Monica Alleven, Executive Editor at Fierce Wireless

Monica Alleven has been covering the wireless industry since 1995 - a time when the notion of wireless was so limited, almost everyone was still using a landline to connect to the Internet, very few people had a cell phone and no one - of course - had a smartphone, since those were 12 years in the future.

Almost 30 years since she started, Monica is still at it - and incredibly successful, having helmed two of the biggest titles in mobile industry journalism. Given that deep experience as the past Editor in Chief of WirelessWeek and, for the past five years, Executive Editor of Fierce Wireless, we figured who better to bring on the podcast to preview Mobile World Congress, which starts on February 26 in its longtime home of Barcelona.

From 5G to Wif-Fi 7 and acronyms aplenty, Monica can explain it all when it comes to the ever-expanding and oft-confusing universe of mobile and wireless technology. Not bad for a Minnesota farm girl who began her career covering city council meetings in her home state and then Oregon and Redding, Calif., before - almost accidentally - finding her way to technology.

Monica stopped by to discuss the evolution of mobile across almost three decades, her childhood gaggle of 40 bunnies - and the childhood story they inspired, and why she remains optimistic about journalism despite the daily grim headlines for this episode of Pressing Matters, from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with the top media and influencers in B2B Tech. 

I’m Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing’s Media + Influencers Practice and your host. Through research and good old-fashioned relationship-building, we’ve identified B2B Tech’s Top 200 media and influencers, including Monica Alleven.

Here’s my chat with Monica. Enjoy.

Are you interested in more from Monica Alleven?

• Read Monica's latest at Fierce Wireless.
• Or find her on X.

Who is Big Valley?
We're a communications firm focused on B2B technology, with a team of experts specializing in brand positioning, narrative and story development, media and influencer relations, and channel planning.

You can learn more about our team at www.bigvalley.co

Transcript

Dave Reddy (00:00)
Monica Ollivan has been covering the wireless industry since 1995, a time when the notion of wireless was so limited, almost everyone was still using a landline to connect to the internet. Very few people had a cell phone and no one, of course, had a smartphone. Those were still 12 years in the future. Now, almost 30 years since she started, Monica is still at it and incredibly successful, having helmed two of the biggest titles in mobile industry journalism.

Given that deep experience as the past Editor In Chief of Wireless Week and for the past five years, executive editor of Fierce Wireless, we figured who better to bring on the podcast to preview Mobile World Congress 2024, which starts on February 26th in its longtime home of Barcelona. From 5G to Wi-Fi 7 and acronyms aplenty, Monica can explain it all when it comes to the ever-expanding and oft-confusing universe of mobile and wireless technology.

Not bad for a Minnesota farm girl who began her career covering city council meetings in her home state and then later in Oregon and Reading, California, before almost accidentally finding her way to tech journalism. Monica stopped by to discuss the evolution of mobile across almost three decades, her childhood gaggle of 40 bunnies, the childhood story they inspired and why she remains optimistic about journalism, despite the daily grim headlines. 

For this episode of Pressing Matters from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with the top media and influencers in B2B tech. I'm Dave Reddy, head of Big Valley Marketing's Media and Influencers practice, and I'm your host. Through research and good old-fashioned relationship building, we've identified B2B tech's top 200 media and influencers, including Monica. 

Here's my chat with Monica. Enjoy.

Monica, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's a pleasure to have you, and I know I've been waiting a long time to talk to you. We wanted to time this as a Mobile World Congress preview, but we are happy that time has come. 

Monica Alleven (02:20)
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Dave Reddy (02:23)
So,3 let's start at the beginning. You were born and raised in Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul, or where in the great state of Minnesota–the "Great White North? 

Monica Alleven (02:36)
Yeah, we were very much south of Minneapolis–about an hour and a half, I'd say, in a small town, actually kind of a farming community. I think the population is somewhere around 1,500. So small town, Minnesota.

