3GSM fatigue

It's still almost a month away, but I'm already exhausted by 3GSM.

I've just looked at my calendar to find that I already have 36 briefings, meetings, dinners & other events booked in, plus I know I have assorted others "pending" and I've already had to turn away some interesting (and some not-so interesting) invitations. I reckon I'm getting around 5-8 inbound event requests or notifications per day at the moment - and that's without GSMA letting analysts register as media on the system.

Some tips for any other latecomers thinking of sending out "Are you at 3GSM?" requests to analysts:

- Don't organise daytime events offsite. At all. If you're really important I might take the 3mins to walk over the Plaza de Espanya to that big hotel, but if you think I'm taking a coach or metro for 40mins somewhere else.....
- Lowest on the pecking order are press conferences and combined press+analyst briefings. These are invariably too stage managed, oriented around product launches rather than strategy, and designed to stop analysts asking too many tricky questions in Q&A time. These are the first things I'll skip or cancel if I get clashes
- 1 hour is about right - enough time for you to give me blurb about whatever-it-is you're announcing, and for me to ask what I want to know, plus an opportunity to chat a bit about the bigger picture, what's hot/cool .... and still have 5 min buffers at each end to transit between meetings
- PR people: if your client is based in London, or if the execs come through here regularly, there's no point in me travelling 700 miles to see them somewhere else
- Read this blog. If there's stuff I've never written about, or doesn't fit with my typical research themes, I'm probably not interested in it. Examples - obscure electronic subcomponents, yet another me-too mobile IM/email client, most "content" stuff. Caveat: if you've got a really cool party, I might be persuaded, like that company last year that had a live gig by Juliette Lewis & her band. I forget their name......