drives her and that has resulted in two patented designs.Her other specialities related to interaction design are user research, prototyping, motion design, user testing and user experience strategy.

Perhaps you could tell by herMSc in Media Technology that Andrealoves tech, but she wants to package the latest technological innovations in a simple, beautiful and fun way, while making sure the client's brand is reflected in the design.

Simply you could say that she has a passion for building great things.

Andrea has worked with clients such as Skype Mobile, 3, Armani, Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson and Nike. She is also a frequent lecturer at design and technology schools.

Speaker's statement

Yes, people would rather buy a sleekly shaped phone in a nice-looking colour than one with a tag saying "A2DP" or "HSPA". And the industry could easily have avoided the mistake of focusing on these kinds of features by taking a quick look in a fashion store.

Here people don't make decisions about what to buy from reading tags about the length of the cotton fibres. People assume those things are ok since the material feels, looks and falls great. So why do the folks in the mobile phone industry brag about their advanced technology even though people don't understand a word they are saying? Why don't they just show what the technology can do in terms of beautiful user experience?

Colours, shapes and textures are great when it comes to giving people that 'must have' feeling. But I think there is a lot more to learn about motivators from the fashion industry. For example:

- People are obviously prepared to pay loads of money for a bag or a watch where every detail is carefully worked on and each piece of material is handpicked. That's because it gives a feeling of luxury even if no large diamonds are attached. Perhaps this could mean that people are willing to pay extra for phones where all the detail sloppiness seen today is gone?

- And could the fact that the quality of haute couture pieces is judged by the seams on the inside (you should actually be able to wear it inside out) tell us something about the importance of a carefully designed "inside" even in a mobile phone? I truly wish that we've now seen the last phones with great industrial design hiding a hopeless GUI that gives the whole phone a low-brow impression.

- The fashion industry understands that we get bored of a certain style after a while and launches an anti-style for the next collection. In fashion it is everything to be first with the new and nothing to be a dumb follower. So let's agree that when "the new iPhone" comes no one tries to copy it, ok? Because it is just no fun.

There are more examples, which I'll touch upon during the workshop, but to summarize, I hope we are about to say goodbye to the feature nerdfest and hello to interesting fashion influences in the mobile industry beyond borrowing other brands' logos!

Why are they participating at MEX?

The strong focus on strategic mobile user experience, all the creative mobile heads that I hope to share ideas with and PMN's refreshing and challenging view of the mobile industry makes MEX hard to resist.

Agenda link

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Web

www.oceanobservations.com

Allen Scott, General Manager, NeuStar NGM

Bio

Allen Scott has more than eighteen years experience at the cutting edge of IT working in software, media, the Internet and telecommunications.

Allen has worked for several start-ups and even set up his own company specialising in telecommunications consultancy. Allen has held senior executive positions at companies such as Emblaze, Ecom, Vivao, Vodafone Global, AT&T and Novell, covering regions from Europe to the Middle East and Africa.

Allen holds a BSc in Geography and a Post-graduate Diploma in IT.

Allen currently heads up NeuStar's Next Generation Messaging division. Allen has been responsible for the development of NeuStar's mobile IM solutions with more than 30 mobile phone operators across the globe.

NeuStar NGM is the de facto market leader in the development and roll out of mobile Instant Messaging solutions to mobile network operators across the globe and Allen Scott heads up this business from NeuStar's offices based outside of London.

Speaker's statement

Technology changes but people do not. The desire to communicate is a fundamental human desire and has driven human development. That is why the mobile phone industry is the huge billion dollar industry it is now and will continue to be in the future.

But it is easy to forget, with embedded digital cameras, MP3 players, FM radios, mobile TV, MMS, etc that the real reason we all carry and use mobile technology is to communicate from person to person or from person to machine.

This is why I believe the contact list is and will remain the most important part of a mobile phone. It is where we keep our most precious information, where we start the process of communication and the first point of contact with the people in our communities.

Despite certain views to the contrary, technology does not create solutions to problems that do not exist and the development of social networks has come at a time when generational social changes have taken place. People move home more often, they change jobs more often and people move out of their local communities into new ones, thereby developing new and more complicated social circles.. As communities become more diverse, so the challenge of remaining in contact grows. By the age of 40 it is possible to have had several jobs and lived in a few different places. People no longer grow up in the same neighbourhood as their families and friends and stay there.

Connecting diverse communities and enabling easy communication between them has been a success story of the digital age.

The growth of social networking on the PC, much of it based around messaging, has been phenomenal and it is inevitable that social networking is making it to the mobile phone in a big way.

