"There's a battle between what the cook thinks is high art and what the customer just wants to eat." Mario Batali. If you're an OSS developer, it's easy to see all your work as high art. And in many cases it is. There is an amazing sense of achievement to build something so powerful. Unfortunately for OSS chefs, the customer doesn't care much for the art…
Read More »"Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement." Peter F. Drucker. Peter Drucker was born in 1909 and was a leader in corporate management education. His statement above rings true today and is particularly true for OSS practitioners. I've experienced some corporate cultures when knowledge is hoarded, possibly in the hope that power can be hoarded. I don't subscribe to that theory. I…
Read More »"Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind." Frank Lloyd Wright. If you were asked to provide an impartial analysis of an OSS, what factors are important? Every OSS has vastly different functionality but there are several factors that affect the overall experience a user has with a product: Usefulness: is the product useful, with a clear…
Read More »"Don't be so familiar and so much into the details. Keep people dreaming. Close the window, and make them wonder." Celine Dion. The story behind today's post still vexes me to this day. Yes, Celine Dion vexes me too but that's a whole other story. In the early 2000's I was tasked with building a vendor's first ever auto-discovery engine. We were assigned a brilliant young developer to…
Read More »"For many people a job is more than an income – it’s an important part of who we are. So a career transition of any sort is one of the most unsettling experiences you can face in your life." Paul Clitheroe. As a consultant, I've had many new roles at many different organisations in different countries and different cultures over the years. So I guess you…
Read More »"We aren't in an information age, we are in an entertainment age." Tony Robbins. The second half of the information age is definitely progressing along the lines of Tony Robbins's quote above. As information commoditises, it becomes the content, the entertainment that differentiates. Does this lead to the line of thinking that B/OSS of the future will be part OSS, part content/media server, part billing engine,…
Read More »"It takes two men to make one brother." Israel Zangwill. POI or points of interconnect are interesting places. They are the place where CSPs meet and hand off information between each other. Is it just me or are POIs also the place where size does matter? Is it really true that the bigger CSP will generally assume the position of bigger brother when it comes to billing irregularities,…
Read More »"Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?" T. S. Eliot. We all know OSS hold lots of data. But why? What is the knowledge gained from the information? I believe there are five main types of data that are essential for true business intelligence: Operational data - the near real-time data that allows the organisation to track how efficiently it is functioning Network performance -…
Read More »"Beware the barrenness of a busy life." Socrates. Further to yesterday's post, why is it that almost everyone I have met in the world of OSS is busy now and has a backlog of incomplete activities piled up to the roof? Why have I averaged 80 hour weeks for months at a time and still haven't got close to keeping up when on OSS projects? Why…
Read More »"Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong." Donald Porter. I only recently heard a saying that is apparently commonplace - "No wrong doors." It wasn't immediately apparent what it meant. In effect, it means that if a customer asks you a question then you need to go away and resolve it even if it's not…
Read More »"You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data." Daniel Keys Moran. OSS technologies will undergo changes from any number of directions in coming years and disruptive approaches will undoubtedly morph OSS from their current form. Irrespective of this evolution, we can simplify. The reason that OSS are relevant now and will continue to remain relevant in their modified form in the…
Read More »"If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine." Jim Barksdale. I was discussing performance reporting with a friend yesterday and he made a simple, yet profound statement that I agreed with wholeheartedly. When it comes to performance reporting, it's not the information presentation that is important but how easy it is to extract the data. Every…
Read More »"What revenue model should I use? = the wrong question to ask. Why will people pay me? = the right question" The Board of Innovation. There are so many different revenue models in OSS that there are no simple apples-for-apples comparisons on price. There are perpetual licenses, annual licenses, processor-based licensing, node-based licensing, named user licensing, concurrent user licensing, data volume-based licensing and so many others.…
Read More »"I have a lot to learn about NASCAR. But I've learned if you have the right people in the right places doing the right things, you can be successful at whatever you do." Roger Staubach During a vendor presentation, you will almost always see the "NASCAR page" in their promotional material. It's the page where they show the logos of all their past (or current) customers.…
Read More »Well, it's been a long time coming, but I've finally updated the Vendors / Products page. Who have I missed? What other details would you like to see in the table?
Read More »"You always want to win. That is why you play tennis, because you love the sport and try to be the best you can at it." Roger Federer. In my opinion it is important to strive to be a tripod if you're in the OSS industry. It's vitally important to be competent with Telco networks, IT technologies and understanding business drivers. However, a majority of OSS…
Read More »"In most companies, the formal hierarchy is a matter of public record - it's easy to discover who's in charge of what. By contrast, natural leaders don't appear on any organization chart." Gary Hamel. In making the decision to take on a major new OSS project there is normally a significant hierarchy of individuals involved. Invariably the technologists will form the vast base of the pyramid,…
Read More »"Reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away his or her choices or limiting the range of alternatives." Wikipedia. There is a tendency for an OSS vendor to arrive on site as THE expert in all things OSS and start telling the customer all about the changes it HAS TO make. In one case, I watched in bemusement as a 10-man…
Read More »"Accept that not all of the smart people work at your company." Stefan Lindegaard. Have a willingness to seek ideas from outside your organisation. OSS is too diverse to have all aspects covered by in-house experts. OSS are all about making valuable connections. Sometimes you may need outside help to find those valuable connections. Where do you look outside for your inspiration? Do you look?
Read More »"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." Albert Einstein. As this blog often states, an OSS exists to provide valuable insights into the operation of a network. In the world of OSS, Einstein is partly right. It certainly does require imagination to make an insightful connection between data sets that nobody has ever thought to make previously. Unfortunately, it also requires the knowledge…
Read More »"You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you." Barbara Sher. In the previous post we talked about the best place to use your linchpins. In today's post we look at how to best use your beginners or newbies to OSS.…
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