Perspective: Jan Maciejewski, MD of SUPERCOMM

[Update: plans have been finalized, so come see the panel if you're going to be at SUPERCOMM!]

While I wait to hear about the uncertain fate of my SUPERCOMM panel, I had the opportunity to speak today to Jan Maciejewski, whose role as Managing Director is to bring the show back into heightened relevance.

Maciejewski has been in the telecommunications industry for some time, having served as an executive at both Alcatel and Spirent, and is based in London as part of EXPOCOMM Events LLC, the event-management company responsible for the multi-year contract with the owners of SUPERCOMM.

Our discussion covered a wide range of topics around SUPERCOMM, including how to leverage an existing brand, broadening the show's perspective to broadband across both wireline and wireless, and the requirement to attract top speakers to help set the tone for the future of the show. Attracting Aneesh Chopra to speak was the topic of a previous WriteThinkSpeak post, which has had a surprising number of reads, now ranking second in Google searches only to the official SUPERCOMM announcement.

"We are extremely grateful for Aneesh's decision to come speak about broadband," said Maciejewski, noting that Chopra's role as CTO of the United States provides a good platform from which to discuss the transformation of the US into a broadband nation, including rural and urban deployment, as well as providing direction on the strategic and tactical goals of stimulus funding.

"We will also have sessions that follow along the lines of Aneesh's vision," Maciejewski continued, "providing attendees with guidance on how to apply for funding. Beyond Aneesh's keynote, we also have representation from the NTIA and speeches from the CEOs of leading service providers to help give attendees a sense of the direction of industry."

The NTIA presenter referred to is Larry Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Along with Jonathan Adelstein, Administrator, Rural Utilities Service (RUS) from the USDA, they will discuss the $7.2 billion allocated to national broadband stimulus.

The show has traditionally been in June in Chicago, although it ceased to exist two years ago, with the owners of the show going off to start up separate shows, known as TelecomNext and Nextcomm, respectively. When EXPOCOMM was engaged in March, 2009, to manage the re-emergent SUPERCOMM, plans were underway to hold the show in June, but a few months later the decision was made to shift the time slot to October.

The timing of the show is shortly after the release of a part of the first round of stimulus funding," said Maciejewski, "so we feel vindicated in the decision to move the show to the October time slot. As for the venue, we plan on keeping it in Chicago for at least next year; we take a sounding from the exhibitor community and use that to account for the next year's event location, but all indications lead to SUPERCOMM being in Chicago next year."

In the discussion of the strength of the SUPERCOMM brand, Maciejewski emphasized both the staying power of the brand and the ability to use this inflection point to expand the horizon of future SUPERCOMM shows.

"We wanted to re-establish a well-known brand, that had been weakened slightly by the events of the past few years," said Maciejewski. "Moving it beyond an infrastructure wireline show and toward the concept of 'Broadband Life' isn't a reaction to that, however, but merely an acknowledgement that the broadband expansion in the US is being led by the service providers who traditionally attend the show."

"We're not going to be moving toward the consumer end, or consumer equipment," he continued, when asked whether the show ran the risk of brand dilution when shows such as Mobile World Congress or the Consumer Electronics Show also have a broadband convergence factor. "We want to focus on the business-to-business aspect of the service provider who might buy a set of products or services to augment its offering to the consumer. As the industry moves further in to a time where putting a PC in the back of a consumer television is standard practice, we would also expect many set-top box manfacturers to exhibit at SUPERCOMM. After all, it's all part of broadband expansion."

SUPERCOMM, hosted by owners TIA and US Telecom, also commissioned a survey, in which "nearly 70 percent of all respondents believe uninterrupted broadband access should be as readily available as other utilities like electricity and water."

Maciejewski sees this as a key sentiment that will help both the US - which lags in broadband deployment against Asian and European countries - and the show in general.

"Broadband is at the core of how we live and work today," he said. "Beyond our survey findings underscore the fact that the world has taken on a ‘Broadband Life’ mentality, SUPERCOMM brings together, under one roof, the companies and people that are at the forefront of driving broadband technology innovation to improve our quality of life."

SUPERCOMM runs from October 21-23, 2009 at Chicago's McCormick Place exhibition hall. Portions of the event will also be streamed.