Identity Conference in Wellington

Just saw this Identity Conference is coming to town.

This international conference on “Managing Identity in New Zealand: Identity
Conference 2008" is a forum for presenting and discussing state of the art
thinking, research and practice around managing identity in the 21st Century.
The conference will focus on the development and future directions of identity
management (IdM) in New Zealand, and its wider implications for users, with
particular reference to the introduction and use of new digitised forms of IdM.
A major issue for future IdM will be establishing user-centric IdM: individuals’
ability to control the (digital) representation of their identity and its
potential uses.

There are some stellar speakers here - Dick Hardt has one of the best identity primers of all time that I blogged about in 2006.

Miss it at your peril.

Corporate Blog Lessons

I got a question from Gabor the other day about my experiences in using blogs as part of a communications strategy. Here is my response. Looking forward to G kicking off his own blog now...

Blogs as a communication tool – the key thing is that they are a direct two-way conversation between you and your audience. You have no control over who will read or over who will interact with you but you can influence it.

1. Have a clear purpose – my purpose when I initially kicked this off was to find a way to reach a broad range of internal Telecom people and get them excited about the possibility of new ways of working that had the customer at their heart. When I've moved from this, I haven't had much traffic.

2. Make it personal – this is not about the company line. It is about the individual engaging in a direct conversation with an audience. So have some emotion, make it personal to you.

3. Invite comments – encourage it. The best blogs I read always end with an open question. It’s a skill I am still developing. Listen to the comments and respond. Interestingly most of my feedback is to my face rather than comments published. I think there is a culture where it’s not ok to say you read this stuff. Frankly I’d rather know that people think I am full of sh*t rather than just assume it.

4. Be genuine – no spin, no edits, no censorship. The person whose name it’s under should be the author. Don’t have it ghost-written. Only moderate spam and abuse.

5. It’s not all lollipops – having an open public conversation means that there are going to be some unhappy people. So to that end
a. Be selective about what you talk about – some stuff just isn’t cool – and you have to be use your judgement. Remember what you post is there forever. So no trade secrets or personal attacks. Keep other people’s identities anonymous unless they are ok with it. I think it’s ok to reflect on your part in a difficult work relationship – that’s not a widely held view.
b. Be prepared for negative responses – best case they are posted and you can engage in a conversation, worst case they are behind your back and you find out you’ve been reviewed without your knowledge as part of your performance.
c. Ideally have the concept signed off by your internal comms people – and make them aware that there will be negative reactions and that is totally ok. I didn't do this which caused some angst.

7. Build a rhythm – publish frequently and invest the time to do this. The best publish daily. Some political bloggers are on every hour. Frequency builds repeat visits and encourages people to comment as well.

8. Check your analytics – I use google analytics – I can see which stories get hit, from which networks and can tailor what I am talking about to suit. I can also see the dross stories so I know never to comment on Australian / NZ political stories with links to genetic engineering because even though I thought it was funny no-one who reads the blog does. And had nothing to do with my purpose but that leads to…

9. Experiment ! It’s ok to throw some variation in there – you can see if there are broader areas you can expand talking with your audience about.

10. Participate in the broader conversation – read other blogs, link to your sources, comment on other blogs. Paul Brislen at Vodafone does this really well – he promotes what Vodafone is up to, writes his personal blog and actively engages in conversations where people are complaining about Vodafone. It means customers are being heard and they like it – first step to a long lasting relationship.

So – blogs are for talking with your audience, not talking to your audience. If you want to control what your customers think and publish only good news stories it’s not for you. Do not do this if you think it’s cool or a new way to influence people and you’re not going to genuinely engage with them.

If you want to genuinely engage and take negative as well as positive feedback, then it’s a great tool.

Lance also has some great thoughts on this subject which I wrote about earlier.

Really Effective Viral Campaign

I drown in email everyday - I use it as a source for information and to tell me what to do - and I hoard it.

Clearly I need Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero or Bit Literacy - bought on amazon a few weeks ago but not read yet.

Along comes a tool today via a great viral campaign that might help- Xobni.

Xobni purports to help arrange your inbox through instant search, context creation and display of contact information.

I say 'purports' because I can't download the beta yet. I have signed up through reading this on Lance Wiggs blog. With a bit of luck Lance has moved up the beta priority list as a result of my clicking on his badge.

If you click on the badge below I'll move up the list.

I am interested in how well this viral works - it creates instant scarcity of the download even though it probably isn't really that scarce. Its a bit like gmail invites but Xobni get to control the load and who they release their product too. Gotta love a bunch of guys who are that confident....

The viral potential is great - Xobni gets to see whose blogs are the most effective for delivering traffic and people like me hang out on the off chance someone will click the badge.

Oh - and I love the fact that one of the examples on their video is a guy called Gabor - I thought only I had relatives with those sort of names!

*You* are the brand

Picked this up of Seth Godin's blog the other day where he talks about the posture of a communicator.

What's helpful is to realize that you have a choice when you communicate.
You can design your products to be easy to use. You can write so your audience
hears you. You can present in a place and in a way that guarantees that the
people you want to listen will hear you. Most of all, you get to choose who will
understand (and who won't).

And I've tied it to another quote that I really like

“A customer-aware company gets bonus points for its intentions and rhetoric, but
negative points for doing little or nothing to build processes and structures
that allow the organization to deliver consistently and transparently for the
customer.

A customer-centric company matches intention and attention. It
does the hard work of threading enterprise-wide customer experience initiatives
across the silos and specialized functions, through the processes, and down to
and through the technologies and human factors in order to deliver for the
customer and the organization.” (Kevin Hoffberg)

Whether you know it or not, you have a brand promise that you make your customers. And everything you do during your day will impact on how your customers perceive you delivering to that promise. Even more, things you don't do will all impact customer perception.You need to know what your brand promise is and how what you do impacts on that.

Just today I have

- designed some identity frameworks

- completed a weekly report

- reviewed my planning structure

- had team meeting

- completed my expenses

- had a conversation about how we could collaborate better

- had 4 conversations about how we can improve delivering a new business

-overheard 3 people discuss how they feel we are heading for a bad result and don't know what to do about it

-debated whether we are a process centric or customer centric organisation (they are the same !)

-met my family for coffee

- Written this entry

Based on delivering the brand promise, I've hit about 40 - 50% of things that are important to deliver on the brand promise and 50 - 60% of things that are necessary (but not important). I think it should be more like 80/20.

What's your day been like?

Necessity is the mother of invention

Or maybe it's this

"Financial security is the greatest inhibitor of creativity that mankind has ever known"

I'm not sure if its the 'greatest inhibitor of creativity' but I'd have to say that it's up there. In previous conversations with HP and Sun on how they manage innovation, their biggest barriers have been internal - people with existing revenue streams who see a new product as a threat to that security.

I've got about 9 weeks left of employment left at Telecom. I can calculate with some degree of accuracy what I will be paid in that period. After that it is, at this point, wide open. I can say, without doubt, that I have had the biggest run of ideas so far in my life. Not all of them are my own - it would be fair to say that I am listening much closer to what people say for triggers for ideas. Not many of them have got to the point where I could say that they are a viable business. I am getting closer though.

Makes me think there are a bunch of people out there who are financially secure who have a bucket of ideas everyday and just keep going. What do you think they are thinking ? It's not how to get the next buck - it must be some kind of internal drive that keeps generating ideas independent of their needs for food and shelter. Maybe its what Maslow meant by self-actualisation ?

Thanks to Simon for the lead to the quote and the audio clip it comes from.

I gave at the Office 2

I started writing this a week or so ago - when I published today it got lost in my previous published stuff.

Any idea how to change this in Blogger?

Unusual pop culture / nature reserve mash-up

You probably have to be over 30 for this to have any relevance at all. No idea where it even is...

Plugged In

I just got back from Baa Camp in Auckland and now feel very plugged into New Zealand's web and entrepreneurial communities.

The link to the site doesn't do this gathering justice, but that is because it is a private gathering - but what is clear is that this is *the* place to trade ideas and learn from a fantastic cross-section of NZ's thought and business leaders. People who think nothing is impossible.

