"If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will." Mother Teresa. In recent times I've regularly blogged on mining and presenting data collected from OSS databases. But today I have a fascinating paper on human psychology to discuss that may make you think again at how you wish to present your information if you wish to persuade.…
Read More »"To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future." Bertrand Russell. Wow! A team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has developed Wi-Power technology that…
Read More »"Our communications services revenue growth is being driven by continued strong top-line performance in data, Internet and international - three of the fastest growing and most profitable areas within communications services." Bernard Ebbers. For those of you who don't know, Bernie Ebbers was the CEO of WorldCom. He was also convicted of fraud and conspiracy in 2005 in relation to falsified financial reporting at WorldCom and…
Read More »"Datafication" is a new term used to describe the process of turning an existing business into a "data business." Bersin. We've had industrialisation and digitalisation. Are we already on the brink of a new business model mindset? Datafication. Many industries are now producing and storing prodigious amounts of data, of which OSS is one of the leading exponents. The digitalisation age and it's technological improvements is ensuring…
Read More »"You can motivate by fear. And you can motivate by reward. But both of these methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self-motivation." Homer Rice. When it comes to OSS operators, I'm not a particularly strong believer in the carrot or stick approach to motivation to gain outstanding results using the tools they're provided with. I'm going to divert slightly here with an analogous…
Read More »"Strategy making needs to function beyond the boxes to encourage the informal learning that produces new perspectives and new combinations... Once managers understand this, they can avoid other costly misadventures caused by applying formal techniques, without judgement and intuition, to problem solving." Henry Mintzberg. Henry Mintzberg described the following strategic approaches / perspectives: Strategy as plan – a specific set of actions intended to achieve a…
Read More »"The fluttering of a butterfly’s wing in Rio de Janeiro, amplified by atmospheric currents, could cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later." Edward Lorenz. I'm currently reading "The Click Moment" by Frans Johansson. It discusses many interesting stories about rapid change and randomness in our daily lives. One such story describes how Edward Lorenz ran a weather prediction simulation using the number 0.506127 as a…
Read More »"In vain have you acquired knowledge if you have not imparted it to others." Deuteronomy Rabbah. When implementing an OSS for a customer, I love getting hold of their real data because then their environment seems to become clearer. The more aspects of the data you investigate, the more the flower unfurls. The more their network, their services, their processes, their issues and so much more…
Read More »Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist, tweeted the following 22 rules of story-telling. Perhaps I've been spending too much time writing blogs and sections in my upcoming book, but I see so many analogies between telling a story the Pixar way and telling a story with the mountains of data you have in your OSS: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. You…
Read More »"A skilled author of data presentation will choose the right visualization to emphasize a message. The data, chart, and supporting descriptions will work in harmony to point out what is interesting. The reader simply goes along for the ride. Unfortunately this is the exception more than the rule. Many data products are a muddled mess of chart choices, obscure labeling, and arbitrary layout. In essence, the…
Read More »"To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved." George MacDonald. In yesterday's blog, we spoke of the shades of grey that different users feel on the spectrum of free services versus secure/private services. We also spoke of the potential strategic advantage held by many traditional CSPs compared with their relatively newer Internet (OTT) equivalents - the advantage of a having a trusting customer base.…
Read More »"If you're not paying for it (an app or service), you're not the customer; you're the product." Adage. Declines in revenues from traditional services have CSPs scrambling to identify new revenue streams, often through very lateral approaches. The massive databases held by CSPs are one of their biggest assets even if they don't appear on balance sheets directly. Some organisations are better than others at leveraging value…
Read More »SevOne Acquires Log Analytics Provider RapidEngines. SevOne, the leader of scalable performance monitoring solutions to the world’s most connected companies, today announced it has acquired RapidEngines, a leading provider of highly scalable log analytics software for IT enterprises, service providers and application developers. The acquisition is the first from SevOne since closing the $150M investment from Bain Capital which remains one of the largest venture financings…
Read More »A huge thanks to everyone who has voted on their preferred covers for my upcoming OSS implementation book. The results were surprisingly even. I thought there would be a clear stand-out, but it's been pretty close so far. The results are as follows: For cross-referencing, here are the four options again:
Read More »"I don't like to be out of my comfort zone, which is about a half an inch wide." Larry David. There are still many organisations, even CSPs, that manage their customers and networks from their network equipment vendors. Blend in some spreadsheets and cross-domain tools like SolarWinds in combination with CRM, financial planning, etc and they've managed to build a workable solution on a relatively small…
Read More »MEO rolls out operator billing using Gemalto's Netsize cloud-based billing services. Gemalto is providing its hosted and fully managed Netsize billing services platform to MEO. MEO is part of Portugal Telecom, Portugal’s leading mobile operator with more than seven million subscribers. The cloud-based solution eliminates the need for MEO to create, manage and maintain its own online billing infrastructure for third party services and supports seamless…
Read More »Aircel deploys Elitecore's NetVertex PCRF. Indian telecom service provider Aircel has deployed NetVertex PCRF for policy control with Elitecore Technologies. Aircel has mobile presence across 23 circles in India. NetVertex PCRF was introduced in Aircel network for its flexible & carrier grade architecture based on 3GPP standards to enable greater revenue creation and enhance scalability, eliminating network outage with geo redundancy and reduced turnaround time for…
Read More »Thanks for all the great feedback on my upcoming OSS book. It caused a 5x spike in traffic on the website, which is exciting. I’m now in the process of getting the artwork done and am running a quick survey to see whether you like any of the drafts so far.
Read More »"Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It's not your way or my way : it's a better way." Stephen Covey. The following image has been circulating the Internet and it got me thinking about its implications to OSS. There are many who would believe that there are three kinds of OSS and you can pick any two. In many cases this could be right…
Read More »"In a typical telecom environment, data to support systematic decision making can feel like “feast or famine”. On the one hand, the amount of information available, when combined with the expertise of strategic planners with different backgrounds and experience, can be overwhelming. On the other hand, when launching new products into new markets, where the past is an unreliable guide to the future, data that provides guidance…
Read More »"We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die." Albert Camus. This paper entitled "Predicting people personality using novel mobile phone-based metrics" by de Montjoye, et al provides evidence that user personality can be predicted with reliability* from CDR (Call Data Record) data that's available to all mobile operators and all types of phones without needing any custom…
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