Like everyone else, I use a number of different tools to communicate with people: IM, SMS, voice, email, social networking sites and others. On each occasion I consider my context and the context of the person I am communicating with and make decisions based around that.

I am a member of LinkedIn for business networking, but Facebook for social interaction. These are not exclusive nor should they be. They are examples of different communities. This human behaviour will not change, so the challenge within the mobile environment is first to make it as easy as possible for people to access their communities from one place within the mobile phone, and secondly to make it as simple as possible for people to communicate within and between communities. When you have PC access, it is simple to move from one application to another. I can message in MSN, move to Facebook, check my emails and video conference with a buddy at the touch of a button.

However, in the mobile environment, the user cannot toggle between applications so easily. The unique nature of the mobile environment requires different solutions. Just as mobile TV needs to be filmed in a different way for a mobile audience (if you do not believe me try watching golf on a mobile phone and spot the ball), so the mobile social networking experience will need to be different too.

This is why presence and IP messaging is so exciting. Presence enables users to make intelligent choices based on context. You know if someone is available or not and this triggers the decision whether to communicate and how. The power of presence is potentially very interesting in the mobile environment, not least because the heart of the mobile phone is the address book – the place where we keep all our names and numbers. Already several operators today are working to deliver presence enabled address books.

Taking this a step further could enable users to automatically update their status in any number of different communities. By looking in my presence enabled address book I would be able to see if a friend is currently on MSN or active in Facebook, if they are taking calls not texts or if they are unavailable altogether. This does two important things. First it puts people at the centre of the mobile experience – you no longer access functions to communicate, instead you access the individual and find out how to communicate with them. Secondly, it enables people to communicate with context. No more missed calls, no more text messages sent to someone five minutes after they have boarded a plane. Each person can communicate knowing that they are using a medium that is suitable to the other.

Knowing a person’s presence status also enables a host of additional interesting opportunities. Someone wishing to shop could opt to receive advertising promotions on their mobile for an hour from clothes outlets nearby. A gamer could opt to change their presence status to “ready to game” and look out for others who want to play the latest game on the network. A passenger waiting at a train station could receive the latest timetable information automatically. Each time, a combination of the user and the network understanding the person’s context enables them to access information they need and make intelligent choices.

To me what makes communication special is beyond what is said. Different accents, dialects, nuances and body language enables us to communicate in context – we respond to what we see and hear. Presence allows us to do this through messaging as well as opening up a host of new services and new revenue opportunities to the industry, which is why this excites me so much.

Agenda link

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Web

www.neustar.biz/ngm/

Jean Schmitt, Managing Director, Sofinnova Partners

Bio

Jean Schmitt is a Managing Partner and he invests in technology. He joined Sofinnova Partners in December 2001. He focuses on opportunities in the telecom sector. Prior to joining, he was the CEO and founder of SLP InfoWare, a world leader in predictive customer relationship management software for the telecom industry, which he sold to Gemplus in 2000. Jean then became Vice President, Telecom Solutions and Applications at Gemplus. Jean is a board member of Esmertec (which went public on the Swiss Stock Exchange), of Inside Contactless, Purple Labs, Sensitive Objects, Blyk and Upek. He graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST) and has a post-graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence.

Agenda link

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Web

www.sofinnova.fr

Fabio Sergio, Creative Director, Frog Design

Bio

Fabio Sergio is an interaction design and user experience strategist. He's currently Creative Director at frog design in Milano, Italy.

Fabio's happiest in areas at the intersection of design, technology and (social) connectivity, working on projects that wrap business scenarios around people's desires and dreams. It has been scientifically proven that his heart beats a bit faster when the term "mobile" is mentioned, even casually.

Prior to joining frog design Fabio was an Associate Professor of Interaction Design at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea. Previously he was Sr. Manager at 3 Italy, where he was responsible for the industrial design and user interface of mobile handsets and accessories for the Italian market, and where he worked extensively on value-added mobile services. Prior to joining 3 Italy he was a User Experience Director at XYZ Reply, a User Experience Lead and Sr. Information Architect at Razorfish Milano, and an Interaction Designer in the Global Consumer Design Center of Whirlpool Europe.

Fabio is an experienced lecturer on mobile interaction design and user experience matters, with participations to international conferences such as PMN's Mobile User Experience, Design Engaged, From Business to Buttons and Frontiers of Interaction, in addition to various educational venues. He is a visiting professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Scuola Politecnica di Design and Domus Academy. He is also a member of the invitation-only International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which selects nominees and winners for the Webby Awards, the leading honor for web sites.