A major characteristic of the Baa Camp is that the entire agenda is user created - at the start everyone lists out topics that they want to talk about and see how those develop over the weekend. Hardly any power point in sight - only used to help illustrate the conversations.

Apparently last year's Baa Camp delivered a lot of the industry input into shaping the thinking of David Cunliffe in his regulatory approach for broadband. I'd expect to start seeing some coherent industry activity on

1. Independent web advertising networks

2. Policy input for Fair Use of Digital Content

Personally, I got a heap out of it

- Met some fantastic people with the most diverse range of backgrounds, skills and thinking

- Got majorly inspired about the prospect of setting up my own business in this space

- Participated in a very impromptu (and high quality) single malt sharing session

- had some great conversations about the power of brand promise and customer experience and how to get that to stick

- Played my first game of werewolf and got nailed completely - but dead keen to have another go

- Uncovered a few business opportunities that I'm keen to have a good look at.

Next step for me is to have a crack at setting one of these up in Telecom before I disappear in mid- April. It is by far the most effective way that I have seen to get up to speed with a number of different topic areas and the best networking event I have had the privilege of attending.

Big thanks to Nat for the invite and making it happen. Tips to to Rod,  Mauricio and Russell who made the recommendations for me to attend.

Mobile Commerce replacing bank branches in Australia?

I read this article from stuff this morning. The implication in the lead-in was stunning...

"Australians are fast deserting bank branches and soon won't even need a computer to transact, now that the country's major banks are rolling out mobile phone banking services."

It's stunning because it's wrong. You'd think that you'd soon be able to walk down the main streets of Sydney and not see any bank branches and that we'll all be using our mobiles to transact.

A visit to Australia recently demonstrated that banks are re-opening branches in suburban areas, and are extending opening hours for existing branches into the weekend and after 'normal' working hours. The same trend has been occurring in NZ.

Leads to to 2 questions - one on this topic and one broader.

1. Why are branches important for banks ?

Branches are important for banks as they provide a direct and personal link to their customer. When it comes to high complexity and high value transactions, customers will want to understand the impacts - they won't get this on their mobile, they'll get this by talking to a knowledgable bank employee. Sure banks will continually look for more efficient and more convenient ways to manage high volume, low complexity transactions. That becomes part of the portfolio of choices they offer to customers. It makes sense for banks to offer a multitude of ways - not just one way - to serve their customers. ANZ's Brian Hartzer makes this point in the article. That is the real headline.

2. Why does a belief exist that a new type of technology will totally supercede any existing means?

Maybe it generates headlines - I'd love to know from anyone who has been in the journalist or social marketing fields why it is necessary to be so black and white about this type of thing. Experience says that these changes are slow in coming and you never really know where they land - it is very rare to have one mode totally replaced by another. In this particular case there is no further detail in any of the article that Australians are fast deserting branches - yet the journalist or editor in question seems to think that it's important to know in this article. It isn't and it just seems naive.

Finally, it is good to see that something which has been around for around 5 years in New Zealand is seen to be a big thing about to happen in Australia . A great example of using NZ as a test market before moving to larger markets - best of luck to the M-Com team as they break into a larger population base. They've done a lot of hard work here building a business model and ecosystem - maybe payoff for the hard work is just around the corner....

I gave at the office

I had two very different donation experiences last week that made me think a little



Experience 1: Giving blood at the NZ Blood Service



Experience 2: Being approached in the street to donate to Barnados.



Both of these are causes that I support, however the contrast of my reaction to each of them couldn't be more marked.


When you think about it, giving blood is a pretty abnormal experience. Stuff that directly contributes to how you live is taken out of your body. You are not paid a cent for it. You are asked a bunch of personal questions concerning your sexual activity amongst other things. You're expected to eat and drink properly to replenish your blood supply which you are called up to give in a few weeks time. You really have no idea what happens to your blood or who it goes to.It is literally a donation.


On the other hand, giving money to Barnados is a low impact donation - a few dollars a week that goes directly into a local organisation which looks after local kids that you are informed about through glossy leaflets. There are also subsidised childcare opportunities should you need them. In my position as a parent I could easily directly benefit from this.


My reaction however was totally inverse to what you would 'rationally' expect.


Giving blood is a pleasurable experience - your feet are up, you can read the paper, the nurses at NZBS are genuinely welcoming and treat you like a hero in a genuine and appreciative way. They generate trust and totally value your donation - you know that it's not being mis-used. Ontop of that, donating blood is seen by most organisations as a valuable community use of time - to the point of being supported through time off and transport costs


Being approached on the street by what I can only describe as commission salesperson with a pressure sell has meant that I am now seriously considered whether the donations I give to Barnados are money well spent. I had to basically be rude to this person just to disengage from the sales process (which was un-necessary since I already donate).


The emotional response to these experiences is extremely re-inforcing for giving blood but trust eroding for Barnardos. I feel like its a pressure sell. Building a marketing model that generates the level of trust that you experience giving blood is a killer application if you are looking for marketing grunt.


I know that it's hard being a not for profit organisation - its hard enough being a profit driven organisation. I think the use of commercial tactics (I can only assume these people are from a door to door sales organisation or the like) is not going to cut it. I am instantly mis-trustful now of how much of my money goes to kids that need it. I don't have that issue with my blood.


So I think it's time to turn this model around. How do you effectively 'market' a charitable organisation? Using traditional marketing methods (mail-outs, glossy leaflets and pressure selling on the main street of the CBD) doesn't work.


How about a conversational approach - Barnardos is probably chock full of volunteers who get paid minimal amounts for looking after needy kids. Their stories need to come out in way that is genuine and builds trust. Currently they have a semi-annual newletter - not good enough. Barnardos has some cool programmes - kids helping kids. You wouldn't know about it. Why isn't their site full of stories about how they are working behind the scenes making a difference. Donators need to know that their contributions are directly linked to these positive outcomes. Some trust needs to be generated and a connection made between the donators and the kids who get the benefit. Right now, with the approach they are taking to raising funds I want to see an annual report with disclosure so I know someone isn't creaming my donation to make money employing enthusiastic teenagers on a low commission to make themselves a tidy little profit. There is no trust. A little bit of effort by their marketing department would make a huge difference.


As an aside, does anyone know how these fundraisers are paid ?

Hard Handoff

14 years ago last week I started a new job at Telecom Mobile as a Cellular Engineer back in the days when that meant running around the country installing new cellsites. These days with that kind of title I'd be splicing genes...


One of the things I learned in the first week (other than sneezing next to one of my new colleagues got me banished to the other end of the floor) was the concept of handoff.

Handoff is part of the magic that makes mobile telephony work. It is the mechanism that allows a mobile to move from cell to cell while maintaining the call. Its what makes it 'mobile'. The only hitch was that 'maintaining the call' was a bit of a euphemism. The way it worked was that the system would detect that call quality was declining (or in the digital systems the mobile would detect that an adjacent cell had better quality characteristics), work out where the the best cell for the call might be, prepare a spare channel on the new cell and tell the mobile to tune to that channel.The mobile tunes to the new channel (leaving the call on the old one behind) and all things going well(there is NO such thing as perfect engineering) the call would be resumed on the new cell on the new channel.There was a noticeable break in the conversation while this process occurred - I used to think of it as a hopeful period where you'd hope that the system and the mobile had all got their act together.

I learned that belief was quite important in this process and spent a lot of time driving around testing the network, listening for breaks in calls and hoping that the calls would stay up. I guess that would be why I wasn't the best engineer - too much hope and belief!

That type of handoff is a hard handoff - breaks the connection before it makes the new one. The CDMA systems these days have a much more reliable and secure way of making handoffs work - the mobile stays in contact with a number of cells so never breaks the conversation until it gets to the edge of the system. That's a soft handoff - much better for customers but not so much fun for engineers. No so much hope and belief required.

I've initiated my own hard handoff this week and resigned from Telecom. The reason its a hard handoff is that I haven't got a new role to move to. I know what I want to do - which is to lead a company that makes a real difference for customers - and once I decided that, it would have been mercenary to look for that while I was here. Hence the resignation.