I mostly grew up on a farm most of my life and we didn't have livestock, but we had corn fields and bean fields forever. And, yeah, it was a nice, nice place in the country of Minnesota–but cold, very cold winters. Yeah. The coldest I've ever been is in Minneapolis, negative 13, which probably doesn't seem like anything to a Minneapolis native, but it was. I wasn't dressed for it.

Dave Reddy (03:15)
At any rate, were your parents farmers? Did the farm go back for generations, or was that just something they got into? 

Monica Alleven (03:22)
Yeah, it was sort of interesting. My dad became, well, he went into the service and so on and he eventually was a car mechanic. That's where he met my mother–at a car dealership where he was a mechanic. I guess he was a service manager and she was a bookkeeper. So my dad actually had a car dealership in the small town of Mapleton for about 25 years after they got married, and they had six kids, and he did that for a while. Then, he got the itch to go be a farmer, which is how he grew up on a farm near where I grew up. So they bought some land and built a house, and he just did farming for his second career. I think he was in his 40s, probably, when he did that, and, yeah, they were country folks.

They moved from the town to the country. So that was pretty interesting, I guess. I could actually say that in the, the bus would come and get us. We had, I had to walk like, well, it wasn't half a mile, but about a quarter mile. We had a long driveway, standing out in the cold winter snow waiting for the school bus to come. That's an actual, real story. 

Dave Reddy (04:34)
That is pretty cool. From car mechanic in the city or the town to country farmers.

And I would assume that's how you ended up, and I'm gonna blow the pronunciation of this, but Minnesota State, Mankato? Mankato? 

Monica Alleven (04:49)
Mankato, that's where I went to college. That was the biggest town within, you know, it's about 20 minutes from Appleton, but it's, yeah, that's where we could go to McDonald's and we could go roller skating and that kind of stuff. 

Dave Reddy (05:05)
When you say big town, how many people lived in Mankato or live in Mankato?

Monica Alleven (05:11)
That's a good question. It's got to be over 10,000 for sure. 

Dave Reddy (05:15)
Oh, wow. gigantic. 

Monica Alleven (05:17)
It's a big city. It was our big city next to the, you know, when we really went out to town, we'd go up to the Twin Cities and that was like, you know, a few times a year. Minnesota has the best state fair, by the way. 

Dave Reddy (05:34)
So how does a farm girl whose mom and dad met in the auto industry end up majoring in journalism in small town Minnesota? I've got to understand that. 

Monica Alleven (05:50)
I had a really good English teacher in high school who was encouraging, I guess. I kind of started writing stories when I was like, I don't know, nine years old or something like that. My mom held onto some of those early storybooks I made, you know, made out of notebook paper. And I actually did the illustrations myself, you know, silly little stories.

And then, so I guess I got the writing bug early and that encouraging teacher in English in high school, and then went to college because, and I really went to Mankato State, it was called Mankato State at the time, it's Minnesota University now, but it was close to home. And I went; I roomed in an apartment with a couple of friends from high school for the first year. It just worked out well. I didn't have a major declared or anything.

In fact, those were the days (I'm gonna date myself), but I mean, people expected us to become secretaries and that kind of thing at that age. I took shorthand in high school and all that, which I ended up applying to reporting instead of secretarial. But secretarial jobs did get me by doing temp jobs and that kind of stuff for a while. So it was a good skill. But yeah, and then in college, yeah, I didn't wanna declare a major right away. I just kinda wanted to see, you know, what's interesting. A lot of stuff was interesting, but journalism, uh, I took a journalism class. 

Again, the teacher said, "Oh, you might have a knack for this, and you should join the college newspaper, which I did. And fell into that and spent like all my time there. It was a great experience; there were great people there. The Mankato Reporter, it was called. And that, that was kind of where I got the bug, I guess.

And yeah, couldn't shake it after that. 

Dave Reddy (07:42)
Yeah, for those who haven't worked at college newspapers, there's something about it. It's, well, like any college club, you seem to spend all your time together. And once I joined the newspaper, I did all my homework there. I, you know, I did everything but go to class there. So I hear you.

Going back, can you give me an example of one of these, as you said, silly stories that you wrote as a kid. I always get a kick out of these. 

