Farewell NGT

Today is my last day at Next Generation Telecom.

I've been working on this programme for the last 18 months or so and we've been able to get it from the feasibility work completed by Group Strategy, through a very rigorous design phase now going into Build.

It's been a hard road - we had quite a frustrating period as we went through the change in leadership at Telecom. It was necessary - we weren't really ready to move forward.
I am personally very pleased at where we've ended up.

NGT was described in the investor briefing session yesterday. There is a lot sitting behind this slide which comes from the Retail Briefing.

We started this phase with 3 of us in a room having 2 'AHA' moments.

1. We will not be able to compete as a Retailer in the market on product differentiation based on Network. Everyone can pretty much have the same stuff. What we can differentiate on is service.

2. We don't know how to design 'properly' for the customer - we have to learn.

We now have a team of close to 100 including our partners at Tech Mahindra, we have a brand promise that we are designing for that will be a game changer in NZ. The people building NGT are now first and foremost advocates for the customer and have the skills and capability to make that work for NZ. We have personas we are designing to, we are directly validating our design with customers, we are constantly challenging what we are doing to deliver to the customer. This is a very different Telecom.

It's been a privilege for me to be part of this team - I have learned a lot and worked with some amazing people. Thank you.

I'll be taking some time out from today and working with the Retail Broadband business at Telecom until the end of June. The rest of the year I will have my hands full with 2 year old Ella and trying to turn a couple of good ideas into good businesses.

Ella turns 2

Cracker day today - Ella's 2 year old birthday. Highlight was cruising around Oriental Bay with her older cousin Kaspar. This photo taken after they had pretty much outstayed their welcome at the local F n C shop....

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.