Mobile phones don't have their own emotions - but if they did they'd feel a mixture of uncertainty every time they went through a handoff. But over-riding all of that they'd be hopeful and optimistic. They'd believe that they could do it. And they'd just let go of what had been good for them and trust that they'd find something better.

The power of Free

This video is great - it's a talk by Chris Anderson the editor-in-chief of Wired. He is the author of the much loved 'The Long Tail'. I found it the video on one of Guy Kawasaki's blogs.

His basic premise is this - there is a part of your business now which is a constraint that you have to pay for. What if that constraint wasn't there? What if you treated it as Free? What would that do to your market and your overall proposition?

It's a great talk given at NokiaWorld 2007 very well illustrated with lots of real examples from the Internet and telecommunications world (webmail and mobile in particular) and economics that anyone can understand.

There are a couple of conflicts in what he says (eg artists like Prince giving away music for free to create premium pricing for concerts - Chris hasn't commented on Prince taking legal action against his fans for the use of his likeness on fansites - maybe its another revenue model) and an unfortunate part of his talk where his PC SNAFUs without a graceful recovery.

Those are minor though - the premise is really powerful. Something that you think is a scarce resource, your competitor might be thinking is heading towards free. They act like it's free, you act like its a constraint. When that happens your world is going to get shaken up.

Of course you have to make the right part of your model free - sellmefree for example. There is no constraint for the audience on their primary competitor trademe. Sellmefree have made the wrong part of their model free as Lance and AirNZ have noted. It's free for anyone to browse and buy on trademe so the audience is there, which drives people to sell there. Virtuous cycle - boom.

It would be a bit different if there was no constraint for customers on the amount of a certain product to buy on trademe -and you could buy it at the price it just sold for on auction instantly - no such thing as missing out again. That would make it a meta-retailer (Sam Morgan's words - not mine) as opposed to community marketplace. Maybe the Ferrit model is not so bad after all? Especially when you look at the great deals they have on ipods now.

What would you want to see removed as a constraint now? How would you act if it was free?

Take 45 mins out to watch the video and have a think.

Agile Development

We've been working with a major international Systems Integrator and have been exploring the use of Agile Programming methods for a major (ie 12 month+) project.

While Agile has been well covered in other forums, one of the areas that I note is significantly underplayed is the amount of cultural change required moving from Waterfall techniques to Agile. In particular, I note that people from a Waterfall background *still* want to complete full requirements before moving into the Agile phase - it takes a lot of effort to let go of that security blanket. And on top of that, integrating Agile based deliverables into Waterfall deliverables seems to be left for others to discuss- maybe it's best not to consider that right now but seems like a recipe for failure.

So I was really pleased to see the Agile Barcamp wiki set-up from the session here in Wellington two weeks ago. I was disappointed I couldn't make that session as I was in Auckland that day (story of my life!) - however I have had the benefit of seeing the presentations uploaded now and can contact the people who wrote them and ask them how to integrate Agile and Waterfall. Fabulous.

Ironically (or otherwise) I've noted that a couple of Dilbert cartoons have focussed on Agile recently.

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20071126.html

Being in the camp of the business owner, I personally like this one.

I found this here http://cns2.uni.edu/~wallingf/teaching/agile/resources/dilbert-xp/

The end of the traditional kiwi closedown?

Like others in NZ I've been acutely aware of the skills shortage that we are facing - and I'm impressed that a number of employers are using what would be typically called the 'deadzone' to recruit new people to their team. This time of the year would normally be viewed as a waste of money to recruit talent as Kiwis have pretty much clocked off and wont be back en masse until late January.

Phil and Teds have bucked this trend with a major campaign to recruit what looks to be a wide range of talent for their team. This could be, of course brilliant timing and great execution - timing from the perspective of being able to run full page ads in what should be a cheaper window for traditional media without a lot of other clutter and execution in terms of the language and style of the campaign.

My only misgiving would be whether they hit the whole market (full page ad should sort that) and whether people have the headspace to dust off their CV a week before Xmas. My guess is, given how successful P&T have been this year that this is a well considered marketing campaign - hope they can turn interviews around this week for the sake of a couple of people who I know are applying.

Did this make the weekend agenda?

I am not a big fan of commenting on politics - I have better things to do.

It would be fair to say though that I am unhappy about the electoral finance bill and have been actively following David Farrar and Whaleoil for their views on this. They make me look like a fencesitter and certainly attract some criticism but I digress...

Another blog I have been following has been Dilbert - ironically it's been very active since Scott Adams announced he was going to blog less. He brought to my attention his own conspiracy theory based on a news item that Kangaroos fart less and this discovery will lead to some genetic modification of cows, reducing the methane being added to the environment.

Now given Kevin Rudd's first agenda item will be signing Kyoto, which Helen Clark and NZ have been a supporter of in recent times, I do wonder if this subject made the agenda over the weekend when the two leaders met informally - what an icebreaker!.

And being a guy I can't help but think there could have been hours rolling around laughing about the benefits (or lack thereof) of farting animals.

However I now realise that this would have been embarrassing all round once I reflect on the stereotypes. For one, no guy is going to be genuinely proud of not farting, hence Kevin Rudd would not bring up the point of his non-farting national icon. And no woman (well none that I know) would be genuinely proud of the animal which is creating her largest cash income having the socially (and politically) embarrassing habit of letting rip and hence making the world a more unstable place. So an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gases in the region is blown off as a result of gender stereotypes.

However the solution is clear - Helen and Kev have to swap countries - it's for the good of the planet dammit.

It's not supposed to do that

My mum still tells me that bad things run in threes - must be an Eastern European thing, as my Yugoslavian (is there still such a place?) godmother said the same.


This morning I got a run of three in about 4 minutes. Started off innocuously enough - riding my bike in on a beautiful warm and calm morning after a 5:20 am start to do some stretches. I was just coming off the Wellington motorway onto the Hutt Road when I hit some debris - back wheel kicked out a bit and a noticed that it had lost a bit of air.

I pulled over - back tyre definitely soft. Number 1. Take my pump off my bike to put some air in the tyre, hoping against hope that it was a slow leak and I could get into the office without changing the tube. I undo the valve on the tyre, clip the pump on and realise it's set-up for an MTB valve and can't put any air into the tyre. Off course, pressing the pump onto the valve meant all the air came out of the tyre. I turn to flip the fitting over on the pump. The lock nut is basically seized onto the pump due to excessive sweat corroding the aluminium so I can't change it over and the tyre is definitely flat. Number 2. So I decide to take the wheel off, change the tube and flag down a cyclist to use their pump. I release the wheel, and start to pull it off and notice there is a bit of resistance. I jiggle it around and give it a yank. The wheel is off - I look down and the derailleur looks like this picture. Number 3.




I think I have sheared the bolts off with brute strength - guy in the bike shop tells me the bolts are ok - just too short. Pretty sure I have been riding like this for about a year since i replaced the rear derailleur - fortunately I haven't been mashing the pedals :)


The bright side to this is at least 25 people stopped this morning to see if I was ok on their way riding into work. Nice one - thanks!

Corporate Blog Guidelines

I like this sensible advice from Lance Wiggs.

Keeps it simple, and has two basic themes

1. Blogging is a conversation - it's happening whether you are there or not. If you want to be part of that conversation then make an effort and be part of it!

2. If you're going to be part of it, be genuine. And you don't have to give your company secrets away to participate.

I know its common sense but sometimes that is a rare commodity in corporate land.

I've been interested in Paul Brislen's presence in various forums, in particular geekzone. I am sure that it makes those forums richer for the fact that Paul is out there with Vodafone's view on a regular basis. I do note that Paul doesn't have his own blog - any idea why that is?

Do what I say or what I do?

Had a funny experience today - was looking after Ella this afternoon. I changed her nappy and she was playing around in her room. I told her not to touch her nappy cream and less than a minute later this was the result - her lion Frankie had his rear end covered in aforementioned nappy cream....

So after I stopped laughing (ok it took a while...) I had a change to reflect on a couple of things.