Monica Alleven (08:12)
Oh my gosh. I think I did one for one of my oldest sisters. My oldest sister is 15 years older than me, and she got married when I was probably five or something like that. I should do the math before I say that, but she was out of college, I think. But anyway, I did like a story about, you know, two rabbits. The rabbits were the characters, and they got married, and they had a whole ceremony. So it was to commemorate her wedding or some silly thing like that. It was just whatever. It was that kind of thing. What's cuter and sillier than a bunny wedding? 

Dave Reddy (08:51)
I mean, that's fantastic. 

Monica Alleven (08:52)
Right, yeah. Well, you know, there's a connection to me growing up on the farm and the bunnies as well because while my parents were very smart people, I believe when I was nine, they gave me my birthday wish, which was two rabbits, except they were a male and a female. And this is my first experience having bunnies as pets. And then a year later or so, we had about 40 rabbits. And I learned that. But I'm still to this day, I'm like, why did you guys give me a boy and a girl rabbit when I was nine years old? It's like, didn't you guys know? Like, I have some clue. But.

Whatever, you know, that was a good learning experience for all of us, I guess. 

Dave Reddy (09:36)
What were the Adam and Eve bunnies names? 

Monica Alleven (09:40)
Well, my parents took some trips and so one was Hawaii Hula and the other was Jamaica Acre. 

Dave Reddy (09:51)
I love it. Bunny weddings and a bootle of bunnies, 40. I love it. So you work at the school paper and after school, you moved to Oregon because I presume it would be this sister you just spoke of and her family lived out in Eugene. 

Monica Alleven (10:10)
Yes, that's true. Yes. 

Dave Reddy (10:12)
Did you get a journalism gig when you went out there, or what were you doing while you lived there? 

Monica Alleven (10:18)
No, it was sort of my ... I had had an internship, a paid internship at the Minnesota Times in Minnesota, like my last year of college or whatever.

And then I had an interview there after college, and I told my mom, you know, "Well, if I get this job, I'll stay here. If I don't, I'm going to go to Oregon and stay with my sister, get a job, and go on from there. And that, so she, she drove me to my job interview, and we had this deal. We're like, yeah, if you get the job, you'll stay here. If not, you go. Well, I did not get the job. So I moved, and yeah. And I was able to stay with my sister until, you know, I did temp jobs, all sorts of things.

One of them was some kind of deal where you call people and ask if they want to donate to the sheriff's posse, something like that. It was a kooky temp job. That was the kind of thing. And then I got a job at the Cottage Grove Sentinel, a weekly newspaper, which is really close to Eugene. It's just south of Eugene. So that was my first job. Cottage Grove Sentinel.

Dave Reddy (11:29)
I hope that's still, I've got to guess it isn't, but I'm hoping that's still in circulation. 

Monica Alleven (11:33)
I believe it is not. The town is still there. 

Dave Reddy (11:37)
Well that's good. 

Monica Alleven (11:39)
And not the paper. Yeah. 

Dave Reddy (11:42)
Yeah, we'll talk about the future of journalism in a bit. So you moved out on your own at that point, and we'll go there in a second, but you hinted to me, you said your first night in that apartment, you emailed me, led to, quote, "a memorable meeting with a stranger." So you've got my attention. 

Monica Alleven (12:12)
Okay. All right. Well, I maybe shouldn't go here, but since the door is open. Okay. So, um, yeah, that, um, so I, yeah, I got an apartment there, and it was not far from the newspaper. So it was convenient. And there were like two other apartments in there, and I had just moved all my stuff in and had not even spent a night there.

My bedroom, I remember, was a very small room upstairs. Anyway, I had moved in some boxes and all that, got off to work, came back late, and discovered that there was a plumbing issue. And actually, there was like the whole place, the ground floor, was full of sewage. There's no way to say that any nicer. And I was like, oh, great, call the landlord and all that. But I hadn't even stayed there yet.

