The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch.
Craig:
Over the past decade, one of the premier conferences in the world of broadband has taken place annually in Colorado, Mountain Connect. With a consistently top-notch roster of speakers, presenters along with input from industry and community leaders nationwide, Mountain Connect provides a well-balanced foundation of knowledge and information designed to assist Western United States communities in making educated and informed decisions on building or expanding telecommunication’s infrastructure.
Craig:
Our guest today, the Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Connect, Jeff Gavlinski. Jeff, welcome to The Broadband Bunch.
Mountain Connect – Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program Start
Craig:
Give us a bit of a background on Mountain Connect. How it got designed and the aim for Mountain Connect.
Jeff:
I’ll go back to the very beginning before I had any direct involvement with Mountain Connect. It was really set up as a day, and a half seminar format to talk about Colorado’s BTOP grant (Broadband Technology Opportunities Program) and its impact to the Western slope of Colorado. The Western slope is a place where we had a lot of gaps in broadband infrastructure back then and arguably to some degree we still do today. I started, Colorado’s first local technology planning team down in the Southwest part of the state and as such, I started attending this event. The guy who started it basically handed it over to me over the course of the past six or seven years. I’ve taken it from a very narrowly focused event and branched out into covering the Western US as a primary focus. The primary customers are our attendees that I’m looking to help, are the tier two through tier four communities and counties.
Jeff:
Mountain Connect has really grown, (this year is an odd year as you know because of the pandemic), and I was expecting 700 plus people. To put that into perspective, the last year Mountain Connect really focused on our BTOP grant, there were about 92 people there. So it’s grown quite a bit. Now we have folks from all over United States, Canada, parts of Europe, and even parts of Asia who attend.
Mission to Inform Communities on Broadband Technology
Craig:
The obvious need for becoming well-informed when organizations, municipalities, communities are looking at making the jump into broadband, because there are so many unanswered questions and especially for the uninitiated. I mentioned it in the open, the consistently top-notch roster of speakers and presenters that you assemble each year, that are just treasure troves of knowledge and experience.
Jeff:
As a matter of focus, I’ve always included the wireless industry segment as part of Mountain Connect. I think that’s a fair and balanced way of doing things going back six or seven years and I continue to do that. If anything has made our events stand out, is the fact that I have a personal strategy of trying to turn over 50 to 70% of my speakers year-over-year. I’m always in search of new voices, new content in ways to stretch the status quo. If we don’t challenge our audience with what’s coming, then we’re doing a disservice to the audience as a whole.
Craig:
As you began preparation for the 2020 edition of Mountain Connect, what were the focuses on where things were evolving that you wanted to have your speakers geared?
Jeff:
The pandemic has caused quite a shift and a focus in the industry. I think it’s really important too, to talk about how the pandemic has shaped conferences going forward. Especially this year as most, if not all are virtual, no different with Mountain Connect. If you look at statistics, you cannot expect to capture a full day or consecutive days of someone’s attention while they’re viewing from their home office. You have to look at a condensed version, which means you have to have a condensed version of your agenda.
Jeff:
My sessions will only last for 30-minutes and I like this idea for two reasons. One, it forces folks to take out the fluff. It forces them to get to the point and keep people more engaged. Again, we have to understand that our events are competing with other distractions in the home office, whether it’s emails or other phone calls. I think we have to keep it short, concise, and to the point.
Smart Cities, Wireless and Emerging Technologies
Jeff:
If there’s one complaint I get, which I think is actually a good thing is that, I have too much good competing content at the same time throughout the balance of the conference. That just means that I have interesting content that people really want to see. The one thing virtual conferences do is, they allow for people to attend one session, and then on demand go back and do the things that they also had interest in. In some ways there’s a plus to doing this, and so what I’m doing is, I’ve had to condense my agenda this year.
I’m focusing on community development, which has a lot of subtopics in it, wireless and emerging technologies. I can’t have the same construct I had as I would in person so the emerging technologies is really a replacement for a term I don’t really like, which is smart cities. I’m not a big fan of that term so a couple of years ago I changed it to emerging technologies.