1. I've been telling people for ages to keep their presentations short and to the point, and tailored to their audience. Yet on Friday I was involved in a team presentation that could be best be described as a powerpoint-a-rama that lasted 2 hours. Broke all the rules that I hold dear - pretty clear what the message is there to people who were unfortunate enough to be on the other end of that. Garr Reynolds would have had a field day.

2. Later on that day we had an activity that was designed specifically to relieve some frustration that is evident in the same team. We did not say what the purpose was - we just acted in a way that gave people the opportunity to genuinely express their concerns in an environment that was safe to do so. Much more effective that point 1 - no fanfare but the result has been enduring.

3. David Beckham - say what you like about him (and I'm a Spurs supporter - damn you Ricky Villa) but this weekend in Wellington he showed what a professional he is. Put himself out for his fans and made every post a winner. Even with bronchitis. Can't wait for the next Phoenix game already.

It didn't matter what I said to Ella - Frankie got his tail covered 'cos that is what happens to her and why should she act any different. No different in the other world.

Where there's a will, there's a way

I used to think that line was a pretty trite comment, but I had cause to reflect on a couple of very different experiences of late that show the power of personal will, and the need to take personal risk to make change happen. It's really important if you want to create powerful customer experiences.

1. I went to our call centres the other day to listen to why customers are calling us (as opposed to contacting us in any other way - btw the reason they do is they want trusted advice from human beings. I'm sure there are other ways to do this that have the human touch but I digress). We had a customer call who wanted to cancel broadband - he wasn't using it. Craig (the rep) could have just gone through the motions and cancelled it but decided to drop his success rate on call metrics and take 10 seconds to look at the customer's overall bill. This guy was spending $350 a month - mainly on domestic and Australian calls. So Craig asks if he wants to look at other options and ends up selling a plan which will probably cut $150 a month off his bill. Customer is stoked and casually asks about mobile - Craig ends up selling him a phone sight unseen which will completely suit his needs. Customer is still paying less per month and now has a great mobile - all because Craig took the personal risk to engage in a conversation that the customer hadn't initiated.

2. I've been shopping around our user-centred design methods internally and talked to a number of senior General Managers. The value of what I was talking about was recognised immediately - however there was no will to implement. I can understand resources are tight, deadlines are near - we've all been there. A will to implement would find a way to get around that.

I had to reflect on the second experience - a normal uncontrolled reaction would be to say 'pack of muppets - they don't get it' but I've realised that I've got to have the will to back up what I believe in and find a way to make it stick. Which means persistence and probably an alternative approach. Thanks Craig from the Helpdesk in Hamilton - you've taught me a great lesson.

Science backs up beliefs

I've been involved in an ongoing conversation for years now.

I believe that if you treat customers well, put yourself out for them even, your business will be more successful. Customers will come back. You'll make more money. Everyone will be happy.

Problem with this is that is a belief based statement. Pretty hard to run analysis other than belief based churn reduction. Numbers guys don't like that kind of thing.

The good news for people like me is that Telecom's new CEO is very clear that putting customers first is very clearly our number 1 objective. Made life a whole lot easier.

Ironically - after a day listening to Paul Reynolds and being dead impressed by his commitment to this approach, I found this piece of research entitled Happy customers provide higher returns and are lower risk.Who would have thought, huh? Will be one for the back pocket when the accountants come around.

I blinked

It's been 7 months since I last posted here.

It would be easy for me to say that I had got too busy to post anything and this whole blogging thing is just a fad, so why bother.

But that isn't the truth. The truth is that I blinked. In the face of some feedback I literally stood still and didn't move. I won't share that feedback with you - maybe you'll notice a change, maybe you won't. It's also critical to note that it was feedback - not an instruction. And my reaction was to treat it as an instruction.

My purpose with this blog is to share my opinions and positions on things that matter to me, that I care about. Note the use of the word 'my'. It's not Telecom's position, it may not be my colleagues position - it's my position. And its for you to comment on and contribute to. I don't really mind if you flame me either - the point of this is to open up the debate on issues, provoke some discussion, and learn something that we didn't know before.

My view on this is simple - I am brave enough to share my opinion here. If you disagree with it, I'd ask you to be brave enough to tell me your counter opinion. Even better, do it as a comment here so we can do something positive with it.

Sprung on the 'net

So I've been 'found' on the 'net. Juha Saarinen - a regular contributor to the media landscape in NZ on all things telco and internet based has tracked down my very poorly updated blog and made some very pertinent comments about a couple of things in the piece.

1. Why does Telecom not have a Corporate Blog?

This is a funny one as last year Theresa got a few random people together to get their opinions on how we could get our people better engaged with the direction that we are taking. I was pretty adamant (in a 2006 kinda way) that a blog that was written by TG (ie NOT ghost written) would be a great way to go. It would take some investment and discipline but would be a great way for Theresa to get her message out. Her biggest issue was the supposed lack of authenticity of this medium. I have to say, based on a couple of comments I have received on this blog, that a direct way of commenting with her people (and I use that word in the broadest sense to include her staff, customers and broader stakeholders in NZ) would be a great way to gauge public sentiment and to explain why we do some of the stuff we do. Doesn't make it right or wrong but it most certainly means that you get your message out.

2. Juha thinks I should relax a bit

I must ask him about this as it could mean a couple of things

a. I am being too earnest in what i talk about (very possible)
b. I need to be more overt about my real opinion

This second bit is a little more problematic - and cuts to the core of this media - how do I express my opinion about something that pays for my family to eat (without being too dramatic). I guess the only way to do it, is to do it - so I'll be testing this boundary and seeing how my buddies react. A few of my posts have been too veiled which leads to the next point...

3. A commentor on Juha's blog, Michael, posts that I am a representative of another type of employee

The new generation of institutionalisation is the opposite - excited, passionate believers but so deep in their own corporate culture ("drinking the Kool-Aid") they can't see outside the walls or can't truly empathise with customers.

This had me more concerned that anything else as the thing I truly believe in is that for Telecom to survive (let alone succeed) that empathy with what customers really want is needed. I have an opinion that lots of people join Telecom for a whole lot of good reasons about how they can improve the lot of Telecom and its customers. But when they get in there, the path of least resistance kicks in and they find it easier to ensure customers don't leave us as opposed to make things so good that customers want to stay. You might think that is a subtle distinction but it's massive. And its time that it stopped. My response to Michael's comment is what I am doing to make that change stick.

Which leads me to the proposal on Friday for structural separation. There are lots of good reasons why you might want, as a shareholder, to keep Telecom in one piece. But there are a hell of lot more for splitting it off. Over and above the cost of making it happen (just think number portability x 10 - and its interesting to see that only one party has got that deployment right). One of the most important is that it would completely remove the temptation to try and 'game' the system. And I think that it would completely drive the right market behaviours like the following

A. The Network business would be solely responsible for building and maintaining bandwidth. Nothing more, nothing less. Its a big enough job that is fairly capital and resource intensive and if you got the right structure in place (ie must only ever be a wholesaler, never retailer ; ideally separate ownership) then you'd have some pretty good conditions that would work for the whole industry. And don't underestimate the issue about being able to make a reasonable rate of return - that would have to be directly linked to re-investment.

B. It would remove a huge constraint from the Retail side of the business. It's funny - you look around the 'net and see all the suggestions that people make for what Telecom could do and you realise being inside the business that if you didn't have to spend all your time lining people up to get commonsense stuff done that there are huge gains to be made in terms of innovation and Innovation (purposefully distinguishing between the 2). My own personal preference is for Retail units not much more than 100 people in size with truckloads of non-core services outsourced, running on a very lean internet based model with the same flexibility of our competitors. Would probably make some of them who used to work here a little uneasy if they knew we had the same nimbleness that they enjoy.

Looking forward to seeing how the market reacts but TUANZ's reaction was a very pleasant surprise. Some leadership here is great to see, especially when you wouldn't pick many bold moves with only 2 months and a bit to go until Theresa moves on...

Claim this place

We've just opened up a new project office in Auckland for the work we are doing - I think this is an incredibly symbolic time for us. Here are some thoughts that I sent to Pawel to show what this means to me


This is a landmark time and place for us.