But then, while I'm standing there going like, what am I going to do, there's a knock on the door. And it was somebody, an older guy with a pamphlet wanting to tell me about his religion, something like that. I don't remember what it was exactly, but you know, I kind of said, well, I got this situation here. It didn't matter to him. He just wanted to; it was like a very small entryway. I mean, you step in, and you're already in it. 

So you could see what was happening. I told him and all that, but he still wanted to talk, and he talked and talked and died. And that's why it's memorable, I guess, because I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember he kept on talking and I was like, you know, and try to tell him he should probably go and all this kind of thing. He just was not deterred. But, and I wasn't scared about anything. I mean, he was like a... You know, a "Hobbit" kind of person. I mean, he was just not into, you know, not scary or anything. It was just like, wow, what are you doing? 

Dave Reddy (13:58)
You met Bilbo Baggins. You met a very religious Bilbo Baggins trying to pass that to you. I love it. Did he at least offer to help you with the plumbing? No. He was there to help you with your help you with your soul, but not, not an immediate problem.

Monica Alleven (14:21)
Oh, so needless to say, I was like, that was a guy who could not read a room, you know? I was like, wow. 

Dave Reddy (14:26)
And what an experience, your first night, a young woman in a relatively strange place, and your plumbing blows up, and then a missionary comes to your door. That's something else. I would want to move home. Yeah. Oh man. But you didn't. 

Now, was the Ashland paper? Is that the same one we're talking about, or is that the second job? 

Monica Alleven (14:55)
Well, that was the second job, but I think at that time, they were still part of the same conglomerate, so to speak. The reason I heard about the opening in Ashland was because they were like a relative paper to Cottage Grove. Somehow, they knew each other or something. Yeah, it was word of mouth like that. And because Ashland was a daily–it was only six days a week–but it was a daily, which meant it was a step up in my career from a weekly to a daily. And so I was like, yes, I'm in. And then, of course, actually, and even at that time, the cost of living was really high. But I lucked out with a room in a house that was like really affordable. Nice roommate and all that. And like, wow, I really lucked out in that respect. So it was a step up for me. 

Dave Reddy (15:49)
I don't want to sound like an elitist because I come from a small town too, although my town on Cape Cod actually was 20,000 people. So that's like a metropolis compared to where you grew up. But what does one cover in Ashland when the Shakespeare Festival is not in town? What's going on there? 

Monica Alleven (16:05)
Well, you would not believe how much is going on there.

So yeah, the paper made a lot of money out of that special every year, all about the Shakespeare festival. There was a special issue. I can't remember what we called it, but we put a lot of sweat into that. And then when the festival was on, you know, that was, that was the arts beat and all that. I started out as the county beat reporter, I think. Yeah. I went to county commission meetings and then moved up to the city beat, which was city council meetings and planning commission and those planning commission meetings, they were something else because they'd go till midnight or so. They had to set a rule so they would end at 10 because otherwise, they just kept talking till midnight or more. And the issues were things like whether or not to pave the alleyways because if you leave them as gravel, that seems more homey and small-towny. And that was an issue. Sure.

Yeah, at the time I said, oh, that's silly. But now I think, well, that was actually kind of a smart move. But that was the kind of thing. And then, like, the planning commission wouldn't let Wendy's in town unless they had a certain, they met certain conditions on how it was going to look and that kind of stuff. And actually, the City Council was pretty exciting to me back then. It was, yeah. You learned how to write, and you know.

Dave Reddy (17:38)
Let's face it–national politicians learn how to be petty in the city council. So, in 1995, 29 years ago (also the year I got married, by the way), you got your first job in the tech space, and you were the managing editor of what was called Intersec. Can you explain Intersec and how you made the leap from covering city council meetings in Ashland to covering technology? 

Monica Alleven (18:13)
Okay. Well, there's a little brief in between that, between Ashland. I went to Reading. I was in Reading, California, as I was a copy editor there for a couple of years; less than a couple of years, I met some awesome people. I have to shout out to all of them. Great people, but I wanted a year to be in a big city. And that's when I made the move to Denver, and I did some temp jobs and did looking around and all that stuff. Well, it ended up that I was hired at a trade publication and the name of it was Air Cargo World. So it was nothing to do with wireless or anything. It was air cargo, as in planes shuttling cargo. And how I got there was, you know, it was writing and editing and that, but the publisher who was hiring, he said, well, you'd have to get your passport and you'd have to go travel internationally. You might go to Russia and all this stuff. 

