Getting Ready for Mobile World Congress

Or 3GSM as I still prefer to call it. I’ll be hitting Barcelona on Sunday morning and will have 2 full days at the conference before flying out early on Wednesday. Far better than the 24 hours I had at last years event.My flight is only a week away and today I’ve been starting to prepare for the trip. Carlo has already posted about a bunch of events happening around MWC this year and I’ll be at Mobile Sunday and Swedish beers on Sunday and Monday night respectively. The Mobile Monday Peer Awards and Mobile Jam Sessions also look very interesting but I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time for them this year. After all I am mainly going for the show itself so most of my time will be spend visiting the hundreds of booths.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of setting up a list of “must-visit” booths using the MWC planner. I’ve never done this for any of the conferences I’ve been to in the past but it might prove useful in making the most of my time on the show floor. I’ve started compiling a list of companies I know I’ll be interested in but if you have any suggestions of something I must see then please drop me a comment to let me know.

I’ve been figuring out my mobile set-up as well today. This not only includes which mobile(s) I should take but also which software I should use to blog from the event and how I’ll be able to get a data connection. Getting free wifi at last years event was a “challenge” and I’d prefer to go with a PAYG sim-card so I can use 3G/HSDPA. I’m looking into a solution for this right now so again please leave a comment if you have any insight. As for posting from the event, I’m toying with the idea of using Tumblr to post quick stuff from the show floor. I could also use Jaiku but the character limit would probably get annoying. Email to post to WP is another option but I’ve had bad experiences with that in the past.

The last thing on my list is whether I should get some new Moo cards. I’ve still got a few left over from my original batch but would prefer some which are more ‘mobile-esque’. I’m playing with some designs right now to see what i can come up with. Should have everything ready before the weekend is up, so bring on MWC.