This is where we start to design the future. If we use the metaphor of the Kiwi Explorer this is our shed, our garage, our kitchen table. This is where we pore over our plans, covering off every uncertainty and trying to find the best way to make our quest happen.

If we were Edmund Hillary this maybe where he kept his bees, thinking about the mountains he might climb before he attempted Mount Everest. If we were Sir Peter Blake, this is the boat building yard where we tested ideas about new boat shapes, sail types and nutrition plans before we set off to San Diego to win the America’s Cup. Closer to home, if we were Kevin Biggar, this is where we would weigh every item we had and decide we really only need half a toothbrush while we were rowing across the Atlantic. Further away, this is the garage in Palo Alto where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak designed their first apple computer. This is our beginning.

This is a place about ideas and debate – where we are safe and free to challenge each other about whether what we are doing will really deliver on our dreams of running a lean business that will deliver product innovation in the eyes of our customers and a service experience that is unparalleled in the NZ business.

This is a place where we find out about what is inside us – for it is only by unleashing the capability that is inside us that will deliver on this dream.

It is a place where we will stand strong and united – for it is only as a team that we can achieve what we set out to achieve.

And it is a place about hard work – this is place where we do the preparation – the training, the theory, the mini expeditions to prepare us. This hard work is in the pursuit of an audacious dream that perhaps no-one thinks is possible other than us – and those are the best type aren’t they?

We will have our first reward in June when we will have completed our design for this new business. Until then I encourage you to ‘claim this place’ as ours. It is the place where we design our dreams – where we design a business that will be the future of Telecom, the future of its customers, and it will be a defining point in all of our careers. Our first challenge is to make this place tangibly different from what we have come from. I encourage you to do that – make it special. See it as our first test of doing things that are leaner, innovative and customer focussed.

Building a new business is hard work...

And that's not exactly a surprise is it. Thinking about where we are now in our project to build a new retail business vs. where I thought we could be by now, it's a hell of a lot harder than I thought.

So even if you are well funded (which we are) this building new business thing is not a walk in the park. In fact I think there would be some serious side benefits to not being well-funded - for one the fear that every EFTPOS transaction might be your last would certainly provide some more fundamental motivation to get stuff done faster.

Here's a top 5 list of why it's harder than you think.

1. You only know where you're going when you get there

Things change so much that you can only really ever have a general idea of where you might end up. Sure it's exciting - trying to keep people rolling with it is not that easier. How Columbus did it I have no idea.

2. You need to know everything

You might be able to delegate stuff to experts but really it all falls on you - especially if your business is about delivering roughly the same stuff in a different way, you HAVE to know if the different way is going to work. For someone who doesn't do a lot of detail, this means a lot of learning

3. No-one from the normal world gets it

People want to know why you're working insane hours, are always pre-occupied and telling them 'I'm coming up with a new business model that customers will love' will at best get you a quizzical eyebrow raise

4. Always challenging can turn into self-doubt

Building something new, you have to continually challenge what you're doing before you burn a lot of cash - people in your team who aren't used to this will turn this into self-doubt. Not a good thing.

5. Some days you're just surviving

I'll use an ocean-going analogy again. You get hit with 40 ft waves in your wooden ship sailing to the other side of the world you don't really care if you're still heading in the right direction - you just want to be alive. Sometimes you have do stuff for survival that won't take you in the right direction - not much you can do about it.

There's a heap of good things as well - they're well documented - it's how you get through the tough stuff that determines whether you'll be successful. Everytime I think about those pioneers who set out with literally nothing (Shackleton, Cook, Columbus, Erik the Red) combatting the best that Nature could throw at them, and generally heading in a direction where they didn't know exactly what they would find- sheesh, they did it tough. We've got it easy....

Great article on customer immersion

Excellent follow-on article from previous post about the need to talk to customers. This is the next step in our customer experience work. Thanks to Lynsey for the pointer

Resumption of service

And we're back for 2007 - been a long break between posts. And a chance to think about what I'll be doing for the coming year.

Only made one New Year's resolution - to start a revolution that will create a truly customer focussed business here at Telecom . Arlene thinks I am crazy but it's the one thing I really care about from a work perspective. I have lots of theories about why it isn't customer focussed currently- most are best left for a beer conversation as they tend to focus on what's wrong as opposed to how do you design a new future.

I've been working on this 'revolution' for a while now and thought that last year it had come to a grinding halt. We had an opportunity to pitch some of the work we have been doing around customer experience design to the Exec via a couple of GM's - in short I screwed up. Tried to make it too much about 'hey- this is cool. We're designing stuff. We never design stuff.' It came across as self-serving and I really thought I'd blown the chance for the team to get the right skills and resources on board to make sure we really design from the customer in. Spent a couple of weeks beating myself up about it as well.

The good news is that we had an opportunity for another part of the team to pitch this direct to the Exec and we reframed the story completely. Al and Dale took the exec through customer personas, showed how we use these to create options to meet customer needs and then tied this together in a way that hit what the Exec want to see - by designing from the customer in you can create a lean, low-cost organisation as you design out all the un-necessary contact customers have with you when things don't work. Exec love it, and we now have the resource we need to really design a world class experience. And to top it off, I've learned my lesson (again?) about the need to pitch it to the audience in a way that works for them.

revolution started.....

Why being there makes the difference

Couple of great little lessons in the last week about the power of being there in front of an audience, and telling them stories about how you see your business unfolding.

1. I got invited by the Business Roundtable to talk to a class of 15 year olds about a month ago about what I do at Telecom, what's important to us and the future opportunities that might exist.Given most of them have been alive just barely longer than I've been working here I told a story of how technology has changed so much in the last 12 years I've been here and how I've been able to do my little bit to make a difference. I got this letter from one of the students.
There are so many lessons in here, especially when you think of the context of this

• Megan is not an existing customer - but I reckon there is every chance she might be one day
• As part of this chat I got asked a very direct question of when we're going to roll out broadband to more rural areas and gave a very clear 'not for a very long time!' as an answer
• I gave this talk to 45 people (30 kids and associated parents and teachers) - it probably cost me 3 hours of time (2 hours of prep and 1 hour of delivery) which, if I was being generous, probably cost Telecom $600. That is about $7 per person in terms of marketing cost and I reckon I got better cut through from this than any of our ads. This includes any in-direct benefit I would have got from these people talking to their friends and family.
  

I'm not saying we should ditch the TV commercials - clearly they work - but any chance to get in front of your customers in person (current ex- and future) has to be the best way to give your business personality and let your customers know you have a vision for THEM (not for you) and how you can 'make things better for average New Zealanders' - if it's not about that, then why are you here?

2. As one of my final acts in my old role, I gave a presentation on Thursday to the TUANZ business internet conference. It was all about how we research Emerging Technologies - which of course is actually all about understanding what are the problems that people will face in the future and how we can use technology to solve them. The guys put together a great demo of this based on streamlining the order and payment process for the local cafe based on the use of RFID. Worked really well and stimulated alot of discussion. Must say that the thing that really blew me away was Ernie Newman saying, in introducing the next speaker, that he was genuinely impressed that Telecom had a team of people who were so focussed on the customer and their problems, and that he held high hope for Telecom to execute its transition to a more holistic player in the NZ market - Paul Stoddart, Neil Forster, and all of the team at the old ETS (the new R&V) take a bow - you are actively changing the perception of Telecom for the better. One small team can make a big difference...

Usability Testing

Spent all of Friday doing usability testing on Residential Gateways.

Our technical team have shortlisted a number of models for us to look at as part of our Next Generation product set. Out of the 3 models that we looked at, and the 3 people we tested on, only one of them was able to get one model successfully working. Not a good look. There were a heap of issues. This includes

1. Having instructions printed in 10 point font that outline the need to run the CD before connecting any kit up.

2. Lots of device conflicts - we are going to have to get into some software development to resolve this

3. Some terrible language used in setting up the devices - the best example was a critical setting choice which had two options (World or Any)

4. The need for the customer to know ADSL log-in names and VCI/VPI settings

5. A device with no way to set it up other than to know the local IP address. Great.


So we learned heaps! For a start

1. We picked the right people to test on - non-techo people who got really frustrated when it wasn't simple. These are our target market. This is really important as I managed to get the device to work the night before but underestimated the pain that some people would go through. The video we have captured of the process is pure gold...