And at my age, I was like, wow, that sounds really cool! Like, yes, I'm going to travel. Yes. Sign me up. I don't care what it is. I can write about that. And so I did get the job and I did that for all of about two months. And then they decided to move the magazine back to Atlanta, and I wasn't going to move to Atlanta. So, he put me in a different magazine within that group. 

And I ultimately ended up on a communications magazine where I did a couple of stories about, at the time, the narrowband PCS auction, which really was for paging, pagers, those little things. If you remember those. And yeah, so I did that. And then we got laid off, a bunch of us, and I was looking around, and Wireless Week was just, just launching right about that time.

Broadband, broadband, broadband–everything was just like exploding. And here was this magazine. I think you talked to Sue Merrick; she was the managing editor there. They were just launching Tammy Parker, Judith Lockwood. Anyway, I got in there, and that was my first real, I'd say, IT wireless industry reporting job. And it ended up being really lucky.

My first trade show was with that magazine when I went to CES, right about that time. And then CTIA and those shows. But yeah, it was like a "Wild, Wild West" time in wireless. Everything was just burgeoning, exploding. Yeah. 

Dave Reddy (20:52)
I don't think, you know, anyone younger than us understands that you weren't born with a cell phone. And I mean, I don't think I got my first cell phone until 1997. And, of course, the thing was thick as a brick. I know only one part of wireless, but that, of course, is the most famous part. You know, it dawned on me, and you mentioned Sue; it dawned on me that the wireless and telco media world is chock full of strong women in positions of power. Yourself, Sue, and others. Diana over at Silver Linings. I'm curious: is tech still not necessarily easy for a woman? What's your experience been? Has it improved since ... I presume it's improved since 1995.

But I don't know any better. I'm just a guy with three daughters, and I see some of the crap they go through in the world. 

Monica Alleven (22:02)
Yeah, it's kind of sad, isn't it? That it's like that now. I mean. It was bad back then, I would say. I'd say it's pretty bad, and it's slowly gotten better. I mean, it's so slow. It's so slow. It's kind of crazy to think about. Sometimes I think back, it seems like things should be a lot better by now, even 10 years ago. It's like...hmm. It should be a lot better by now. Um, that's odd and sad, but, yeah, back way back then. Um, I remember at Wireless Week, trying to learn one of my early beats was the 800 megahertz SMR, um, beat two-way radios. Um, and I was trying to learn that and then, and people, and they're mostly guys were like, kind of like, "Well, you don't know how this works. I mean, don't you know how this 800 megahertz radio works?" 

And, it's like, no, I don't, please tell me. But I just had to learn. But it's just, I don't know, there was just a lot of that. There was a lot of that, and there still is. It's unfortunate, but it fortunately is better. 

Dave Reddy (23:13)
I think you and Sue and Diana and a few others got the last laugh in this industry. So that's good. You were there for 16 years at Wireless Week.

You just shared one of the big stories; two-way radios were 28 years ago when you started. Wireless evolved in line, of course, with the internet–really fast. I mean, after all, it was 11 or 12 years after you started that we got the iPhone, and then, of course, the whole world changed. But what were the big stories then, and how did you see them evolving over at least those first 10 years until we got to the smartphone?

Monica Alleven (23:51)
Well, one thing that stands out is, um, I remember people coming to our office at Wireless Week. I think we were at Cherry Creek at that time. And at that time in the, and, um, kind of downtown Denver. Um, and then, and they were showing us this thing they called WAP Wireless. It was an application browser, but it was WAP and you're kind of like, oh, okay. And it was slow, now that I think about it.