Speaker's statement

It is no longer sufficient to create functional, emotionally engaging, beautiful products, it is becoming essential to have them resonate with people's value systems. Only a deep understanding of what creates meaning in people's lives will result in shaping user experiences that attract and engage people, and this is especially true for artifacts such as mobile devices, that are considered to be personal in nature, and are also very often used as tools of self-expression.

Fashion is arguably one of the strongest examples in this sense, but not necessarily the only one.

This change in focus also represents a shift in the complexity of the issues being faced, and design-at-large is once again raising to meet these new challenges.

Agenda link

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Web

www.frogdesign.com

Mike Short, Vice President, R&D & Chairman, Mobile Data Association, O2

Bio

Mike's career spans 33 years in Electronics and Telecommunications, with the last 20 years in Mobile Communications. He was appointed Contracts Director of Cellnet in 1989 dealing with major infra-structure investments and UK interconnect agreements. In 1993 the focus moved to launching Cellnet's GSM service and establishing Roaming Agreements.

He was elected Chairman of the GSM Association for 1995/96 and served on their Executive Board for 5 years. He has also served as a member of the UK Home Office Internet Task Force and UK OSAB (Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board) until 2006 and 2007 respectively.

Mike has chaired the MDA since 1998, leading the Association as Chairman /spokesperson and on Public Policy.

He was appointed VP Technology for O2 Group in 2000, Visiting Professor at Surrey University in 2003 and to the Coventry University Board in 2006. He is a Fellow of BCS/CIPS/RGS, a Member of IET and the Royal Television Society

Mike's focus today is on Third Generation cellular, Mobile TV and steering Telefonica O2 Europe's Group Research and Development in mobile.

Why are they participating at MEX?

I have seen this event evolve to an agora of interest in the mobile experience, from devices to accessories, from personal to business need, from voice to data and from indoor to automotive, and now to Applications. Long may MEX develop to enhance the user experience beyond the buttons of today to the services and solutions of tomorrow. I look forward to the MEX pragmatic approach to breaking down the digital divide and to removing unnecessary barriers to usage and adoption in a much wider wireless world.

Agenda link

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Web

www.o2.co.uk

Carl Taylor, Director of Applications & Services, Global Technology Strategy, Hutchison Whampoa Europe

Bio

Carl has worked for Hutchison since 2000 developing new applications and services for its 3G networks, and in the creation of Hutchison's mobile technology strategy including the X-series products. Carl is Hutchison's representative to the GSMA Executive Management Committee, the Services Review Group and the Mobile Advertising Programme. He is also the principal Hutchison representative to the dotMobi Product Steering Group, and W3C. He has a history in mobile technologies dating back to 1987 with the first CT2 cellphone systems.

Speaker's statement

Operators need to differentiate to compete - this is the GSM lesson about growing the wider market. However, mobile application developers are forced by fragmentation to spend money on multiple versions of their client software to satisfy operator requirements.

Fragmentation has been long-present in the developer environment: Java/Brew, Symbian/MS/AppleOS/Android, Flash and a plethora of Linux standards - resulting in porting issues, roadmap prioritisation and a limited customer base. Portability of applications between platforms inhibits growth of the developer community, spawning platform-specific ecosystems and an applications testing industry. We must consider the lessons from J2ME and what could happen with Mobile AJAX.

Off-portal strategies for developers and software as a service: Web 2.0 means developing software as services to run from the cloud. Will fragmentation push developers towards off-portal strategies? OTT services usually mean operators don't share the revenue stream. There are technical solutions - improvements in device databases, certification and compliance - but at what cost? The developer community needs more realism - fragmentation spreads the developer project base but does not kill innovation. However, fragmentation does impose limitations on investment in developers' companies. Too often, developers' ignorance of operators' needs leads to failure and or consolidation.

Why are they participating at MEX?

The mobile user experience is fundamental to the way an operator presents itself and creates differentiation. Improvements in user experience change the way consumers perceive their operator. MEX is an open debate which is dynamic, bold and stimulating - attributes that should foster new thinking and simultaneously impose realism on its published manifesto.

Agenda link

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Web

www.three.co.uk

Robert Weideman, Senior Vice President Marketing, EMEA, Nuance

Bio

Robert Weideman leads the EMEA Marketing and Product Marketing organizations for the complete range of Nuance solutions, products and services. He has held senior executive positions within Nuance since 2001, including as Chief Marketing Officer and as General Manager for Nuance Productivity Applications Division. Previous to Nuance Mr. Weideman has held executive marketing positions for Cardiff Software, an Adobe Systems' portfolio company and TGS.com, and over 8 years held senior product and marketing management positions at Computer Associates International. Mr. Weideman holds a B.S. in Business Administration, Computer Information Systems from San Diego State University.

Agenda link

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Web

nuance.com/mobileexperience