2. We have learned which information customers know off the top of their head vs having to have prepared

3. We have some really good insights into the look of the device - I don't think there is a way to make this device look acceptable in a home environment so we might as well just hide it.

4. We also have a great strawman for a proposed install process - to get to this in a day is a great result. This is the speed we need to work at...

Movember

The last 2 out of 3 years I've been involved in a work fund-raiser to grow moustaches with the noble aim of raising money for Women's Refuge (all based on the loose premise that guys with mo's get a bad rep for violence towards women that's not justified).

This year I'm taking part in Movember - a fundraiser for men's health (focussed on Men's prostrate problems). It would be fair to say that a week in I'm feeling very rough around the edges and not having nearly as much fun as we did doing this as a more localised activity. I think the cause doesn't resonate with me that much (I mean - doesn't matter how much you advertise no fella is that excited about a protrate check) but I'm hanging in there.

Pic is a doctored view of how we're coming along - if you're up for a sponsorship, Please go to Movember , enter my Rego number which is 46881 and your credit card details. All donations over $5 are tax deductible.

Coming up for air...

The last month has been pretty crazy - we've been taking a good hard look at the strategy work required to deliver our new business and how we use products and services to do this. That's driven a whole lot of design activity that we are right in the middle of. There are some really good things that we've done and some things that we've learned that will be critical for making a new business come to life. Here they are in no particular order

1. The importance of the design process

OK - This seems like a really obvious comment. Everyone these days is talking about design - as a bit of an apple fanboy (sad but true) I've been going on about how we need to design things better for customers so that they work together. By taking a good two months to design what we want from both a customer perspective and a business perspective we are having the hard conversations now as opposed to starting down a path we might not be able to get out of later. This is helping us get senior engagement early and I am certain will mean that the actual build process is shorter and tighter - we won't be holding many options open at that stage for sure.


2. External skills and diversity are critical when you are looking at a transformation project

After 3 days into this process we had an 'aha' moment. While the 4 of us were all really focussed on executing our strategy and turning ourselves into something very different to what we are at the moment (think lean, fast and delivering services that customers love and contrast to what you think of Telecom today) there is no doubt that you gradually drift back to what you are comfortable with and what you know - this is exacerbated by the fact that we're all male, middle-aged (shock!) and well above the average age. Hardly our target market. We've brought in a number of people to help us through this - some internal (mainly female and with varying backgrounds) and a Design coach from Optimal Usability - Michael Andrews. He's been superb - not only is he a very experienced design professional, he's brough a level of customer focus to what we are doing that has meant that we just don't talk about things relative to how we operate today - really refreshing!

3. Turning yourself into a design-led, customer-focussed organisation is hard

As someone who has talked about being customer focussed and got frustrated about that, I have been surprised at the extent of the change I've had to make to be able to design products, services and a business from a customer perspective. Thinking about every decision in a customer oriented way takes a level of change that our current organisation is probably not able to achieve.I say this based on the following evidence

• I'm open to customer oriented thinking - but doing this on a decision by decision basis means putting aside your entire decision making framework based on business outcomes, technology etc. That is a massive change - I suggest you try it to see how different it is!
  
• We are only just learning the way to ask questions from a customer perspective - Michael has been awesome in getting us to frame up the initial questions of how a customer would want to experience the service in language they would understand. This a new skill for us.
• While we touch customers every day our actual interaction with them and experience of how they understand our products and services is really limited - we don't feel their pain enough. Tomorrow we're going to get some people to do some usability testing on existing products so we can see where we are starting from - I expect to take some grief...
  

4. Our new business model is the problem to solve - not the product set

We started off looking at this from the perspective of designing new products and services and the processes that sit around them. Seemed reasonably straight forward - the fact is the change is so big that you have to design what your new business looks like from top to bottom so you know what you're delivering to. This has been controversial - we're getting a lot of push-back on this along the lines of 'trust us - we have this under control'. The fact is - if we are finding it hard to turn ourselves into more customer oriented people and design that way in, how can we possibly trust people to design a business model who don't have that world view. Still employed this week so hoping that some of what we are saying is resonating...

5. This is not delegatable

Well - I certainly couldn't delegate it and I won't be. It's pretty easy to delegate stuff you know that's incremental or relatively low risk. This is complex, requires new skills to be learned and we're banking the business on it. Seems like something too big to be delegated 3 levels down but what do I know.

Huge month - and i reckon the next 2 will be even bigger - must do some daily updates for a change.

New Job

It's been a while between posts - since then I've decided to take on a new role within Telecom heading up its Next Generation Product Management group. This role is part of the Consumer Business Unit and is primarily focussed on developing the product set that will be at the core of our next few decades. It will mean moving the entire residential set of products (and some wireless) onto new product platforms that are all IP based. This will transform the product set, and if done well, transform our business.

A few people have asked why I have decided to take on this role, which will be challenging (in the least!), as opposed to keeping on going with the role that I've had in researching customer behaviour and new technology.

For me, it's come down to a few things

1. Delivery - I really enjoy picking trends, but I found it very frustrating seeing these ideas incubate without getting to market. This role provides the opportunity to still use those skills and also combine them with getting stuff to market.

2. The Everest effect - this is a huge challenge - delivering a product set that is so compelling that all our existing customers choose to take it over all other alternatives by 2010. And the future of the business rests of achieving this successfully. I love the scale of this challenge and the possibilities that it creates!

3. My career - self-centred I know.... But I need to lead something of this nature to take my career to the next stage. This will make or break me. Everyone needs a little adrenaline in their life - this is mine!

It took me a good week of soul-searching and talking with key people inside and outside Telecom for me to feel confident enough that enough of the environment is in place for this to have a chance of success. Not all the pieces are there though - in particular a really clear view of what needs to be done by when, and described in such a way as to make everyone excited and motivated about getting in behind this. But I guess I have to do some of the hard work, don't I?

So the tone of this blog (when I write it of course!) will change and be more about the how we start building a team, some vision and then start executing. Next posts will be about describing the problem a more and how we're going about building a team.

Get your head around Identity 2.0

Tom Glover has been doing a LOT of work on identity - including building some core identity infrastructure (purely for prototypes of course!) as we speak. On top of that Tom is presenting at the invitation of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on a "Day in the (digital) life" on 21st September in Wellington. Post a comment and I'll get you the details to get along - it's private up until then :)

I have to admit that while I get the need and opportunity for Telecom in the Identity space, I've never been able to articulate it clearly. I found the following links which have pointed me in the right direction.

Firstly a 15 minute primer on identity by Dick Hardt (anyone who has a tagline "who's the dick on my site" is worth a look). Not only does it get you up to speed with identity, its a great presentation from a style perspective. It was found on a list of Top 10 presentations in a review by Guy Kawasaki.

Secondly - add this site to your RSS feed reader.


Between these two links there is all you need to know about Identity 2.0

So the next thought has to be - where could Telecom be in all of this ? The answer most certainly isn't 'in the middle of it'. That's the customer's place. But we have a role to play - we just have to make sure that we aim to participate as opposed to control. Otherwise we will end up like Microsoft's Passport - REJECTED!

A fine pickle we're in...

I've tried to stay away from political leanings but feel compelled to write a few words on this (I'll categorise it under 'Thoughts on Fatherhood' as it's critical to the world that Ella will live in if we are in NZ).

I had a very insightful experience a couple of weeks ago. i was invited to a 2 day symposium run by the NZ Business Roundtable on the importance of public policy to the future of NZ. The event was targetted at so-called Emerging Leaders. It killed a few myths for me and certainly got me thinking a bit.

Firstly the myths

1. I always thought the NZBR was a lobby group that is primarily aimed at lining the pockets of big business ( a few socialist traits coming through there..) - it's not. It's a think tank that focusses on the research and development of public policy with a particular focus on human flourishing. It's almost noble.