They were like showing us, you know, hey, you can get on the internet with this. Like, okay. But we're kind of also like, it was so slow. It's like, well, what can you do with it? That was the thing. Like, what can you do? And then I remember, too, I know where it was in the whole timeline, but I remember Dan Hessey of Sprint when he was CEO of Sprint. I remember him saying like, oh, voice is a killer app. You know, don't forget, voice is a killer app at that time.

You know, that was before iPhone or any of that. Right. And now voice is an afterthought, but you know, yeah. Now people don't want to talk, don't want to talk on the phone. It's like, I'd rather text you. But yeah, I mean, there's still something to be said for voice. Yeah. 

Dave Reddy (25:07)
You know, I think back to the early part of my career, first as a reporter and then in public relations and, you know, wherever I was, if I wasn't in the office, and I did travel a lot in both jobs, you know, worrying about where I was going to find a phone line. I mean, landline to stick into my computer. And of course, those were, you know, you were lucky if those work. And then wait while the data crawled across my screen and, you know, some ungodly slow period, but it is amazing to think that that was just a couple of decades ago. 

Monica Alleven (25:50)
Well, yeah, that reminds me too, like there was a time too, where, you know, we were covering the wireless space and you'd want to get through the PR departments of the carriers oftentimes. And, you know, they'd always say so -and -so is not available. And we'd always say, don't they have a wireless phone? I mean, why can't you get ahold of them? You know, sort of like, like that. It's kind of like.

Why are you avoiding us? You have a wireless phone, but yeah, whatever. It's kind of silly. 

Dave Reddy (26:20)
I want to get into Fierce, where you've been for quite a while, but first, you know, Wireless Week was a special title, and you know, you guys were the Bible for a while, and it's gone. So what happened? I mean, obviously there's a lot of attrition. We talked about your little community newspaper not being around either, but this was a big title. Do you have a sense of what happened there?

Monica Alleven (26:42)
Yeah, I don't know if it was just consolidation. You know, there weren't well, it did well to really be fair. It started, and they knew it was something they wanted to capitalize on. All these licensees, right? Like, man, all these advertisers, all these licensees; they're going to build out. They need vendors. Well, vendors need to get in front of them. They need advertising. And not just infrastructure, but billing, all these other back-end things.

You name it, you know, everything. So of course, you know, like jump in there and, you know, ride that wave. And then things, everyone consolidates, you know, over the years. And then for a while, well, the whole thing with PCS, I thought it was like six or seven. The idea was six or seven service providers in every market or most markets. Well, you know, that lasted for a while. But yeah, I think consolidation is part of it, you know.

Companies went away. There used to be Lucent Alcatel, there used to be somebody, Lucent with somebody, Alcatel Lucent with someone. There were a lot more vendors and more going on. Yeah, and then things, and then yeah, digital comes around. We started out as a paper magazine, which is kind of funny to think about. Yeah, the irony.

The cloud comes along two decades later. Yeah, it's kind of amazing how much has changed in, you know, it seems like it was yesterday. Now that I'm old. 

Dave Reddy (28:26)
I commiserate, and I, you know, obviously there continue to be, you know, there's the Sports Illustrated issue or Sports Illustrated issues at this point. Yeah. And the LA Times, you know, cutting another one-fourth of what was left of the, I mean, it's every day, it's a new thing. And you know, obviously the, you know, what's interesting with the guests I talked to on this podcast is that journalism is sort of a victim of this very thing that we talk about in this podcast, which is B2B tech. 

Now, at Fierce, the model seems to be working. I mean, you've started Silver Linings, which is focused on the cloud. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't get the pun. Diana had to explain it to me, but I get it now.

What's working there at a time with so many publications, so many publication houses are struggling, they're either going out of business or they're laying off. You guys seem to be doing well. 

Monica Alleven (29:21)
Yeah, I think we have a good team. Everybody knows their stuff, you know, smart people. Maybe we're hyper-specialized in everything. Like you've got the cloud, the telecom, the wired, the wireless, the video with streaming TV.

Um, yeah, I, yeah, I don't know. The brand has some cache, you know? Um, but yeah, I guess LA Times does too, right? 

