Apologies to readers for the total absence of postings over the last weeks, but I’ve been busy on some important projects - more on these in subsequent posts. I was at 3GSM in Barcelona last month. I like 3GSM. It’s brash, inspiring, full of interesting people and in Barcelona. Yes, I can recognise the perspective in Martin Geddes’s Telepocalypse blog, but that’s an aspect of all large business events.

Even so, if you get stuck in a Costa Brava hotel miles away from the city, make sure that the 3GSM catalogue isn’t your only bedtime reading. The endless, semi-literate blurb describing “leading suppliers of global solutions” and platforms - often last year’s offering with a thick layer of buzzword friendly gloss - purporting to deliver bucket loads of ARPU becomes deeply depressing to anyone with the remotest respect for language. Despite the frequent claims for customer-centricity, it’s hard to get a sense of any real concern for the customer. And that is the real problem with business speak: as any viva examiner knows, a lack of linguistic integrity masks deeper flaws in thinking. Many of these suppliers need to take a shower and think about customer value.