2. Relatively, we've come through the last few years unscathed - fact is we've been lucky and we haven't been investing for the future of NZ in key infrastructure (roads, hospitals - the important stuff). We're in trouble and we're falling further behind

3. MMP is a great leveller for governments and stops them getting out of control - it's the opposite : MMP drives GROWTH of government. More specifically in NZ, the core civil service has increased in by the same amount in the last 5 years as the previous 160 years. I knew we were getting bloated but that just stunned me.

This session also stimulated lots of thoughts - here are a few

1. We have to find a way to limit government. Peter Boetke put it best at this event. We are caught between the erring entrepreneur and the bumbling bureaucrat. The erring entrepreneur is at least likely to get weeded out by market realities. The bumbling bureaucrats hang around for ever until an electoral discontinuity occurs (eg Lange / Douglas in the 80's) and actively avoid reality.

2. Despite the notion of public policy being important, particularly businesses needing to take a long term view, there was only one group of people who were actively planning for a long term future - Maori. I have taken this view based on a presentation given by Tahu Potiki who is CEO of the Ngai Tahu trust. He was talking about how Ngai Tahu are planning to get returns on their settlement with the Crown that are focussed on sustainably improving the level of education of Ngai Tahu people. In order to do this they are taking a 30 year view - who does that in business? It means they will, in Tahu's words, skip a generation of benefits. That's a big call - but clearly the pay-off is there. Incidentally the panel with Tahu, MP Shane Jones and Rob McLeod convinced me that Maori Leadership could possibly be the key to NZ's future. They are dynamic, bright and very astute. Moreover their Maori background makes them grounded and more holistic in their approach.

3. Making a stand for less government is the equivalent of political suicide - how do you convince the majority of the nation (who are in someway the beneficiaries of the government's largesse )that it is not in their best interests to get handouts and that we would all be better off with a simpler tax and incentive structure.

4. Governments are bad at designing incentives
A great story was told by Alan Gibbs about how he successfully ran a business that manufactured TV's in NZ. The rules at the time said he could not import them fully built up. He went to a Japanese manufacturer who had to de-construct already assembled TV's, send them to NZ where they would be re-assembled. Gibbs recieved an incentive for this new industry - consumers paid twice the global average price for TVs and a nonsense industry was created that would fail once the incentives were removed.

5. We have an amazing bunch of successful business people in NZ who are willing to share their experience and time with people like me - any chance you get to talk with people like Alan Gibbs, Ron Trotter, Gil Simpson amongst others is a real treat.

Wiki's rock

We're just about to launch our internal wiki. Atlassian has introduced an Enterprise blog piece of software. Looks pretty cool and maybe a next step. Rod Drury points to an analysis that is right on the mark. There is a heap of power to be harnessed in tying wiki type technology alongside enterprise data - looking forward to this making a real difference in the speed at which we develop new concepts and ideas.

The world of duct tape

Gabor pointed me to this today - a site exclusively devoted to cool things you can do with duct tape. I personally liked the duct tape wallet.

It's so nerdy that its almost (note the use of the world almost) cool. Goes to show you a couple of things

1. You can do the same things with different materials and styles and get great results
2. Opening your eyes and being resourceful is a pretty rewarding experience - I like the way this guy publishes the instructions for free and its now being used by Youth programmes

Just don't make the Marvin the Martian outfit please...

On my way to Internet millions!!!

or maybe not...

For those of you who noticed, there are google ads located on my blog. I did this merely out of interest to see how this model works.

It's quite fascinating to note that since I've put them on the pages, not one ad has been clicked. But as a result of page views, I've still generated some income. To be specific I've tripled last month's income of 1 cent (USD - mind you) to 3 cents USD. On a geometric basis that means at current course and speed I'll hit 7$ USD by January 2007 and $1.3 million by December 2007!

Of course on an arithmetic basis it probably means I'll have to stick to the day job...

The Perfect Age

I watched this show tonight 'The Perfect Age' . Admittedly it was out of self interest as I had been asked to appear as a guest 'technology expert' on the show.

It was pretty clear as I was watching that I wouldn't be appearing (first rule of telly - if you're not on before the first ad break, its happening without you) and I have to admit that when I saw that Peter Sheahan guy I was thinking 'WTF - they've replaced me with some made-up Australian with a hair product fetish!!!'. Due to the wonders of wireless communications I was able to see that the guy is real and he blogs at the same time as watching the show (my rant lasted about 30 seconds dammit). So I've come to terms with the fact that he is better TV talent than me, as we were pretty much saying the same thing with regards to the differences between younger and older people (Gen Y, Gen X and Baby Boomers in this show) - younger people have been surrounded by technology longer and are much more agile when it comes to dealing with new problems and challenges that are technology related. My previous blog on Digital Natives was getting at the same point. And I have to say that he was much more succint in the way that he was making his point.

The other really interesting part about this show is how the Baby Boomers dealt with learning and memory. They were really really slow in picking up new ideas whether they were technology related or following driving directions. But when they got it, it stuck really hard - to the point they were able to drive a random map course in reverse five days after the fact!

I am using this to inform a piece of work we are doing on some technology for older people that allows for greater independence when older - can't wait to test it with some real Boomers!

No such thing as MY job

For those who hadn't noticed, Telecom is going through the biggest change to its structure and design in at least the 12 years I have been lucky enough to be here.

At this stage, almost all of Layer 4 (Direct report to GM) has been redesigned. It should result in an organisation that is more agile and better able to deliver to customers in a world where IT, telecommunications and media are colliding.

This of course is not without its share of stress - when your current role has changed and you have to apply for a new one (or what you think is your curernt role) then a bit of stress is understandable. However it does need some perspective...

The most common thing I have heard is over this time is 'They can't do this to me / you - that's my / your job!!!' I have news for anyone who thinks that way - the job you have is NOT your job. You don't own it - the best you can do is to see yourself as a steward in that role - to leave it in better shape than you found it for the next person. And a really important part of stewardship is to realise that the time you have to perform that role is set by someone else - you don't always get decide when you're done.

I've had a lot of people say to me 'I've heard so and so is interested in your job' - well I'm all for that. In fact I encourage it - if we are going to grow up as an organisation then we have to very quickly get used to a world where roles change much faster than they have in the past. That starts with working out what is best for the customer as opposed to your job description.

2 updates

1 minor , 1 major one

Minor 1

After the trials of last week, my faith in Apple somewhat restored once i did a full reload to factory software of the nano - it works. Still feel somewhat cheated in that I had to do this...

Major 1

Team went down 3-1 in a titanic struggle to top of the table team on Saturday and won on Sunday. Saturday's game was possibly the most frustrating ever - they had 3 chances (a fantastic individual effort and a disputed penalty included) and scored all 3. We had at least 6 attempts on goal that in any other game would have been put past the keeper. More to the point if the keeper had kept out one of them he would have to be pleased - to have kept out 6 was miracle territory. His best 2 efforts were
a. appearing out of nowhere to palm away a header that had goal written all over it
b. Reaching behind himself one handed to palm away a shot from outside the area from yours truly which not only was swerving and dipping, but would have to be the most cleanly hit shot in 25 years of kicking around a ball that I have produced.

To say I was gutted by the result was an understatement - as Bill Shankly famously said

" Some people believe that football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that". Felt like that all weekend....

Fingers crossed...

Capital Soccer :: Senior

It's been 6 weeks since we played a game of football and I'm going quietly mad. No cancellations or rain yet this week - We're 4th in Division 7 at the moment and need to pretty much win remaining games and have a couple of results go our way if we get to 4 titles on the trot.

Luckily we have the top team to play twice so 2 wins there and we're in with a shout.

All it takes is one bad Apple to ruin the lot

I admit I've been a bit of an advocate of Apple of late (at least the last 2 years) in that I just *love* the way they implement new technology but I'm dark on them at the moment. The main cause of this is the iPod nano which I have been holding off opening. Decided last night to load it up as I'll be getting some Nike + iPod kit early next week (thanks to Philip Ivanier for the rapid sourcing job) and wanted to get myself all sorted. What should have been a 30 min exercise ended up being a 2 hour exercise in frustration usually reserved for Microsoft products.