Dave Reddy (29:53)
So, what are you doing from a sponsor perspective or conferences? What do you do to make up for the ads? You're not, you're not being, or are you doing well in advertising? 

Monica Alleven (30:03)
Um, yeah, I think a lot more digital events, that kind of thing really helped us through COVID.

Big time, the people at QuestEx know how to do that. I don't, but they do. Thankfully, they know their stuff. That has helped us a great deal. And I think just sorta, you know, moving with the times. I don't know how to describe that exactly, but it's some shifting. But everyone had to do that, you know, with COVID, I think.

Maybe we sort of learned from that. Yeah, I think we're, I feel pretty grateful that we're where we are at right now. 

Dave Reddy (30:51)
Speaking of shifting with the times, the story of the year, of course, was AI. I want to get into how that affected the industry you cover, but first let's talk about how it's affecting or will affect the industry you're in. So, how do you think AI should or will change journalism?

Monica Alleven (31:08)
Oh, journalism. Yeah. Yeah. That's a very good question. Right. Yeah. I don't know how much time we have. No, I mean, it's, it's, I mean, frankly, I was, it's scary at first. It's like, what are you guys doing? And I'm like, what? Yeah. It's nuts. But if we can use it in a, in smart ways, of course that's good. It's just being super careful about it. You know,

I actually interviewed Sam Altman when he was at Loops. Do you remember that? When he had an LBS company? That was a long time ago. It was a long time ago. But you know, when I met him, when he was doing that, I thought he knew his stuff. I mean, he was smart and they really seemed, you know, legitimately interested in making sure they weren't exposing people's location when they shouldn't be (etc), which is a big deal.

Um, so yeah, um, I have a lot. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to AI. But, um, don't we all? 

Dave Reddy (32:20)
Given that Ferris is doing well, and you know, granted, we're seeing the opposite, as we spoke of every single day, it seems, with layoffs and so forth. How optimistic are you about the future of journalism? 

Monica Alleven (32:38)
I have to be optimistic. Scale of one to 10, I will say eight because I feel I have to be, because we need it. I mean, it's really, really something this world needs, like maybe more than ever when I think about some things happening in the world. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we just got to do what we can to make sure it's, you know, as good as it possibly can be. But there's forces, yeah, to really, I guess, what's the word, ride that kind of push back from all of the BS that's happening on some of this, some of the stuff that's happening with AI. And I just heard some stuff today about, you know, some of the stuff going on in social media. It's like, uh, I don't know. It's a lot of it's the people behind the social media sites, they need to step up in a big way.

Dave Reddy (33:47)
It's interesting. Social media and AI to me are two perfect examples of technology that can do many good things and can do many bad things. When this runs, it'll be just about time for Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. You will be there, as I'm going to guess you've been for the last, other than COVID, many, many years. What do you think is going to be the big story or stories this year? What are you hearing already, and what are you expecting to see? 

Monica Alleven (34:23)
Well, like we just talked about AI, that's going to be everywhere. And although we think that, yeah, I do want to hear more about AI from the operators because I think in a lot of cases, they haven't really said what they're doing with it. I'm sure they're still trying to figure some of that out, but ... you know, what are they doing in the network? What are they doing with customer service? What are they doing in all these areas that we know it's in? I think they need to talk about it more. And other stories, like from a network point of view, certainly 5G standalone, network slicing, we're finally, I mean, we've been waiting years for that. It's finally coming around. Again, it all depends on, you know, of course they need to have standalone 5G.

It'll also be really interesting to see what Nokia says. I'm assuming they're gonna have an event like they usually do. And Ericsson, both of them, and any other infrastructure players, but mainly those two. What's their story? I hear them say stuff like, "Well, operators need to spend more to get everything they need out of 5G," and all these kind of things.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think they can just assume anything. Like, operators may get tired of spending all that money. 

Dave Reddy (35:53)
Well, I wanted to ask you. I mean, do we finally have 5G? Did it just sort of come and go like many of the other G's just sort of came and went? But there was so much hype about 5G, which I'm guilty of creating myself, but, you know, are people just sick of the phrase? Is it here? Did it not satisfy the hype? 

