"Martin is an amazing resource. Those who hire him tend to get an unfair advantage in terms of out-of-the-box thinking. I know we did. Martin combines a deep, battle-hardened knowledge of technology with very strong numerical/analytical skills and an ability to see past the obvious to come up with unique and powerful insights. In some ways, he is one of the strongest strategists I have had the pleasure of working with. I hired Martin a couple of times at Motorola and always felt he over-delivered. I'd recommend him very strongly."
— Farooq Butt, VP Worldwide Business Development and Strategy, Dell (formerly Senior Director, Corporate Strategy at Motorola)

I'm a thinker, writer, coder, inventor, agitator, futurologist, irritant, visionary and consultant. I'm interested in the transport and manipulation of information goods. We live in a world of abundant connectivity, brought about by fibre optics, wireless networks, and the Internet. This is driving a transition from the age of cheap energy into one of cheap information. The impact of these new network technologies has broad economic, social and political consequences. My curiosity about this new epoch is informed by the stories of previous generations. Their lives were dominated by the impact of new technological infrastructure for the movement of physical goods, be they canals, railways, roads or container ships. There is much we can learn from their experiences.

My interest in information processing has been life-long. At the age of 12 I would stand in the local computer store programming the TI-99/4A until I got kicked out. Eventually my mother bought me a BBC Micro, and I spent my teenage years hacking machine code. My early professional lives include being a specialist consultant in high availability and high scalability databases at Oracle Corporation in the UK, and building high-volume financial transaction and document image processing applications.

I emigrated to telecomland in 2001 to join a project to re-invent Sprint as the first carrier to become an open application platform, and dodge the evil 'dumb pipe' fate that beckoned. It was an exciting time: the end of the dotcom years, the middle of the mobile boom. The outcome? Project terminated, VP fired, business unit dissolved. It was a great learning experience, and I'm also a named inventor on nine resulting granted US patent applications (6,987,987, 7,043,230, 7,068,995 – my favourite, 7,107,309, 7,142,840, 7,207,480, 7,310,516, 7,360,210, and 7,900,245).

With time on my hands, I started a blog called Telepocalypse to examine the fundamentals of telecom and its parallel journey to IT. My concern was that the telecoms industry was about to face direct attack from IT companies on its core voice, messaging, and video products by 'alien' business models that did not monetise the end user services directly. The era of Facebook and YouTube has largely proven me right.

The consequences of starting that blog greatly exceeded my expectations, with me being quoted in Business Week Online within only a few months of starting. I left Sprint to return to Europe and apply my experience as a consultant.

Since then I have been Chief Analyst at STL Partners (and co-founder of the Telco 2.0 initiative), where my work fell into four areas:

  • Consulted to industry players of all sizes on business model innovation.
  • Co-designed the highly successful and well-regarded Telco 2.0 conferences.  I jointly defined the agenda, as well as being a speaker and facilitating sessions.
  • Lead-authored two key research reports—involving large online surveys and primary research—on broadband business models, and on future telco voice and messaging products. 
  • Wrote much of the thought leadership content on the Telco 2.0 blog.

In 2009 I took up the position of Strategy Director at BT Design. Following the merger of BT Innovate with BT Design I left BT.

My current professional focus is on the ways various communications channels, from voicemail to Twitter, can support enterprises' crucial needs to connect, interact and transact.

Professional experience

2009  Strategy Director, BT Innovate & Design – London, UK
I brought new thinking to BT on Cloud Computing and future business models.

2006 – 2008 Chief Analyst, STL Partners – London, UK
I co-founded the Telco 2.0 initiative – a highly-regarded conference, research and consulting business.

2004 – 2005 Independent consultant – Edinburgh, UK
I delivered strategic insight and advice to executives at Nokia, Motorola and Adobe.

2001 – 2004 Technical Specialist, Sprint – Kansas City, USA
Co-designer of one the first open content platforms of any telco, and my entry into business strategy.

1997 – 2000 Senior Consultant, Oracle Corporation – Reading & Edinburgh, UK
I was promoted twice as specialist in high availability and high scalability IT systems.

1994 – 1996 Senior Analyst, BancTec Inc. – UK & European clients
Development of high-volume transaction processing and imaging systems.

1992 – 1994 Analyst Programmer, Oxford Computer Services – Oxford, UK
Design of artificial intelligence software for EU engineering research projects.

Education

1989 – 1992 Pembroke College, University of Oxford
MA in Mathematics and Computation; President of Hill Walking Club.