Where OSS meets Smart Grids

“It’s less about boxes and bases stations; it’s now a lot about software analytics, capability of reconfiguration and all that. It’s a very big shift from what we have seen in the last years.” Professor Mischa Dohler here. In the video in the link above, Prof Dohler suggests there are two major disruptions happening in […]

Overcoming restistance to change

“Inspiration is much more likely to develop from the habit of consistently paying attention to life’s small moments.” Robert Maurer, from his book, “The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time.” As we all know, OSS projects are a combination of people, process and technology. However, since most of us […]

Cisco invests $21m in STEM

“Cisco Systems Australia has announced a five-year investment program expanding to train over 100,000 Australian tertiary and school students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills. AUSTEM 2020 is a new program, which builds on Cisco Australia’s long-term commitment to tackle the STEM skills shortage and help create an innovation economy, boost productivity and […]

16 root causes of OSS problems

“The Toyota production system has been built on the practice and evolution of this scientific approach. By asking and answering ‘why’ five times, we can get to the real cause of the problem, which is often hidden behind more obvious symptoms.” Eric Ries, in his book, “The Lean Startup.” Some time ago, I prepared a […]

Jumping into the explosion

“A while ago our world exploded. The environment and the world of towns and cities and families and communities blew apart, along with the world of ideas and information, of entertainment and communication, of politics and diplomacy, and of course the world of businesses and organisations. It’s hard to date when the explosion started, but […]

Batched or chained?

“A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.” Tecumseh. I have an interesting dilemma to pose for you today. Let’s say you have a migration to undertake that involves your field work-force. The migration requires the re-direction of customer services from one destination to a new destination via re-patching at various points […]

Immunity from the disruption of virtualisation

“Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you ALIVE.” Sid Vicious. In many previous posts (including “A new category of OSS“), I’ve pondered how network virtualisation will disrupt the status-quo within OSS. If, in the […]

Multi-level rapport

“Many believe effective networking is done face-to-face, building a rapport with someone by looking at them in the eye, leading to a solid connection and foundational trust.” Raymond Arroyo. As a typical engineer, when I first entered OSS projects my initial focus was on understanding the technologies and delivering the best technical solution that I […]

The end of network engineers?

“Our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” M. Scott Peck. I was recently discussing the […]

Selling something you don’t own

“Creativity’s about ownership.” John Maeda. The biggest profit you can make is from repeatedly selling something that you don’t own. Some versions of this model will send you to jail. Other versions can make you rich. John Reilly has proposed the value fabric concept, where third-party organisations become interwoven into the supply chain. In the […]

Intent OSS

“When you hire somebody to cut your lawn, you don’t give them a list of all the blades of grass in your yard and the length to cut each one to (prescription), you tell them to make it look nice (intent) and they figure out the rest. Intent-based networking emphasizes the “cut my lawn” interface […]

Is OSS on the nose?

“Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.” Paul Theroux. As the domain name says, I’m passionate about OSS. However, I’m starting to wonder whether its reputation outside of OSS fanatics (and there are many!) is on the nose to such an extent that the term […]

Using anomalytics to manage virtualised networks

“My Ph.D. was based on research and development of new breakthrough technologies. As a scientist, Dr. Andersen instructed us to use our minds, training and skills to solve complex and hard scientific problems. If one solves easy problems, then hundreds of people can do the same. You will differentiate yourself by solving complex, yet big, […]

How quickly can you respond?

“You are in the business of testing your guesses, not convincing yourself that you are right.” Nathan Furr, in his book, “Nail It then Scale It” The speed of implementation of OSS projects tends to be quite lengthy (months/years on tier-one CSPs), so we’re not exactly as responsive as some other industries by example. However, […]

The mysterious missing #4

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass […]

Nobody will pay you to solve your problems

“Nobody will ever pay you to solve your problems… but they’ll line up if you can solve theirs.” Ramit Sethi. OSS were originally designed to coordinate and streamline network management processes for CSPs. OSS helped CSPs solve operational problems. They still do. Keeping Ramit Sethi’s quote in mind, if we have a customer that needs […]

Customer Experience – Customer Experience

“The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” John Russell. You must be wondering whether the heading above is a typo? It’s not. Let me explain. This is the fifth post in my Customer Experience series. The previous four have been […]

The worst job in OSS?

“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.” Larry Bossidy. In a recent post, I spoke of the challenge in getting the right balance between two scarce assets, customers and human resources. This got me […]

Customer Experience – Operational Handover

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest […]

Customer Experience – Implementations

“When you translate a dream into reality, it’s never a full implementation. It is easier to dream than to do.” Shai Agassi. After Contract Negotiations, the second post in this Customer Experience series, today’s post discusses the next step, when the project moves into the implementation phase. The customer experience during the implementation stage basically […]