Craig:
Jeff, you alluded to it just a moment ago with regard to how this is obviously such an incredibly different year for those who have to plan and carry out symposiums, seminars, conferences, trade shows. This year’s event Mountain Connect will be held in late October, on the 26th and 27th. Obviously when the decision was made to go to the virtual alternative, you’ve addressed one of the biggest issues. I think that’s so key with regard to the limitation on a 30 minute block for any of your speakers. It’s the old adage that the mind can only absorb that which the seat can endure.
Craig:
Then when you talk about trying to keep people’s attention when you’re dealing with them remotely, it’s a very different component. Obviously much time, much thought and preparation have gone into this. As we approach the final month upwards of Mountain Connect 2020, how do you feel about where that has taken you?
Engaging Broadband Content and Technology – Virtually
Jeff:
Early on when I initially had to cancel the event and by the way, we’re still under I think a state mandate. The last I looked we were still limited to 50 people indoors, but it’s been a strange road quite frankly.
Jeff:
Back in April I thought about my options for a virtual platform? A lot of companies were pivoting to try to create viable virtual solutions. As someone who organizes events like these, I was concerned about, how do we engage people who are attending virtually? I’ve attended probably seven or eight virtual conferences this year since March. I haven’t really seen one that’s hitting on all cylinders.
Jeff:
The hope comes from the technology that’s out there to support hybrid conferences. I actually started looking at a hybrid conference format about six years ago, and I couldn’t make the numbers work. It’s very expensive as you might know, as someone who produces high quality interviews with folks. There’s a huge production cost behind a hybrid event because you have to have cameras and microphones effectively everywhere.
Jeff:
Again, as someone who follows the event industry, I found that there was, of all things an accounting event that was held last month in Orlando. That they actually had a live and virtual format to it, which I was a little bit surprised about the live part. What interesting thing they did was, they hired and created these teams called news crews.
Jeff:
The news crews would walk around the conference, so they had a moderator as well. If you were at home attending the conference virtually, you could connect with that news crew and effectively through the moderator go into a session. Whether it’s a breakout session or the ballroom, ask a question and obviously listen to the answer. They walked around the exhibit floor as well so you could stop and engage with exhibitors virtually.
Jeff:
It’s a very interesting concept and I know that the venue that I had been using, Keystone, they are investing into this technology because I think it opens your event up to a wider audience. Certainly, it adds more value to your event.
Jeff:
Well, stay tuned because I only have about 40% of them up there. Through this weekend and into next week, you’re going to see that list grow as well as I will be posting the agenda. I had a difficult time with pivoting to a platform that made sense for me, so it put a stall into the process of getting a published agenda, but it is going to come out next week. Even if it’s not 100% complete, there’ll be an agenda for people to take a look at and hopefully agree with the merit of that agenda with your opinion.
Craig:
For those who might not be familiar with Mountain Connect and want to learn more, it’s mountainconnect.org. If you need to ping Jeff, it’s info@mountainconnect.org,
Jeff:
The other way is just jeff@mountainconnect.org that’ll come directly to me.
Craig:
As we look beyond the 2020 edition, what are your thoughts with regard to the 2021 version of Mountain Connect?
Mountain Connect 2021 – Looking Forward
Jeff:
It’s scheduled for the week before Memorial Day next May in 2021. I’m hoping that will be at a place where we can do a hybrid or a live event. If not, then we have to continue with virtual. Then we’ll pivot and we’ll do what we need to do in order to make a virtual event work. I think the one thing that’s missing and cannot be replicated in a virtual environment, is obviously the networking potential of a conference.
I think outside of the agenda and the education piece of an event, it’s really to go and network with people. To have a dialogue that’s very difficult to have in a virtual event, and probably more valuable than picking up the phone and calling somebody as well. To be able to sit face to face across the table and have a meaningful discussion, there’s a lot of power behind that.
Craig:
Could not agree with you more and quite honestly, that is the one aspect that I miss the most when we talk about having to be virtual versus in person.
Jeff:
I think we have to think about this from… Imagine if you’re recently elected to a city council and you want to attend an event like Mountain Connect to educate yourself, you don’t have the luxury of knowing a lot of people in a virtual environment. It makes it very difficult to breach that barrier of not knowing a lot of people. As you know, a lot of people are hesitant in a virtual environment to speak up, and that’s one of the things that’s missing from an in-person event.
