The TM Forum @ NAB

While at NAB, I spent half of my time manning the Expression Studio pod at the Microsoft booth.  I spent the other half of my time manning the TM Forum booth.  You may not have heard of the TM Forum before, unless you are in the telco industry. 

The TM Forum is an industry association focused on transforming business processes, operations and systems for managing and monetizing on-line Information, Communications and Entertainment services. The Forum has over 650 global members from across the converging industries of telecom, cable, media and the Internet.

What is interesting about the TM Forum is that they are not an official standards body, however, the industry association is focused on creating standard methodologies through multi-vendor implementations that are real, not theoretical.

The focus of the TM Forum booth at NAB was the Content Encounter catalyst project.  The booth had three sections manned by a different vendor, IBM, Motorola, and Microsoft / Cognizent.  Check out this video interview over on the Channel 9 Communicating show for a 10 minute overview of the TM Forum and the Content Encounter project.