Top 10 requests for the CTIA show

Spring has arrived, Opening Day is in the rear-view, and once again we found ourselves at the annual hyperbolic chamber that is CTIA’s Big Show. So in an effort to deflate the windstorm on the horizon, I have a few requests for this time around:
1) News. Reporting from a trade show isn’t easy: Most speakers stay agonizingly on-message, and the product launches usually fall somewhere between tedious and excruciating. A big-time takeover or a blockbuster joint venture would help immensely.
2) A ban on our industry’s use of the word “agnostic.” I do not want to hear about how your technology is platform-agnostic, network-agnostic or anything-else-agnostic. Try “platform-independent” instead, or even made-up stuff like “device-unreliant” or “OS-of-any-kind-ever-capable.” If you utter the word agnostic, you’d better be talking about this guy.
3) While we’re at it, let’s 86 the phrase “carrier-grade.” Please. If you’re selling your stuff to carriers, that fact that it’s carrier-grade should go without saying. Does Kraft brag that its food is “consumption-worthy?” Would you buy a ticket if Continental Airlines marketed its planes as “air-worthy?” (And yes, I’m aware that Carrier Grade Linux refers to a set of specifications. Not so for mobile. Probably. But don’t e-mail me if I’m wrong; I don’t want to know.)
4) A party like LG’s bash with the Foo Fighters in Orlando last year. Great stuff.
5) Numbers. Data. You want to tell me how mobile video is at a tipping point? Fine. Show me uptake figures – not polls. And I don’t care how many downloads you’ve delivered if half of them are promotional giveaways.
6) Better tchotchkes. Lawn darts, maybe, or maybe blow-guns.
7) Some real conflict. A pissed-off content provider hurling a chair at one of the carrier guys during a roundtable, maybe. That’d be cool.
8) An industry-wide mandate that every Web-enabled phone have page-up and page-down keys. No, really, I’m serious about this.
9) Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and Joe Biden to round out the Day Three keynote. Oh, and Paul Abdul’s half-sister hosting the Mobile Entertainment Forum.
10) Lunch. Just once, I’d like to eat a nice, leisurely lunch at the show instead of doing interviews, producing copy or scrambling from one event to another. (Which is still better than being chained to a booth on the show floor, of course.) But please don’t offer to take me to lunch so you can tell me about your platform-agnostic, carrier-grade solution.