Jeff:
I think we’re fortunate because we work in the industry and have a lot of friends and colleagues and peers that we can even in a virtual environment, we can connect with while not losing much. I often worry about the folks who are coming to our industry for the first time, what this virtual environment has done to their experience.
Innovative Broadband Topics and Technology
Craig:
For first time attendees of Mountain Connect, what would you say is the most important thing that they could look for and potentially take away?
Jeff:
Well, I’m always going to fall back on the education piece and again, understand that part of my goal and strategy throughout the event is to find content that challenges the status quo. I think a lot of people were initially surprised to see that I had a world-renowned feature come to the show. What they didn’t know is behind the scenes, there was a lot of preparation work that was done with Thomas.
Jeff:
One of the things I told him was, “Any percent of what you talk about has to be verifiable, and then 20% go out in dreamland and talk about stuff that you would like to see.” I thought it was important that we have a majority of what he was talking about be verifiable, but very interesting. Would raise eyebrows in terms of where things were going from a technology innovation perspective.
Jeff:
I think if you look at where broadband is actually going, and I would suggest to you that broadband is becoming more of a great enabler. Especially if you consider over the top technology innovation like augmented virtual reality using 360 degree retinol video, 8K cloud gaming, immersive video. Obviously 8K streaming as well and even robotics, not to forget telehealth and some of the other IOT technology that’s coming or that’s already there and being improved upon.
Jeff:
If you look at those technologies, if we’re still discussing high broadband support, I think we’ve got bigger problems. I think if we are not including those topics in our conferences, we’re doing a disservice to those who attend.
Broadband Access, Content Consumption & Cutting the Cord
Craig:
It’s interesting that you made mention of last year’s keynote. Because so much of what he shared, interestingly, as a result of the pandemic has really begun to move into a much quicker timeframe. Of note one thing that I remember about his presentation, how the potential for changing higher education as we have known it traditionally, versus what broadband and connectivity will allow for distance learning.
Jeff:
Well, trust me, I didn’t have a crystal ball, I didn’t see the pandemic coming so it was pure coincidence, but I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that he talked about those issues.
Jeff:
It’s very important, pandemic or no pandemic, I think if you look at how people are using the internet these days and how they’re consuming content, you’re seeing more people cut the cord. Certainly, education is no different where the folks can do more online and probably would choose to do more online, because if they’re receiving the same quality education, it certainly reduces their expense to get that education.
Broadband Infrastructure Gaps
Jeff:
I think these topics are very important, especially telehealth’s another one. I think it’s been exposed a little bit during this pandemic as like education. Where there are gaps in infrastructure or the quality infrastructure is substandard enough that the applications aren’t working, then that causes issues for folks. We need to certainly be mindful of that and try to figure out ways to accelerate the development and deployment of broadband solutions.
Craig:
That is a wonderful segue and as we begin to wind down our visit, you made mention of the telehealth importance, distance learning. Obviously the need to bridge the digital divide in all corners. Not just the rural parts of the country, but there are so many urban areas that have issues with that as well.
Prioritized Broadband Fiber Funding and Closing the Digital Divide in the Coming Years
Craig:
Your thoughts on where the industry will be in just a couple of years as we have, I think perhaps been encouraged by what we’ve had to go through in the last half of the year to really see the importance of getting everybody connected.
Jeff:
I think one of the things that I’m really happy to see is that, with this current ADRF program, that fiber is getting prioritized as a solution with funding that is available within the program itself. I think it brings some hope to building fiber in places where fiber may not have been built certainly in the next five to 10 years.
Jeff:
Quite frankly, what I’d like to think is that, in the near term that the industry is more proactive rather than reactive because the technology that’s coming is going to probably require that. Or we are going to have different kinds of divides in the US and hopefully we don’t. What you could see our technology divides, we need to solve the digital divide that’s there especially on the education front.
Jeff:
Certainly I see technology divides coming because one of the things that everyone should have within their minds is that, technology innovation is not going to wait for broadband development to keep up with it. What you’d hate to see is that, for some of these great over the top applications that are coming, that they can only be used by folks who live in metro areas or outline areas that are well connected. The other folks will get left behind once again and we can’t let that happen.
Craig:
Best of luck on Mountain Connect 2020 and we can’t wait for it. That’s going to wrap up this edition of The Broadband Bunch.
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