I followed the instructions to the letter (my first mistake?), installed the software,restarted the PC and then connected the iPod. From here the following sequence has occured

1. iTunes recognised the iPod but wouldn't sync claiming nano didn't have enough capacity - supposed to recognise that nano is smaller and to autofill based on this. No such luck..

2. Found that there is a software update for the nano so downloaded that.

3. Installed software and restarted again.

4. Software noted nano connected and 'upgraded'

5. Subsequently restarted again (*yawn*)

6. On restart, PC recognises nano but iTunes sees nothing. On every end of connection, nano restarts

7. Can't force disconnect the hardware - apparently its in use but i'll be damned if I can see what's using it

Given PC has worked reliably with other iPod devices I am thinking I have a dud. Trying on a mac tonight - but it would be fair to say that I am less than excited about the pending arrival of a MacBook Pro (new home laptop) as all of sudden Apple is down to the same level as other technology providers. Especially after reading this. Worse case scenario is that I have ordered a nice looking machine which is more expensive that similar PC devices - ouch...

Interesting Folks

Really interesting day yesterday - 3 lots of people from diverse areas who are thinking about how we might use the talents around us to drive great customer experiences

1. A conversation with the Telecom graduate group (well, some of them at least) about how we can use them to test our thinking for new technologies and services. Apart from the conversation varying from being a bit geeky (err - sorry..) and paradoxical (one participant who said what we were doing wasn't exciting yet couldn't explain what would be exciting - I'm all up for critiquiing but have some substance please) I think we have a great set of young people who are fairly representative of the emerging market we offer services to. Can't wait to use them more. Know someone who wants to be part of this next year? Grad programme and cadetship details are here

2. Steve Rush from CSB came to have a chat about Unlimited Potential - I went to one of their sessions a couple of weeks ago. Great bunch of people with great diversity - everything from Gaming to Home Automation to nanotechnology - wicked. A really rich network to be a part of - we're looking at a sponsorship deal with them currently. Need to get some more Telecom folks along to this in future.

3. And lastly another guy from CSB, Joe Raeburn. Had a great conversation about self-service, and how that could tie into a common identity framework. Would mean that we could communicate with our cusotmers over the channel and with the context that makes sense for them (as opposed to what makes sense for us). Turned into a conversation about how you could use Virtual Reality contact lenses at a VJ Rave so the VJ could project different scenes onto the specially provided T-shirts worn by the ravers. Wonder what that would do for the drug scene?

Stoked to be able to get inside these people's heads - really reinforces what an exciting industry we're in.

Customer focussed music service

OK - this post is probably a bit self-serving (more than the rest, I hear you ask?)

Yesterday we launched a fantastic extension to the Telecom Mobile Music service. Now any song that you download on your mobile, you can also download a copy to your PC. PC file is WMA so will play on a variety of Plays for Sure devices. The usual industry rules apply (Up to 3 PCs, 3 Offline devices and 5 CDs)

Here's why I like this...

1. A customer only has to make a single purchase to be able to listen to a track pretty much anywhere - online or offline. No other music store in NZ comes close to this

2. It's a really powerful step towards 'listen to your music where you want'

3. It ensures that the files are optimised for the best listening experience on whatever device you're listening on (ie Mobile file is compressed for rapid delivery, PC and Media Player files are 128k industry standard)

4. Even though we've had to go with industry standards on numbers of PCs, devices, CDs etc, as long as you maintain your mobile number (and keep a copy of the song) you will ALWAYS have the right to play that song. Can't think of many other systems with that power.

I'm sure we'll get lots of questions about why it won't play on an ipod. Would love to be able to deliver this - pity Apple aren't up for that.

Congratulations to the team involved in delivering this enhancement - it's taken a lot of persistence but they've made it!

Of less direct customer interest, but of significant future value, is the fact that you can now access these services online using a customer ID based on your mobile number (ie don't need an xtra account). You'll see more services coming out like this. CallerTunes was re-launched with this capability which means you can now search for Tunes on your PC, order them, have them set-up and then charged to your mobile. That to me is convergence - making stuff easy for customers.

Digital Natives Part II: Rules

So on yesterday's ramble about Digital Natives I referenced a piece about Natives being taught by Digital Immigrants which indicated that it's not really going to work that well.

AS part of the NetSafe Symposium today there was a lively debate about how we need to make the Net safe for our kids and control access. This is a classic case of Immigrants thinking they know better and trying to set rules for Natives who can...

a. bypass the rules really easily
b. have probably already worked out what the risks are and put in their own levels of trust and protection (in their own inimitable style)

It's also a case of people trying to see the new world in context of the old - they're just too different and you can't control it.
The sooner that the rule-makers talk to the Natives about what they are doing, the happier we'll all be.

Malcolm McLaren said as much on Campbell Live tonight - pretty much hit it on the button

Digital Natives and corporates

I've been writing a presentation I'm giving on Mobile Futures for the Netsafe Security Symposium in Wellington this week.

As part of it I'm going over some themes which I think will shape the services of the future and come up (again) on the general theme of Digital Natives (or Digiborigines) . To be honest I had heard the term before and hadn't equated it with my own belief that there is another generation of people coming behind us who have grown up around digital technology, who intuitively pick up new services or devices faster and see possibilities (and rubbish) faster than we do.

The wiki definition does it some justice but the original piece of thinking about it is much more insightful for me. Mark Prensky does a great job of distinguishing between Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants (those who have immigrated to the new world). His thoughts on accent and education are really compelling and explain a lot. How could a teen who lives on the Net possibly take anything seriously from a teacher who doesn't have a PC at home, teaches from books and is completely linear in his thinking ? It's much more than a generation gap at work here.

If you take this a step further and apply it to corporate structures in technology companies it means a few things(what the hell, I'll use Telecom as an example)

1. The people who run strategy teams come from classic backgrounds (ie linear thinking) and while they are incredibly intelligent, probably think when they see kids communicating online 'they're just playing with stuff - we'll never make money out of that'. None of the work on services that a Native would use gets past strategy unless it pays back in a classical sense.

2. If you're lucky, the exec team members have kids who are the pre-teen and teen level who are starting to live their life online and see the trends but think 'well, these are kids of people who are earning several hundred thousands per year, so that can't be normal'. They get the fact that things are changing but can't translate it into actions.

3. There is a real need, in at least the next 3-5 years for 'translators' to sit at senior decision making levels who can see what is happening with the Digital Natives and ensure that investment and product development is happening in the right areas. This is a massive responsibility for the new GMs at this layer - and will fundamentally decide if Telecom is ready for what will happen in 5 years time when the Natives are not only our customers but also the people running the company at this level. If those people don't have these skills, they will need to recognise it quickly and put in place people around them who do have them. Get it wrong, and there will be no market for what we are selling.

The danger of where we are at presently in NZ is that there a lot of people who think they can translate between the Immigrants and the Natives but actually can't. I'll take the example of speaking another language - I can speak French ok, I learned it at school for 5 years and have had lots of practice speaking with other French speakers here and in France. Putting aside the fact that it takes me at least a glass of red wine for my accent to sound right, and I get really tired after about an hour of full on speaking, there are some key questions that need to be answered.

Does being able to speak French make me French, with all the cultural differences between being kiwi and French? Nope.
Does that mean I can see deep insights into what would resonate with a Francophile ? At a push - if I see the nuances correctly - and it requires all my other skills in reading people and behaviour to make that happen. And don't forget it's only ever a snapshot because I don't live in that world and see it evolving.

It's why I think one of the smartest things Wayne Boyd is doing at the moment (and watch the video on who he is looking for) is looking for new Board members with very specific skills in FMCG and Media. We need to know how to speak these languages (as a minimum) and translate (as an optimum) to make sure we keep pace with the competition.

Taking this to its extreme, possibly the smartest thing that Fairfax have done in buying trademe has not been keeping the marauders from the gate of their advertising revenues for a few more years - they've got someone in Sam Morgan who at least understands Digital Natives and, if they could keep him interested without the corporate rubbish, have someone who could (and should) shape their direction so they are well placed when the Natives get out of school and start spending large like we all do...