On Monday I had the opportunity to attend the Minnesota Telecom Alliance Annual Convention. With 1,400 attendees, the MTA Annual Convention is one of the largest  conferences of its kind in the US. It included two large rooms for trade shows, a series of educational workshops and association meetings (votes, awards, planning). I was able to see a little bit of everything.

Here are a couple of the sessions that I thought would be interesting to folks outside the industry as well as those in telecommunications:

• Beyond the Demarc: The Revenue Opportunity Inside the Digital Home
• Revenue Generating Opportunities for the Digital Marketplace
• Putting a Wall Around the Cloud? Security in the Cloud
• The Cloud Has a Silver Lining: Becoming the Service Provider of the Future
• Central Office Strategies for Speeding FTTH Service Turn-up Requirements
• What Impact Will Over-the-Top Video Have On My Bottom Line?
• The Evolution of Mobile Technologies 2G to 4G LTE
• IPTV for People Who Aren’t Engineers
• Managing Customer Service Via Apps

Cloud, video and apps seem to be some strong themes, which would indicate to me that they will be broadband drivers in the future. Sadly I was unable to attend the session on customer service apps, which sounded really good.

I was able to attend the session on public-private partnerships: Making Public/Private Partnerships Work for You – and Your Revenue Stream with John Schultz, U-reka Broadband Ventures. I thought that would interest a wide swath of readers and I was able to capture it on video. John talked about his experience working to develop partnerships with local communities.

I was also able to talk to some of the MTA members – specifically about telework. I’m very excited to talk more about that – but will make that a new post, hopefully for Monday.