BARCELONA–In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera”, the brilliant Colombian novelist weaves a narrative of love, rejection, devotion, and ultimately reconciliation—decades after beginning (and then ending) their relationship, Fermina and Florentino find happiness together. But in the years between the start of their romance and their eventual happily ever after reconnection, Florentino’s passion, his desire, his loneliness, manifests as a physical illness like cholera, an affliction that alters his body and his mind.
I love business travel–2019 was a record year, with something like 40 weeks on the road. I find immense joy in making personal connections, understanding not just news announcements but the stories and perspectives of the people that did the work resulting in the product launch, contract win, or technological breakthrough. And, for me, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is the premiere telecoms industry event, full stop, end of sentence.
When the show in 2020 was cancelled due to the rapidly accelerating global spread of COVID-19, it hit me hard. It’s my favorite week of the year. But when the reality of the pandemic set in, bringing travel to a halt for an uncertain length of time, my life changed. Abstract anxiety set in, my weight began to fluctuate, my ability to focus ebbed and flowed with no discernible pattern. To be clear, I never contracted COVID, according to dozens of tests I obsessively took under the assumption that suddenly something would change and a negative test would get me back out into the world. But at the same time, and to in no way diminish the pain and suffering we’ve seen impact every corner of the world, I wasn’t well. Like Florentino, the loss of something I love took a physical and mental toll that to me was incredibly real.
I’m in Barcelona now, sitting in the kitchen of a rented apartment near Placa de Catalunya typing this. I spent the morning and early afternoon at Fira Gran Via for Mobile World Congress. The stringent and necessary safety precautions put in place by GSMA made me feel completely at ease being in the space, meeting with wonderful people I’ve known for years like Eugina Jordan from Parallel Wireless and Thierry Maupile of Altiostar, chatting with new acquaintances like Danielle Royston of TelcoDR and her supporting team from Babel PR, and having chance encounters like with a lovely fellow whose name I didn’t catch but who insisted on giving me a bottle of Milina quince brandy. “A gift from Serbia,” he said.
I very much enjoyed my first day at the show even though there was a twinge of sadness at not seeing stands where they would normally be, watching people reluctantly queue for the required nasal swab, going through the awkward aborted handshake turned elbow bump, and not being able to read peoples’ expressions because their faces are obscured by masks. But despite those things, the spirit is strong. Those in attendance are happy to be there. Face coverings notwithstanding, you can still tell when someone is smiling. Chance encounters are happening on the show floor and in the sunny outdoor spaces between halls. People are learning, people are working, and people are doing meaningful business.
But for regular MWC attendees, this is not a return to form — but you shouldn’t have expected it to be. You won’t simultaneously dread and anticipate rolling meetings at half-hour intervals for four days, scrambling to a sit-down only to realize you’re walking in the opposite direction of your intended destination despite having been in this same location many times before; telling yourself it’s going to be an early night only to sit down to dinner with colleagues at 11 p.m.; being surprised that you slept soundly in a cramped coach cabin on a trans-Atlantic flight because you’re exhausted and satisfied with the most productive work week of the year. That’s just not possible right now.
The return of Mobile World Congress to Barcelona does, however, represent an incredibly important first step in establishing, testing, and scaling the safety protocols that are needed today and may continue to be necessary in the future for the return of in-person events. What GSMA has done is noteworthy, remarkable even, and there is absolutely nothing about this process that has been straightforward or easy for the organization and the kind, dedicated people that work there.
When you see videos on social media, including videos posted by me, of what is usually an elbow-to-elbow Hall 2 or Hall 3 that instead depict a somewhat empty-feeling space without the usual level of energy and animation, understand that sometimes things have to be what they are, before they can be what you want them to be. As Marquez wrote, “The heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and [that] thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past.” The burden will eventually be lifted and those good memories will be re-magnified by the lens of normalcy; but for now we must endure. And that’s what Mobile World Congress Barcelona has done. It has endured.
Editor’s note: My friend and colleague Kelly Hill graciously gave me helpful feedback on this piece as did Sascha Segan, PCMag.com’s lead mobile analyst and one of the smartest people I know.