Monica Alleven (36:18)
Yeah, I mean, I do think it's here in speeds and stuff, but not, I mean, yeah, it has not lived up to the hype for sure. It's like, the only real thing we point to is fixed wireless access. I mean, that's not really, I mean, that's what we call a success from 5G, but that's not really saying a lot, I don't think. Yeah. So where's all that? Where's the, I was going to say flying cars, but where's the car sort of applications and that stuff that was, that was sort of pie in the sky anyway, in some ways, some years ago. 

Dave Reddy (36:59)
Virtual reality was supposed to be near perfect at this point. And cars were supposed to be talking to each other?

You know, they sort of do, but this was supposed to be where, you know, you're basically doing that through your phone, not from car to car, vehicle to vehicle communications, which may or may not come. Smart homes, smart cities, smart this, smart that. They're smarter, sure. But I think that this whole notion of the Jetson's house has never (come true) yet.

My house is not smart at all. 

Monica Alleven (37:42)
Neither is mine. 

Dave Reddy (37:45)
What else? Are there other things you're expecting to hear more about or are you excited about? Wi -Fi 7 for sure. What else? 

Monica Alleven (37:57)
Yeah, you know, it's funny how there are these hype bubbles that we go. I remember going to a Mobile World Congress ... do you remember when Google had that huge booth that was Android, and they'd have, like, don't they have like little Android people walking around in Android suits or something? Yes. Yes. And so that was what I remember at CES. I've actually never been to Barcelona, but I remember that at CES. So yes, I know what you're talking about. Okay. And now where's that? It's just, I mean, it's a trade show, and that's the purpose is hype and marketing, I think. So take that with what you can, but - yeah, I mean, and, you know, I guess, you know, 

I should probably, maybe shouldn't even say this, but I mean, I'm going to be in Barcelona for sure. We're all going to be there at Fierce, um, and Silver Linings like in mass, but, um, you know, I wonder about the role of trade shows. That's a big one. You got to be there, but Apple does their own events. Samsung does this event now. Um, it's a lot different than it used to be. So.

Dave Reddy (39:05)
I mean, back to the iPhone, it was announced during CES, but it wasn't announced at CES. So the last question I always ask is, you know, and you've lived in a few different places, and very different, different places ... which one? If you had a choice. I mean, you're currently living in Portland, correct? So maybe the - 

Monica Alleven (39:28)
I'm west of Portland, yeah, but yes. 

Monica Alleven (39:30)
So you're west of Portland. Maybe that answers the question, but when you think about Oregon, when you think about the farmland of Minnesota and you think about Denver, which one? 

Monica Alleven (39:45)
That's a tough one. Because the family is in Minnesota, love my family. Love to see them. Denver is beautiful. It's just awesome. Friends there, too, and family. And then Oregon, we're... I'm actually on the coast of Oregon, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else actually right now. So yeah, I guess it's right where I'm at now. Isn't that how it always is? It's like where I'm at. It's Oregon. Home is where I am. Yeah. So home is where I lay my head. 

Dave Reddy (40:26)
Monica, this was great. Good luck in Barcelona. Thank you for being on. I think that's your stories were really fascinating, especially of your early years. And I do have a feeling that people probably don't even need to go to the show anymore if they've listened to this podcast because I'm sure, as you always do, know exactly what's going to be going on at that show. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being on. 

Monica Alleven (40:51)
It was fun. Thanks. 

Dave Reddy (40:53)
I want to thank you all for listening today. And once again, a big thank you to our guest, Monica Alleven, for helping us preview Mobile World Congress 2024. Join us next month. We're gonna interview another member of the B2B Tech Top 200. 

In the meantime, if you've got feedback on today's podcast or if you'd like to learn more about Big Valley Marketing and how we identified the B2B Tech Top 200, be sure to drop me an email at dreddy@bigvalley.co. 

That's d -r -e -double -d -y at bigvalley, all one word, dot c -o, no m. You can also email the whole team at pressingmatters@bigvalley.co. 

Thanks again. And, as always, think big.