Mobile money and Ian Bennett CEO and President of the Canadian Mint

September 29th, 2010

They say life is stranger than fiction, last week Tomi Ahonen was with me in Africa, working with a world class team on the future of mobile for a client. Mobile money came up on a number of occasions, because this is a place where mobile communications is transforming how we think about money and commercial transactions.

Tomi left early to fly to Australia to give a key note at the Mint Directors Conference in Canberra Australia (here) and Tomi is on the agenda (here). Yet literally minutes before Tomi was to take the podium in Canberra, he was informed that he would not be invited to give his presentation. Apparently according to Ian Bennett Chairman of the event, poor Tomi was so jet lagged just arriving that morning he could not physically speak. Yet Tomi had arrived the day before at 17.10.

So Mr Bennett what’s the 911? Your conference was about innovation, apparently. So why, did you ask an expert on the future on money and mobile to fly all the way from Hong Kong to publically snub them? You may or may not know of my uncle Michael Tubbs – he is well known and respected barrister from Sydney – who has an ASIO (here) file 15,000 pages long – Michael wrote a book about it (here). So perhaps, Mr Bennett perhaps you got nobbled by an ultra conservative civil service in OZ? Or was it that you were too chicken to un-invite, Tomi (based on his insights and conclusions) and just about worked up the courage to deny him at the penultimate moment before Tomi took the stage. Which of course is the ultimate cruelty.

In Sweden and Estonia, conversations at government level are already underway about a world where where physical coins and cash no longer exist. In Britain we increasingly refuse cheque’s as guarantee. Mobile money is a long way off being main stream, though closer than you think, but the issue needs to be addressed, because its real. Mobile minutes are traded everyday (a multi million $$ business) as real currency so we have to be “aware”, as Didier Marlier would say, to avoid being disrupted. Which is why your actions Mr Bennett are so, well, extraordinary, you even pointed out the the poor jet lagged. And what service are you giving to the delegates, some more industry bullshit versus actually what a “proper” conference is all about, proper and relevant information exchange. Mr Bennett, what “valuable information” where you giving delegates that came from USA, UK, China, Japan, France, Switzerland and other countries around the world, about the world they now inhabit or is Roman coinage more interesting to you?

Well, welcome to the networked world Mr Bennett, where information moves faster than you can speak. I suggest a personal apology to Tomi Ahonen is in order and full reimbursement of his travel costs.

A courageous man knows that sharing information is power, whereas a weak man is not prepared to deal with Darwin’s greatest observation, that it is only those that are prepared to adapt to change that will survive. Read: The End of the Belle Epoque.

As Tomi points out that the networked society affects all. It will change all industries something we pointed out in Communities Dominate Brands, business and marketing challenges for the 21st Century (here). Yet te banking and mints sneer at the stupidity of te music and media industries, yet their fate awaits them, it arrives unannounced and unexpected.

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