"Advertising is legalized lying." H.G. Wells. My hat goes off for the persistence shown in securing an OSS implementation contract. The sales cycle tends to be lengthy (nine months plus plus). During that time, many promises tend to be made that the implementation team will find difficult to deliver. Unfortunately this often sets unrealistic expectations within the CSP that need to be re-set by the implementers.…
Read More »"The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery." Plato When do most OSS vendors/integrators deliver training to their customers? At the end of the project right? When SHOULD the OSS vendors/integrators deliver training to their customers? At the start.... and then throughout the implementation... and then after they've finished. Have you ever noticed that most vendors spend a great deal of time…
Read More »NSN takes mobile broadband network operations into the cloud With NetAct 8, Nokia Solutions and Networks is virtualizing and modernizing its long-established Operations Support System (OSS) to make network operations simpler and nimbler. NetAct 8’s single, end-to-end view of multi-technology, multi-domain and multi-vendor networks helps operators to run these networks more efficiently and with lower costs. Also new are an off-the-shelf integration of Customer Experience Management…
Read More »"There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance." Albert Einstein. Further to yesterday's blog about network modelling, I had a task back in 2001-ish to help a vendor develop their first-ever auto-discovery tool. It was such a thrill when we got it…
Read More »"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust. A new friend over in the Philippines suggested that I write a blog entry about network modelling. Now I'm going to sound like the ultimate nerd here but mapping network devices into OSS is probably the most challenging but interesting tasks I've done in OSS. I love the…
Read More »"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Winston Churchill. Did that title grab your attention? I'm not some crazy who's advocating the death of democracy by the way, but I do have an interesting question to pose today. Interesting to me at least... Given that there is a race to the bottom underway around the world with many countries seeking to…
Read More »"The Delphi method is a structured communication technique, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, experts are encouraged to revise their…
Read More »"In 1900, Smithsonian Institution curator John Elfreth Watkins wrote an article for The Ladies' Home Journal, entitled "What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years," filled with predictions that many of his readers probably scoffed at as ridiculously improbable... But what's more impressive is the extent to which Watkins' vision of the future actually has come to pass -- wireless phone networks on which a person…
Read More »“...the greatest shortage in our society is an instinct to produce. To create solutions and hustle them out the door. To touch the humanity inside and connect to the humans in the marketplace.” Seth Godin, in his book "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?" Let's say that the best in the business, what Seth Godin calls Linchpins, cost 20% more than other lesser mortals but based on the…
Read More »Opmantek wins Knowledge Management & IT award in the Gold Coast Business Excellence Awards Opmantek’s network management products are used by over 45,000 organisations globally including some of the world’s largest Telecommunications organisations. Over 13 years Opmantek has shared knowledge and vision within the network management industry, coordinating innovative ideas worldwide through a commercial open source business model led by the world’s top experts, based at…
Read More »"..you’ve got to challenge yourself to produce. Produce more ideas than you need for yourself so you can share and give your ideas away. That is called fruitfulness and abundance." Jim Rohn. The more ideas you share, the more you have to develop, forcing you to produce and grow. This site exists to share ideas with those who have an interest in OSS and to push…
Read More »Virgin Mobile Australia Partners with CSG to Improve the Customer Experience with CSG Singleview Virgin Mobile Australia, one of the country's most popular mobile operators, and CSG Systems International, Inc., a global provider of interactive transaction-driven solutions and services, today announced that Virgin Mobile has expanded its use of CSG Singleview to improve the customer experience and meet changing regulatory standards. CSG's partnership with Virgin Mobile…
Read More »"The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it." Carl Rogers. If everyone is standardised, then nobody is exceptional. Nobody stands out. Everyone is consistent. Everyone is commoditised since there are no differentiating features. Not sure about you, but I want to differentiate. I want to be unique. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big…
Read More »Hawthorn Football Club are AFL premiers for 2013! Go the mighty Hawks! Image borrowed from News Ltd's story that can be seen here.
Read More »"At least DO SOMETHING! DO! Don't think, don't hope, do! At least you can come off and say 'I did this, I shepherded, I played on. At least I did something" John Kennedy. I find this to be a brilliant analogy for OSS implementation projects too. There's so much complexity, so many things happening dynamically, so much chaos happening, so much interaction with the team and…
Read More »"1. What percentage of your time is spent creating something new, as opposed to working out operational details or protecting the past? 2. List five ways that you can beat your competition. How could they beat you? 3. If you were entering your industry as a startup, how would you break the mold to beat the incumbents? 4. What elements of the past or status quo…
Read More »"Above all, remember to challenge everything. Challenge assumptions. Challenge the status quo. Challenge the “complacent incumbents.” Challenge the rules. Challenge yourself." Josh Linkner in his book "Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity." In my mind, creativity within an OSS framework comes from being able to make connections that nobody else has made before. The typical OSS collects a staggering amount of information and…
Read More »"Companies that have “innovation processes” often stifle the creativity of their organization by making those processes too rule-driven, formal and restrictive." Josh Linkner in his book "Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity." As you'll see in the side-bar, innovation is a common theme in my blog posts. There is so much innovation required to develop outstanding OSS suites, so it's a topic of…
Read More »"Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge." Winston Churchill. Dear reader, let me ask you a question.... or maybe more than one. If you engaged a consultant on a $1m assignment and they gave you a report on a single sheet of paper, would you feel aggrieved? Now what if that single sheet held a formula that unlocked the cure for cancer? Would it be worth…
Read More »"One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly; and that which grows slow endures." J. G. Holland. When it comes to building an OSS team, having a diverse team of linchpins who have specific knowledge of your OSS is essential. It’s definitely helpful to promote from within your own organisation for a whole number of reasons, including: Team morale…
Read More »"I’ve met plenty of egomaniacs who think they have all the answers. Time typically proves them wrong. I’ve never met anyone who’s had more than a few of the answers herself. That’s why we need other leaders to help us. Build a well-rounded team, hopefully one with plenty of misfits, and typically someone in there will have the answer you need to any given problem –…
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