Back from Praha

Thomas Husson | March 17, 2008, 04:55 PM

I had the opportunity to speak at the mobile youth conference in Prague last week.

Last time I was in Praha was back in 1996. No doubt the city is really beautiful and nice walking around. It was already crowded at that time but now seems overcrowded with tourists. I spent some time in the operators' shops (interestingly the global players VODAFONE, T-MOBILE and TELEFONICA 02 are competing locally here and are now the 3 leading brands) and remember listening to a conversation in a Vodafone shop in the middle of Venceslas plazza (Vaclavske nam, THE street where Masaryk came back from exil in 1918, Nazi's and Soviet Union's invasions took place respectively in 1939 and 1968, where student Jan Palach committed suicide and where Vaclav Havel had his first speech to the Czech people in November 1989, for those who care about History).

Anyway, back to the Vodafone shop, there was a kid (around 10 I would say) who was trying to convince his mum to get his first mobile phone. I don't understand a word of the Czech language but it was obvious he knew quite a lot about the various devices and that his mum was totally lost. It sounded to me it was Christmas time for him. Would like to see him giving tips to his mum on how to use various features of her own device...